It’s been a tough old time, ploughing through this winter as a job seeker. You’ve contended with a situation none of us have experienced before.
You’ve faced concepts as novel as the virtual interview to remote onboarding. You’ve sat and read news articles that have made you believe that there’s little hope of progressing your career this side of people landing on Mars.
It’s been hard. And when things have been hard, it’s sometimes dangerous to hope.
But at F1rst Commercial Recruitment (FCR), we strongly feel that, along with the spring flowers valiantly pushing their way up, we’re starting to see the green shoots of recovery in the jobs market.
With a hand on our hearts, we believe it’s time for the job seeker to recognise that there’s hope, and it’s just there, within reach.
The jobs market bounce back
Recent international news has pointed to the US labour market “roaring” back. Generally speaking, our media is a little more glass half-empty.
This can give the impression that candidates are still in the quagmire of the effects of lockdown and a country paralysed by the overwhelmed NHS. However, the data shows us that’s not where we actually are.
In the first week of March a whopping 137,000 new job adverts were posted in the UK. That makes a total of 1.33 million active jobs currently being advertised.
What’s more, whilst there had been concerns that the latest lockdown was sending us plummeting back to a situation like last spring, this hasn’t materialised.
Following an initial and understandable dip, the jobs market has stabilised.
Now consider where we are. We’ve got a vaccine rollout which is proving to be the envy of the world.
The groups that account for 88% of coronavirus deaths are on track to be vaccinated within less than a month. As a nation, we’ve administered a first vaccine dose to a staggering 24.5 million people!
We’ve got a Government unlocking plan with clear stages and dates. Rightly so, employers are feeling confident, with their intentions to hire rising to a net +25 points. This is likely to be higher still since this data was released.
And as an active and busy recruitment agency, we’re seeing those green shoots of recovery for job candidates too.
At the moment we’re seeing a huge drive for mid-level professionals with good levels of experience who can be recruited virtually and then onboarded at home.
We’re also seeing businesses which work outside really up their call for staff, such as within construction.
We’re even starting to make preparations for businesses reopening within leisure and hospitality, with anticipation of a UK summer of freedom.
Be a hopeful and optimistic job seeker
Now is the time to embrace the hope that we’re seeing and be a confident and engaged candidate. Head to our Advice Centre and brush up on your skills as a candidate (not just your skills as a worker).
Prepare yourself for online interviews and get yourself out there, because when things really start moving again, you want to be front of the line.
