It’s all systems go in the recruitment sector this year, as South African businesses look to rebuild or augment their capacity after the losses and restrictions of 2020 and 2021. Although there are a number of specific trends we expect to see emerging in 2022, they are all born out of the unprecedented conditions under which organisations found themselves operating during the past two years.
In looking ahead, it’s useful to first look back at how both clients and candidates navigated recruitment during the pandemic, and how this will influence the year ahead.
Client trends in 2020/1
- Some hiring clients lost out on talent due to cumbersome recruitment processes. Clients with slicker processes, including robust onboarding practices, won the war on talent.
- The looting in July 2021 had a detrimental impact on most industries, prompting the revision of growth strategies and budgets.
- Counteroffers remained a huge challenge across all industries, and should be expected to become a standard part of recruitment processes.
- The distinctive ‘hiring seasons’ previously observed in different industries gave way to all sectors actively recruiting at once in a bid to recover from pandemic restrictions.
- Online hiring and virtual interviews successfully facilitated urgent placements during lockdown.
- Clients adopted a more people-oriented approach to hiring, matching vacancies to people and not just to business deliverables
- Tight budgets prompted organisations to seek out ‘unicorn’ candidates with extensive, combination skill sets and/or under-offer skilled senior candidates, resulting in an increase in declined offers.
- Clients offering remote working options were more attractive to candidates. Their candidate pools also increased, as they were able to consider talent from both across the country and the rest of the world.
Candidate trends in 2020/1
- There was a clear shortage of skills in the market; some skills are becoming harder to find.
- Despite high unemployment levels, it remained a candidate-driven market, with some candidates having multiple offers to consider at once.
- Increases in counteroffers for top talent saw candidates testing the market to gauge how their employers would react. Candidates mostly chose to stay with their current employers but found themselves on the market soon thereafter.
- Many candidates opted out of processes at offer stage, preferring to stay in existing, secure positions amid the pandemic uncertainty.
- More candidates were open to international opportunities.
- There was a strong preference for remote or hybrid working conditions.
- Candidates increasingly valued the importance of health, balance and family time, which influenced their career decisions.
- Virtual agency and client interview processes transformed recruitment, as they eliminated the obstacles associated with leaving the office for interviews.
- Many candidates only wanted remote working opportunities, having become familiar with a different work-life balance.
- An increase in mental health issues among young professional candidates was observed as a result of them spending long periods during lockdown without human interaction.
- Many candidates resigned from their new places of work in the first few months of employment due to a lack of engagement in the onboarding process; being ‘forgotten’ by their new line managers; and not feeling a culture shift towards their new work.
Recruitment trends in 2022
Recruitment is expected to rebound significantly this year, as businesses across all sectors around the world move out of the survival mode they’ve occupied for the past two years and into a phase of positive growth and rebuilding.
We have already seen a marked increase in hiring during the first two weeks of 2022 compared with the same period in the past two years.
These are the specific trends we anticipate seeing in the year ahead:
- 2022 will remain a candidate-driven year. There is a fight for top talent and all recruitment players will need to be on top of their game to succeed. Partnerships with recruiters and key hiring decision-makers will be key.
- There will be greater emphasis on data-driven recruitment, with talent mappings becoming more popular in a bid to understand the entire market before making hires as well as creating a talent pipeline for future growth.
- The international recruitment of South African professionals is expected to increase, as local employees become more comfortable with working remotely. South Africans are increasingly being recognised for their work ethic, solid experience and cost-effective salaries for their given skills set.
- True recruitment partnerships will take a front seat as businesses entice candidates to join them.
- Onboarding in the hybrid model will become a focus area for businesses as they install belief systems and make new hires feel valued beyond the confines of the office space.
- Candidates will be more interested in employers with strong values.
- Increasing numbers of businesses will move back into the office, testing just how robust their hybrid models are. However pushback from employees is expected.
