Recruitment in the times of Covid

Being a recruiter ensures permanency of action is your life. Discussions, escalations, chasing numbers, candidate dropping off at the last minute, trying to source for a skill that even the hiring manager has no clue on what it entails has always been a part of the game. But without trying to find an elegant phrase for representing emotions, I can easily say that it was never this crazy as it has been in the last few months.

?The New Normal

1. ?The waxing and waning demands- With the abysmally low probability of promised joiner actually making it on the last day, customer de-risks the demand by opening it up to multiple vendors. This always happened, but now ‘Managed Services’ is largely a urban legend and most customers have moved to ‘staff augmentation’ model. So 5 Organisations work on it, only 1 fulfills it but everyone puts in that effort on the same requirement. ?Either one is smart and makes use of the effort put in and builds a pipeline on fast moving skills, or decides to let go of the effort and restart the engine just in time for the next set of demands.
2. Notice Period of 90 days and need for Quick Joiner- Each organisation has 60-90 days NP, but the ask is always for a quick joiner. This is not just ironical but honestly at times, in last 6 months, I have started becoming sympathetic towards the ask. If you offer the candidate with 90 days of NP, the chances are near 99.99% that the candidate would be swarmed with multiple offers and you would end up negotiating, renegotiating and re-renegotiating until either you give up or the candidate gives up
3. The 5 offer syndrome- Every candidate seems to have 5 offers. Chances are some 5 organisations offered him/her for the same customer that had opened these demands to all these 5 organisations. But that is where we are
4. The Stock Market Negotiation- On day 1 if a recruiter offers 40% hike, on day 10 the candidate has 30% on top of it as counter offer, as the candidates’ NP reduces, his market value increases (irrespective of competency level) and by the passing hour his negotiating power increases. It literally goes on like stock market being bullish, rather on a kill
5. Will he, won’t he – With each candidate having 5 offers in hand, the recruiter only wakes up in the morning and prays for his candidate to join. The nervous energy is just palpable
6. All Salary Grids off the air- I would be surprised if any company is able to follow the Salary grids and still able to hire. Exceptions are the new normal
7. Peer Pressure and FOMO - Think of a high performer, who wants to continue with his role and job, but sees 50% of his colleagues getting offers worth 3 times his compensation and his own organisation trying to retain that colleague with a 50% hike, while he is supposed to be happy with a 15% hike. The employee starts suffering from FOMO and is forced to start shopping for another opportunity

I always wonder what led to this bubble and what would be the implications

1. Increase in client managed roles - The reduction in Managed services leads to more disconnected employees and provides little opportunity for growth and thus stickiness
2. Hiring Over Competent Resources- If you over-hire you actually don’t challenge the employee. Only when an employee sees a negative gap w.r.t his skills and what he is performing, they feel challenged, excited and engaged. Else honestly you bore them and they look out. With stringent client rounds, this is largely what we end up doing
3. ?The Virtual Office, Assessment and Joining process- From the process of attending the interviews to joining is all digital. Neither there is much sentiment left for colleagues or organisation or canteen nor do you have to sit through these process for never ending hours in those office receptions. ?It provides proactive mindset to employees to look out for jobs
4. The Cost Optimisation Drives haunts- Not all, but few organisation chose to optimise their cost as Covid struck. Some by compulsion, and some by choice. Needless to say, it changes the overall sense of safety net and attachment
5. The Pressure on Top Line- Margins can be looked later, lets protect the topline. There is hardly any organisation that can choose to ignore this mantra. This everyone is aggressive about hiring, and at the cost that it comes

Every bubble bursts, doesn’t seem too far away that this too shall pass. But what would be the repercussions

1. Consolidation of smaller organisations- Will the organsiations with smaller base with depleting resource pool and too high cost resource available to be hired still exist in the market or consolidations will happen. Healthcare Industry evolved in last few years, maybe it is the time for IT Services organisations too
2. Salary Hikes and Movement to other Opportunities- With the extremely compensation, it is highly unlikely that the employees will see immediate hikes on their current salary. Once the market normalises, how will the organisation treat this disparity, how will these talent get deployed to other opportunities where they will have a huge negative impact on margin
3. The hiring fatigue- How long this pressure and lack of commensurate productivity be sustained
4. Minimalism and Changed Priorities- Covid has induced a forced sense of minimalism, couple with the feeling on life being unpredictable and fatigue, priorities are changing. People want to ‘live’ life , spend time with family, take a break. So when we assumed, work from home bringing in more workforce to the market, it might actually work otherwise

Consequences and future will reveal with time, until then the priority would be

1. Managing the recruiter, panel and hiring manager’s fatigue
2. Forward looking planning, upskilling resources, proactive hiring for fast moving skills
3. Being realistic about the cost of hire and the market
4. Negotiate with customers on changes rates and not fall for aggressive bidding
5. Understanding the demands better and having hard discussions on how much skill is required to deliver a job

We read the book, ‘love in the times of cholera’ someday someone will write , ‘recruitment in the times of Covid’