This Week, In Recruiting - Issue 40

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Open Kitchen: What Happened in Recruiting in 2021, Pt3

So for this mini series I've been thinking about what has happened in the world of recruiting this year. Today is Part 3, and you can check out earlier thoughts in Part 1 and Part 2 in the two previous issues of TWIR. We're going to conclude the series with Part 4, on the final TWIR of the year, next week.

Here goes...

11. Remote Disconnect Between Managers vs Managed

Image: Future Forum Pulse Survey 2021

In 2021 we found out that managing remote workers is very different from managing teams on premise - there is no ad hoc over-the-desk coaching, no unscheduled troubleshooting with team members - and the managers do not like it. Attempts to replicate the office experience just led to an epidemic of energy draining virtual meetings and management 'check-in's', so calls to a return to the office has been championed most by managers who basically want their old jobs back. Conflict with employees resisting this move has been one of the stories of 2021, the latter party's argument aided by the persistence of the Covid-19 and the successive waves of variants forcing government guidance to continue WFH.

The longer this conflict remains unresolved, the greater scrutiny will be on the very purpose of management. The most effective remote workers will inevitably be the self directed, the self activating - in other words, workers who need management the least. It won't be long before C-level start questioning the value of management in its entirety, if remote worker productivity continues to demonstrate the possibility of mainly doing without it. Perhaps then, the ultimate motivation for a return to the office is job security - for the managers?

12. Office Will Be For Young People (+ those Managers)

Image: iCIMS Class of 2021 Report

https://www.dropbox.com/s/2q3hepreozaurte/iCIMS-Class-of-2021-Report.pdf?dl=0&utm_campaign=Recruiting%20Brainfood&utm_medium=email&utm_source=Revue%20newsletter

The office won't go away though, as there is another demographic that wants to return - early entry talent. One of the most interesting revelations of 2021 was that early career talent would prefer working on location against working remotely. The need to build network, social capital and the job knowledge that can only come through 'osmotic information transfer' - exactly the sort of over-the-desk coaching our managers miss so much - is a much greater priority than the prospective efficiency gains by working remote. We had guilty of assuming our own case (most of us reading here will be 'experienced individual contributors') to be exemplar of every case.

Interestingly, the tacit consensus of the businesses who were remote only pre-Covid was that they did not hire early entry talent at all, but focused on experienced hires who had already configured their home lives for remote working. They knew already that remote only is not a universally welcome mode of working.

So the solution of an age stratified workforce is beginning to emerge; managers + early entry talent in the office; experienced individual contributors migrating to remote as life choices develop. Seems inevitable to me, though no one has yet articulated it, so I might as well do it here and now.

13. Employees Take Over Employer Branding

Image: VideoMyJob State of Video In Talent Acquisition 2021

2021 is the year when we had to let go of corporate control over employer branding. How on earth could you even EB it when everyone was working from home? Employee generated content - EGC - surged to the top of category of video content used by employers, mainly because it was practical to endorse what couldn't really be controlled. It also worked - candidates / applicants overwhelmingly preferred non-professional video shot by employees on-the-job over slick content produced by professional actors in studio. Authenticity is the key demand for people tired of information they could not trust.

Not doing video for EB in 2022? Pretty certain this will untenable for any organisation with an EB strategy.

14. It's A Perfect Storm for RPO

Shift to remote has changed the game for agency recruiters looking to get into RPO. In the before times, being physically on client site was a characteristic service of an RPO recruiter. They were 'embedded' recruiters after all. Yet with the public health risk of Covid-19 making this idea impractical - and even unpalatable - customers quickly accepting RPO-like services delivered from remotely located recruiters.

The differences in customer experience of traditional agency supply vs RPO service delivery became restricted mainly to back office arrangements - how the recruiter was being paid, less on what those recruiters did, or how they did it.

It's been a boom year for the high growth tech scale up recruiters - Join Talent, Talentful, Scede, Elements, KANDIDATE and others. 2022 should see more of the same, but with exponentially more entrants into the field, as agencies add subscription models onto contingency and retained.

End result for the customer? Much greater choice in 2022, along with increased risk of dilution of service quality. Costs too, should come down.

15. The Global Decentralisation of Recruiter Jobs

Image: Brainfood Cities

How long will employers tolerate not being able to hire recruiters?

We recruiters have been in the sweet spot for most of 2021, but I suspect we won't see another year like it. Employers who have failed to hire recruiters this year will think about other solutions in 2022, most obvious of which is pushing the jobs out to where the talent supply might actually be.

Recruiter jobs have already started moving to places where there are great recruiters who can't or don't want to relocate. South Africa, Ukraine, Armenia. Plenty of skilled recruiters in those countries and once the global demand begins outstripping in even their local supply, they will start making more. Recruiting may be a hard job, it is also an accessible one and people with motivation and aptitude can quickly become productive with enough training and support. As I've mentioned previously, the time to quit your recruiting job is pretty much now.

More next week, in the last TWIR of the Year, Pt4 16-20

Out of the kitchen, onto the lounge.

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What's in the News?

SonicJobs raises ￡4.2 million

This is mobile first like you really mean it - Gen Z are set to become the largest demographic in the workforce and they are the first generation to use mobile tech before laptop / desktop. Any builder that can meet their UX expectations has a chance to upend the 'online' recruitment advertising market. Congrats in particular to co-founder and brainfood advocate, Mikhil Raja on the raise - look forward to seeing what you get up to with the investment!

Google will fire the unvaccinated

US President Joe Biden mandate that all employers with over 100 employees need to vaccinate their staff forces employers into a tough employee experience and employer branding challenge. Google have met it with their own internal announcement - it's vaccinate or be fired. It may be a free market, but a reminder that it is always government that create the market rules.

Dutch based Lepaya raise 40 million to build out their workforce upskilling solution

With candidate shortages likely to be a persistent condition of the market, the need for employers to consistently and constantly upskill existing employees has never been more urgent. Expect rapid market expansion for Lepaya in 2022. Contributing investors include community favourites Noor van Boven and Anna Brandt

If you are a recruitment service provider or technology business and have any news to share,?comment below,?this is your application to get into next week's addition of This Week, In Recruiting. Make sure to @ mention me so that I see it

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What's On Offer?

Nobody have any Christmas spirit? Come on folks, this space is used for vendors as free advertising, so long as you have a great offer to make to the community. Either this, or you can spend cash directly and sponsor the newsletter - your choice!

If you are a recruitment service provider or recruitment technology vendor have any?exclusive?offer for the community,?comment below?with your offer in order to be included in next week's edition of This Week, In Recruiting. Make sure to @ mention me so that I see it.

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What's Going On?

Brainfood Live On Air - Ep138 - Recruitment Forecast 2022 - Friday 7th January, 10am ET / 2pm GMT

We are on a two week break folks, and back next year January 7th, kicking off the year with a recruitment forecast special. What do we think will be happening in the world of recruitment in 2022? We're with Madeline Laurano, Founder (Aptitude Research) and George Laroque, Founder (WorkTech) who will guide us through the landscape. Kind of a must attend folks - register here

Sonic Branding for Recruitment Marketing & Branding - Feb 16 2.30pm GMT

If you're crying out for something new and interesting in the world of recruitment, this event from Martyn Redstone looks like it could be it. In a world increasingly dominated by voice assistants, are we thinking about how the sonic landscape could be applied to hiring? I'm intrigued for sure - register here

TruLondon - 'Zoom Free' - Feb 26 - all day, Electrowerks, 7 Torrens St, London EC1V 1NQ

TruLondon is back and if you were there last time, I am pretty sure that you will sign up for this again in February. Still the most unique event in our industry, full of unconventional and challenging learning. The man with the hat - Bill Boorman - is back as conference disorganiser in chief. Tickets free BUT LIMITED to 150 due to event space. Register here

If you have an event, webinar or podcast going on next week and want it featured on next week's newsletter,?comment below?with the link and event details. Don't forget to @ mention me so that I see it

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Who's Hiring?

Recruiting Lead EMEA, GoDaddy, Remote EU

Senior Tech Recruiter, mojo, Paris, France

Talent Acquisition Manager - Technology, Luno, London, UK

Talent Acquisition Partner, LendInvest, London, UK

Employer Branding Advisor, Frontiers, London, UK

Talent Acquisition Lead - Tech, Frontiers, London, UK

Talent Acquisition Specialist - Business Support, Frontiers, London, UK

Talent Acquisition Specialist - Publishing, Frontiers, London, UK

Talent Partner Team Lead, We Are Move, London, UK

Talent Partner, We Are Move, London, UK

Talent Acquisition Specialist - German Speaking, Tipico, St Julian / Valetta, Malta

Candidate Experience Coordinator, OLX Group, Lisbon, Portugal

Candidate Experience Coordinator, OLX Group, Warsaw or Poznan, Poland

Senior Tech Recruiter, OLX Group, Barcelona, Spain

Senior Tech Recruiter, OLX Group, Lisbon, Portugal

Senior Tech Recruiter, OLX Group, Warsaw or Poznan, Poland

Senior Tech Recruiter, OLX Group, Remote Romania

Senior Tech Recruiter, OLX Group, Berlin, Germany

Talent Acquisition Lead, Zinc, London, UK

Senior Recruiter, SellerX, London, UK

Talent Acquisition Lead, Orbital Witness, London, UK

Senior Talent Acquisition Manager (f/m/x), FuturePath, Berlin, Germany

Talent Sourcing Lead (m/f/d), Global Savings Group, Munich, Germany

If you want to get your job featured, post jobs on the Brainfood Jobs Job Board?here

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Whose Story?

Dov Zavadskis, Founder, The Power of Indie Ltd / Career Coach

I first met Dov years ago when Mark Lundgren and I attended one of Katharine Robinson's early sourcing meet-ups. He has always struck me as uniquely talented, compassionate and courageous. I asked him to do 20 questions - here are his answers - have a read

Everyone has a story to tell. If you want to join the luminaries of the Brainfood Tribune, comment below and say so - it is open to all people, all voices, from within the industry

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Who's Moving?

Denys Dinkevych joins Spendesk as Global Talent Sourcer, after 3 years as Talent Sourcing Lead at IDeals. Special one for me for two reasons - firstly, Denys is a good friend and an amazing contributor to the community, and secondly, Spendesk first reached out to Denys after having seen him being featured in Whose Story segment of this newsletter! Good example of how increasing visibility will lead to opportunity.

Farooq Mohammed joins Join Talent as Managing Director, International Business. Older heads will be aware that Farooq was MD of Digital Gurus, a recruitment business which made significant waves in an earlier era of the web. Big hire for Join Talent, who are assembling a very decent squad...

Lane Sutton joins Comcast Advertising as Senior Manager, Employer Brand Marketing, after spending nearly 3 years building candidate experience for United State's largest employer, Walmart. Excited to see the journey continue - we need to catch up Lane!

Dinah Whitchurch joins Walmart, as Senior Manager - Talent Acquisition, focusing on Engineering hiring after spending time with IBM and Thoughtworks

Scott Southwell joins Tarmac as Resourcing Manager - Commercial Ops, after concluding contract with AXA UK, having previously operated in recruiting leadership roles with Natwest, NFU Mutual and Citibase

And finally, congratulations due to the following folks who enter 2022 promoted in new roles - Susana Valcárcel, moving up to Manager, People Operations at The Cocktail, Roselyn Cason-Marcus, promoted to Global Director - Black Senior Talent Attraction & Retention at McKinsey&Co and a pair of promotions at Discord - Gaby Bondar-Netis, stepping up into Recruitment Lead and Rachel Kung moving up to Manager, Technical Sourcing

If you or your organisation has made a significant hire, let me know via comment below in order to featured in next week's edition

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What Are You Doing?

Lars Schmidt is looking for new guests for his outstanding 1-2-1 podcast series, Redefining HR. If you are this person or know of the professional who you would like to learn from, comment below and let me know and I'll passs on your details to Lars.

If you are doing something new,?comment below?with what it is and share a link to where you want people to go. Don't forget to @ mention me in it so that I see it

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End Notes

This is the final TWIR before the Christmas Holidays so let me take this opportunity to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas. I hope you get a chance to meet with your family and friends over this period, and I do spare a thought to those for whom these occasions are difficult. Try and have a good break anyway.

Thanks for your support - til next week!

Hung

Hung Lee is the curator of?Recruiting Brainfood, and now This Week In Recruiting. Subscribe to both if you are into recruiting or HR or just interested in world of work.