New Trend in Retail Recruiting: the Age of the Personal Agent

The days of qualified candidates sitting at home filling out endless online application forms: or faxing resumes is long gone......especially as retail talent numbers are getting fewer and fewer.

The trend now is for jobseekers to link up to a personal recruiter as an agent to represent them.

Recruiters of course are paid by the hiring firms: so its a no risk situation for a candidate.

Recruiter as Talent Agent:
matching clients to candidates.

Now the screening takes place on both sides of the equation:
Candidates are screening employers for best fit
just as much as Employers screen candidates.

The facts support this reversal of power.

Of the 500,000 online hits last month for Jobs in Canada
there were only 28.000 hits for Retail Jobs in Canada
of which
18,000 were Part Time Retail Jobs in Canada

For an industry that is number one or two as largest employers in Canada
thats a pretty thin pool of job seekers:
no more than 5% of all searches.

One major job board had nearly 900 retail postings on one search........
for balance: the same job board had only 36 jobs for architectural jobs.

Firms that simply post a job and wait for candidates to come through the door
are at a distinct disadvantage in their access to talent.

Dont assume candidates are aggressively searching firm after firm for openings.
Dont assume they will find your opening!
Dont assume they have a clue you are hiring!
Dont assume they would ever consider working for you without an agent selling the benefits of your firm!
Dont assume your own corporate recruiter will know who is on the market!

Jobseekers are fed up with the impersonal online applications that never receive much more than canned replies.

Jobseekers know that corporate recruiters are only going to sell the benefits of their particular firm:
they arent working for the candidate and presenting a broad range of opportunties.

Recruiters are often sitting on data bases in the hundreds or thousands of confidential resumes as a result.

Retail recruiting: personal relationship management for candidates: is going to be the driving force in hiring within the next 5 years.

Roles will change so that recruiters will do less seeking out hirers for role to fill:
Hirers will be seeking out recruiters to access their candidate pool instead!

The recruiters with the best talent pool and candidate management experience will lead the industry.