Yes, the recovery has been slower than many people anticipated… but what does that mean for the recruiting industry in terms of job orders? Sure, the floodgates haven’t opened up, by any stretch of the imagination, but what are recruiters seeing out there? Are they seeing more job orders?
Well, according to a recent poll we conducted of the Preferred Membership of Top Echelon’s recruiting network, the answer to that question appears to be “Yes!” Not only that, but some of the results of that poll were very encouraging and are cause for optimism regarding the future.
The question that we posed to the Membership is below:
Are you seeing more job orders now than you did six months ago?
The choice of answers that we provided is listed below, along with the percentage of recruiters who selected each one:
- Yes, I’m seeing substantially more—43.2%
- Yes, I’m seeing slightly more—34.6%
- No, I’m seeing the same number—8.6%
- No, I’m seeing slightly less—7.4%
- No, I’m seeing substantially less—1.2%
- I work with candidates only—4.9%
As you can see, the good news jumps out immediately. Nearly 78% of all respondents are seeing either “substantially more” or “slightly more” job orders than they were six months ago, with the former gaining the edge over the latter. In addition, a small percentage of recruiters (8.6%) are seeing about the same number of job orders, and exactly that same percentage are seeing either “slightly less” or “substantially less” job orders.
And since Top Echelon Network is a split fee recruiting network, there are some recruiters who only work one side of the recruiting process. In this case, that side would be the candidate side. In other words, they’re “exporters,” recruiters who only work with candidates for the purpose of making split placements with other recruiters.
But forget about all of that for a moment. What are YOU seeing out there right now? More job orders? Fewer job orders? The same amount? And how optimistic are you about the rest of this year? Do you think you’ll see more job orders by the time the end of 2011 rolls around?