Our Director of North America gives his take on the US Recruitment industry
US Recruitment is a dynamic, fast-paced industry. A highly disruptive and exciting space such as this can be a challenge to understand. That’s why we asked our Director of Hamlyn Williams North America to provide us with some insight.
Harry Sliufko is our North America Director and has been with the business since its inception. Harry previously excelled within the Life Sciences space, recruiting high profile candidates and working alongside industry-leading clients within the Bio-tech, Pharmaceutical, and Medical Devices sectors. Since then, Harry now heads the largest office in the Hamlyn Williams portfolio – New York City.
Who better to go to for the low down on the US Recruitment industry than someone who was ambitious enough to move out there and grow the business in one of the most competitive regions on the globe?
Here’s Harry’s take on the US Recruitment industry:
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What are the biggest trends currently affecting the industry?
“I would say the Recruitment industry here is extremely candidate-driven. There are more vacancies than ever before and therefore more choice for candidates. Some say that this is even a candidate-led market where they get multiple offers coming in.
I believe that candidates are having more of an influence on what the client offers (i.e. work-life balance, flexible working, office space, benefits, even stock options). For our clients, the candidate is king, but candidates are not blessed with ‘multiple offers’, we source highly-skilled candidates for our client’s roles which in the current climate are very difficult to find.
The relationships we build up and nurture with our clients and candidates is what enables us to provide the most suitable talent as we can quickly find the right skill set required.”
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What do these trends mean for the job market?
“This means that with the current high volume of candidates, there are lots of great candidates out there but with skills that fall short of the high expectations of our clients.
Our job is to source the best talent and then subsequently guide both sets of customers through the recruitment process. These high-skilled candidates are extremely hard to find as they possess knowledge and experience we can only describe as micro-niche.”
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How does this affect companies within the industry? Does it impact hiring?
“It’s important that we work with clients who are able to boast a fluid recruitment process themselves. Bureaucracy can mean a lethargic and delayed recruitment process which can turn the candidate off. Therefore, brand size and reputation isn’t all that candidates look for these days, it’s also how valued they feel, this starts with the attention paid to them by us and the client throughout the process.
Clients are also consulting with us more when it comes to really taking the time to discuss how they attract the right talent. Of course, we play a major role in that and pride ourselves on the relationships we build with candidates. Clients are now looking to continuously review and improve their benefits package as this has become just as important to candidates as salary and brand reputation.”
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Is there a wider global trend?
“This differs from market-to-market, it really depends on the economy of a country, to be honest. Take Germany, for example: they are currently experiencing high levels of growth which mean more jobs and that means a great need for highly-skilled candidates to fill these roles.
When you talk of a candidate-driven or even a candidate-led market, you can include the US and I suppose, some of Europe in that conversation. It will certainly be interesting to see how this trend plays out in the near future.”
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What new innovations are you seeing?
“There’s a whole lot of technological advancements that are seriously disrupting the industry, I would say in a positive way! It’s all about what competitive advantage is to be gained when it comes to using this technology or not.
One example that I’ve witnessed is clients moving towards video applications. This allows them to actually see a candidate before interviewing themselves. The challenge with this is to ensure personalisation and make certain that candidates don’t feel undervalued by speaking into a camera rather than face-to-face. This would simply be a way to get a feel for a candidate prior to meeting them face-to-face.
So far, we haven’t really felt the need to do this just yet. Our recruiters are trained extensively on their market when they join, and they’ll get to know their candidates really well over time. We feel this level of engagement is even more personal.”
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How would you describe overall industry performance?
“For me, it’s about how we can keep adding value to our clients. Too many recruiters simply post jobs straight on LinkedIn when firing out job ads on its own simply isn’t useful enough anymore. The job market is strong right now, so it’s important to educate recruiters or they just sit on LinkedIn all day, not really adding any value.
“For me, it’s about how we can keep adding value to our clients. Too many recruiters simply post jobs straight on LinkedIn when firing out job ads on its own simply isn’t useful enough anymore. The job market is strong right now, so it’s important to educate recruiters or they just sit on LinkedIn all day, not really adding any value.
Here at Hamlyn Williams, each recruitment consultant specialises in hiring within what we call micro-niche areas, so we are able to capitalise on the strong job market within the high-growth US Recruitment space. We work on building up relationships with both customer bases so we provide our clients with unrivalled market knowledge, giving them access to candidates that they normally wouldn’t see.”
If Harry’s insight has inspired you in any way and you are a business looking to hire, you can register a vacancy. If you’re looking for work in any one of the areas we operate within, please upload your CV.
Alternatively, you can email info@hamlynwilliams.com for more information or feel free to call 0203 675 2920.
