2020 in review

It’s been a long time coming, but we are finally in 2021! We came charging into the new year with the “New Year, New Me” mentality (please tell us it wasn’t just us that were this hopeful) and very quickly, this was shut down. But, as we’re writing this from what feels like lockdown number 6,258, whilst juggling home schooling and working from home, we thought we’d look back on the year of 2020.
What did it mean for Synergy? What did it mean for the recruitment industry as a whole?
The initial impact
Think back to March last year, lockdown was looming and a 12 pack of toilet rolls was nothing but a myth. We don’t think anyone could’ve predicted the impact that COVID-19 was going to have on the world.
We came into work on the Tuesday morning after Bojo’s lockdown announcement and it was like dominos, the phone kept ringing and one after another all the jobs we were working on were cancelled. Placements which were due to start were being put on hold. All of a sudden, we had zero work!
We’d never experienced anything like this before. We’d only been in business for 1.5 years at that point, so, closing the office door and not knowing when we were going to open it again was the scariest thing.
When the dust settled
Fast forward a few months. We’d all baked enough banana bread to keep the flour industry going for another 6 years. Our gardens had never looked so immaculate. And the kids had managed to build the most epic fort out of the boxes from all the Amazon orders that we may or may not have placed.
Regulations were starting to relax and the recruitment industry was a completely different landscape. The country was sadly experiencing mass redundancies with very few jobs available. So, when we did start recruiting again, it had gone from a candidate driven market, to a vacancy led market.
What did this mean for recruitment agencies?
Our fear wasn’t necessarily that businesses weren’t going to be hiring anyone after the first lockdown. We were more worried that businesses wouldn’t see the need to use an agency because there were so many candidates out there.
Luckily, this wasn’t the case. Businesses were hiring! There were roles out there and hundreds of candidates were applying for each role. Since there were so many more applications, it actually made the recruitment process more difficult! This meant that businesses were turning to agencies to help them. It became even more important at this stage to find the candidates who were genuinely interested in the role as opposed to just wanting any job.
The year of adaptation
Clients, candidates and recruitment agencies all had to change up how they work to ensure they are getting the best person or role for them. Whether that be, speeding up the decision-making process to make sure they got a candidate before they were snapped up by someone else. Maybe it was finding their way through the minefield that is online virtual interviews. 2020 was definitely the year of adaptation.
So, what do you think 2021 will bring? What can clients do to attract the right candidates for a role? What can candidates do to give themselves the best opportunity of getting their dream role?
Look out for our upcoming content where we look forward to answering some of these questions.
To find out more, get in touch: info@synergyrecruit.co.uk