Relocation is most definitely an obstacle for many candidates these days—and by extension, for many recruiters, as well. The state of the economy is largely to blame for this, since people are finding it difficult to sell their house in order to move for a new opportunity, and in some instances, they’re unwilling to sell it because they’ll suffer a financial loss if they do.
A candidate’s ability (or willingness) to sell their house is just one aspect of relocation, and the fact of the matter is that companies aren’t paying as much for relocation as they have in the past. Once upon a time, companies would even go so far as to buy a candidate’s house to ensure they would accept their offer of employment. That time has long since passed. Now the best that some candidates can hope for is the company paying for half of the relocation expenses or rolling those expenses into a signing bonus.
Of course, when we at Top Echelon want to know what’s happening with recruiters . . . we ask recruiters what’s happening (usually in the form of a poll or survey question). Well, we did that once again recently, and our poll dealt with relocation expenses, specifically how much clients have been willing to pay for the relocation of candidates.
We conducted a poll of recruiters from all across the country, and in that poll, we posed the following question:
In the past 12 months, in how many instances were clients willing to pay for ALL relocation expenses?
Results:
The choice of answers that we provided is listed below, along with the percentage of recruiters who selected each one:
- None — 42.3%
- One — 7.7%
- Two — 12.8%
- Three — 6.4%
- Four — 2.6%
- More than four — 28.2%
Summary:
In many ways, the results of this poll aren’t that surprising. Exactly half of all respondents indicated that none of their placements during the past 12 months included a client that was willing to pay for ALL relocation expenses. And there weren’t many recruiters who selected two, three, or four placements that included such a scenario, either.
However, that brings us to the results that are more surprising. That would be the 27.8% of recruiters who indicated that four or more of their placements during the past 12 months included a client willing to pay full relocation expenses. What does this indicate? That these recruiters were placing candidates in extremely high-level positions? That they were placing candidates their clients desperately needed—no matter the cost?
Analysis and Conclusion:
In the final analysis, the answer is probably both . . . and maybe for other reasons, as well. Perhaps YOUR experience will help to shed some light on the situation. How many of your placements during the past 12 months have included a client that was willing to pay for ALL of the relocation expenses? Why do you think this was the case? Did you bring enough gum for everybody? (Okay, maybe not that last question.)