If there’s one group of people who have their collective fingers on the hiring pulse of the country, that group of people would be executive recruiters.
Working directly with companies in all industries, recruiters know exactly what attitudes those companies have regarding hiring, including the urgency with which they’re hiring.
Of course, that’s why when we want to know which direction hiring trends are likely to head in the near future, we ask recruiters. Namely, we ask Preferred Member recruiters in Top Echelon Network via a poll.
With summer upon us, determining companies’ overall attitudes about hiring seemed a logical choice when it came to conducting a poll of this type.
Consequently, below is the question that we posed in this latest poll:
How do you think your clients will approach hiring over the summer?
The choice of answers that we provided is listed below, along with the percentage of recruiters who selected each one:
- The same way they’ve approached it so far this year—60.3%
- They’ll hire with more urgency—6.9%
- They’ll hire with less urgency—32.8%
As you can see, the majority of respondents (60.3%) stated that their clients’ attitudes regarding hiring will remain the same as it’s been since the first of this year.
However, perhaps a bit more disconcerting was the percentage of recruiters who believe that their clients will hire with less urgency than they have since January. That percentage was 32.8%.
Part of this anticipated slowdown may be attributed to the fact that hiring is traditionally a bit slower over the summer . . . but maybe not. Companies have by no means turned the hiring spigot on all the way in 2012; a “wait and see” attitude has been the prevailing outlook.
However, nearly 7% of respondents indicated that they believe their clients will hire with even more urgency during the next few months. Although it certainly wasn’t the majority, it still represents positive news, at least in those industries where recruiters are expecting more hiring to occur.
What do YOU think? How will your clients approaching hiring over the summer months? Will they approach it the same way? Or will they hire with more urgency or less urgency?