Recruitment, why is it so hard right now?

You don’t need me to tell you how much Covid-19 has changed the world, and whilst estate agency has been one of the industries less affected negatively by the pandemic in terms of revenue, it has affected recruitment.

Recruitment processes have been forced to adapt. The hiring process has included remote interviewing over zoom, which would never have been considered before, and has now become a staple first-stage interview.

A lack of experienced talent available has meant that companies have chosen to hire based on attitude rather than experience and new talent has been encouraged and welcomed into the sector from industries such as travel and hospitality.

Agents have had to embrace technology with video walk-throughs for potential buyers meaning that either existing staff have been upskilled to undertake them and become presenters overnight or they have recruited videographers and internal marketing hires have been in big demand.

Companies have been forced to look at their cultures and ‘feel’ in the office.

Research by Glassdoor recently revealed 77% of adults would consider a company’s culture before applying for a job there. This would include training opportunities, social responsibilities, work from home flexibility, diversity and remuneration, plus many more all of which we have advised clients on over the last 12 months.

In 2020 at the EAMasters I spoke about how I envisaged recruitment in the ‘new normal’ and what I expected to change following covid. One of the big shifts was the long-term desire to work from home which swung like a pendulum from everyone wanting to work remotely, to the world becoming a bit more ‘normal’ and our recruitment team instead of taking calls from people specifically asking for roles which were 100% office-based.

Now people prefer a hybrid of the two with the flexibility to work remotely a few days a week/month. The result is that trying to hire for a 6-day working week with no lieu day has become almost impossible.

People have left the industry in swathes. One of the big things from Covid was time to reflect and unfortunately, many people decided that estate agency wasn’t a career they wanted to pursue any further. Traditionally long working hours and weekend work doesn’t appeal to many and as such lots of people have retrained during lockdowns and moved to different industries or have decided to move into the property supplier space.

The success of the self-employed model has been hard to ignore, and the marketplace is now a very noisy place in terms of different packages and options for those looking to step away from traditional agency.

Those that have stayed have experienced a revolving door (in some companies) of furlough, hire, fire, rehire and that has resulted in many cases of distrust and fear. The lack of confidence in potential new employers retaining staff should another lockdown occur, has meant people are reluctant to explore moving jobs and the available talent has been scarce. Things are beginning to improve, but the effects of a global pandemic will continue to shape the way we recruit for some time yet.