Actionable insight tends to be the first piece.

Analytics are also helping recruiters with their employer brand and EVP offerings, as Neil Purcell explained. “Actionable insight tends to be the first piece in the jigsaw of any EVP project, whether it’s validation on process, role segmentation or translating employer brand for new markets. This helps to determine recruitment marketing tactics and the best media pla�orms to use – but you need a talent intelligence pla�orm that pulls from multiple sources.”

TALiNT Partners recently announced its partnership with talent intelligence pla�orm Stratigens to offer this capability to its recruiter network to help them determine whether projects are worth taking on or price solutions like train and deploy more confidently.

“More of our customers, particularly the larger end of the scale, are talking to us about how they can leverage train and deploy, which we’re pursuing actively within Lorien and across the Impellam Group,” said Annelise Smith. “This is a huge opportunity, where we can accurately price and help clients build the business case with analytics.”

Global Growth

Recruiters of all sizes are looking at funding solutions to capitalise on new opportunities, not just in terms of service but in new territories like the US.

“We fund around 3,000 agencies lending about 150million a month, and our fastest growing agencies in the mid-market or enterprise have opened an international office, principally in the US,” said Sonovate’s Mark Thompson. “We all know the US market is massive. The margins don’t really seem to have compressed as much as the UK, and if you can find the right niche then the potential for accelerated growth is huge. We’re seeing agencies in the US growing around 70% faster than businesses that aren’t.”

Why are more recruiters looking to expand into the US? “The US generates four times the revenue that the UK does, with higher recruitment margins, but it’s also one of the most complex markets in the world to operate in,” said Amy Davis, MD of PGC Group. “It has a multi-dimensional tax and legislative system and you need to have the mindset that you’re entering 50 countries. The most successful agencies have gone in with a niche strategy and built up from there.

The impact of the pandemic on the US is that clients hire differently and talent is moving around more. Some states have introduced tax incentives so big companies are migrating from California and New York to Texas, Florida or Georgia. Talent has followed for higher salaries and lower income tax, so employers need to offer flexible and remote options. Pre pandemic, one in ten workers in the US were contractors. Now it’s one in five. So, there is major opportunity in the contract space in the US.

NES Fircro� has seen huge success with its global strategy and won the TIARA International Growth Award for the third time in a row last year. How has its strategy evolved, and where does it see the best prospects for growth?

“Back in 2009, NES was predominantly an oil and gas recruiter, but we have evolved, in line with our clients, as they look to reduce the environmental impact of traditional energy assets, as well as develop renewable energy sources,” explains Keith Jones, Sales Director EMEA at NES Fircro�. “About 90% of our business historically was contract, but we have moved to a more balanced business including a sizable permanent and managed solutions offering over the last decade.”

As legislation evolves, new markets are opening up. 6CATSPro covers 75 countries across the world helping clients including NES Fircro� to expand compliantly. “The countries that are the most difficult to get into are o�en the best for growth,” said MD Jon Clarke. “In terms of legislation, every country has its own version of IR35 or employment regulation with varying degrees of severity, for example, it’s a criminal offence to misclassify a worker in Germany. So it’s not just about finding the right workers and skills but helping to protect clients and contractors, especially in DACH and Benelux, which offer growth opportunities.”

We’re definitely seeing more flexibility on where and how people work, and contractors delivering services remotely in places like Belgium, for example, where it would have been unheard of three or four years ago. Now those same clients want hybrid for talent in different countries, which means having to think about right to work and dual tax treaties. Compliance is an important value add that recruiters can offer to manage these complexities.

Partnership is an important element in minimising risk and maximising reward, whether it’s funding, technology, compliance services, or talent intelligence.

PART TWO: THE FUTURE OF RECRUITMENT

A�er roundtable discussions to drill into themes from the first two panels, we kicked off the second half of the summit with an exploration of the new drivers of transformation in recruitment.

“If you look at the 20 biggest companies in the world at the beginning of the century, only one of them is still in the top 20; whereas in the recruitment industry, it’s 19 – so is it lacking in disruption or just really good at adapting to transformation?”, asked TALiNT Partners CEO Ken Brotherston. “Despite the ‘threats’ of job boards and LinkedIn, the industry has done very well to stay agile, but how will it adapt to AI and new client demands over the next decade?”

Mike McNally, Director Enterprise Solutions at Hays, predicted that recruiters will need to offer a much wider range of services – with RPOs already moving into BPO in response to demand.

“More providers are able to offer DEI, EVP, employer brand and train and deploy (T&D) services, with talent insight helping to determine cost and benefit, and this is helping to change clients’ perception of recruitment as a more strategic service,” he observed, “but it all requires substantial investment, so you have to be confident in demand and be able to differentiate beyond price.”

ManpowerGroup has a wide range of offerings, but how does it manage the organisational complexity to join up teams and solutions? “We do it phenomenally well of course,” said Steph O’Connor, who heads up ManpowerGroup’s Centre of Recruitment Excellence (CORE). “As a global organisation, having a standardised pla�orm is very important to get the right data and insight. The World Economic Forum reported last November that there will be 150 million new jobs in digital by 2025, and over 50% of the existing workforce will need to re-skill to fulfil demand. Our pla�orm gives us the insight we need to develop solutions for these problems - not just in the UK, but globally.”

But are clients prepared to pay for BPO or a wider range of advisory services? “We’ve seen a 200% increase in demand for our train to fit programmes,” adds Steph, “but it’s less about try before you buy and more a partnership with clients, candidates and other specialist training partners to be able to fulfil it.”

Rising demand for tech talent has driven more T&D solutions. NashTech, part of Nash Squared, provides outsourced tech development services, and its CEO Nick Lonsdale was asked how demand will evolve over the next few years. “What employers need now, and will continue to expect, is access to tech talent, certainty of outcomes and stable teams,” he explained. “They want a partner who understands their business and who can deliver success across different tech talent models. Long-term relationships with stable happy teams and candidates gives more certainty, and today no amount of money can buy time spent on re-building teams that have disintegrated.”

NashTech has made some strategic acquisitions to access tech talent to support its clients around the world. “Added to our 300 developers in India, we have 2,000 developers in Vietnam across three centres,” Nick added. “NashTech is the largest foreign-owned technology employer in that market; we’re not perceived as a corporate, but we offer a great culture and real career development opportunities, leading to a lot of tech talent choosing us over sweating years in an uncertain start-up.”

Role Of Talent Tech

What new drivers of transformati on are emerging, parti cularly with AI and automati on enabling new ways of working for recruiters and their clients?

“Our recruitment clients are asking us to help them sell a wider range of services to employers, but also deliver the experience their candidates want as well,” said Shaun Weise, VP Enterprise Internati onal at Bullhorn. “It’s addressing the basics to speed things up and keep people engaged. Like candidates being updated on applicati ons; being told why they didn’t get the job and highlighti ng other opportuniti es; prepopulati ng informati on to speed up compliance checks, assessment and onboarding. Automate the admin, enhance the human element and enable recruiters to differenti ate their service and approach.”

“We will all have to be able to offer something unique to compete for clients and candidates,” predicted Mike McNally from Hays. “Whether it’s breadth of services or the ecosystem of partners that help you deliver them, we still need to demonstrate why we are the best at finding and placing the best talent.”

“Talent intelligence and partnerships that give us access to different locations, geographies and skill sets will become even more important because we can’t be specialists in all things on our own,” added Steph from Manpower. “Partnerships will help us add value by derisking for clients, with Statement of Work, or supporting with compliance services.”

So how are employer expectations changing and what does this mean for the future of recruitment?

Kathryn Herrington, CPO of SUSE, the global so�ware solutions provider, has worked with inhouse teams and RPOs in her career running global teams in tech and financial services.

“What I’m looking for is horizon scanning, not necessarily ten years ahead because the pace of change for all of us is just so rapid,” she explained. “What is the market doing in 6, 12, or 18 months? What does our business need to do to get ahead of those talent challenges? I want my internal and external recruiters to be thinking strategically with me about how we are resourcing in an added value way, for cultural fit.”

DATA-LED BUSINESS CASES

But what are employers prepared to pay for higher value services and how are recruiters helping CPOs and CHROs to build the business case?

“The shi� is linking it back to business outcomes and helping to demonstrate the ROI,” said Simon Wright, Global Head of Talent Advisory Consulting at Peoplescout. “Employer brand, EVP and DEI have moved from talent acquisition to the CHRO and the boardroom because the CEO needs to know how to get everyone in the organisation facing the same direction. It’s taking the conversation from tactical and demand led to strategic – and that requires talent intelligence. The CMO uses data and insight to present a business case, and recruiters can help CPOs to do that as well.

“We’ve got to be able to convert talent solutions language into the revenue conversation, like how IT supports transformation, so it’s not about how many candidates we generate but how it’s driving productivity and performance within the business.”

What part will recruitment tech play in the evolution of recruitment? “Candidates do want an element of self-service, and recruiters need to provide the option, but as we learned from the banking sector and mobile apps it’s the customer service that differentiates,” said James Lawton, Enterprise Accounts at Mployee, which automates and integrates front, middle and back office for recruiters. “Ultimately, data quality and how it’s managed and optimised will be the new ba�leground to help candidates find the right recruiters - and the right roles find the right candidates.”

So what will tomorrow’s talent landscape look like and how can recruiters prepare for it?

“Employers have got to be more flexible about work pa�erns and work locations to a�ract and retain the right talent,” added Mployee’s James Lawton. “There are a lot of people over 50 who have stepped out of the market in this country who are brilliant but don’t want to work five days a week – and younger workers who want flexibility as well. Accurate data is key to finding and re-deploying the best candidates and contractors.”

The final piece of foresight came from our keynote speaker – renowned global futurist Rohit Talwar, CEO of Fast Future. Will AI pose an existential threat to recruiters?

“ChatGPT is only smart in the right hands,” he explained. “Recruiters need leaders who are able to use foresight and build teams with the right mindset. What we really need is people who have the capacity to think very flexibly. There’s a real opportunity to think differently about the talent we need and how we deploy it, whether it’s skills marketplaces, plural careers or pay as you go models. Just ask yourself, if you were designing a recruitment business for today’s market and what employers and candidates want, how would your model stack up?”

The future of recruitment is a more flexible, dispersed workforce and be�er use of talent intelligence to future-proof strategic decisions and build stronger business cases for new solutions. To successfully navigate rapid change and manage transformation, leaders need to know how to use insight and foresight to make be�er tactical and strategic decisions.