Because of how we work when supporting our clients, we have a very unique “glimpse” into how over 5000 Executive Search companies and almost 20 000 decision makers react – the majority of which being located in Europe; and we collect and analyze how they respond; and we observe if and what kind of trends there are to leverage them into better career management & more effective job search methods.
Before there are trends, there are signals which we usually keep to ourselves. But these are not usual times, so we decided to share those market signals by the end of each week. If the country / context is important, we’ll add them. Otherwise, we’ll keep it general for confidentiality.
This is not a full version of this week’s report. View the complete presentation here:
We’ve continued reaching out to CEOs, HR Directors, investors, board members and candidates that we know personally, to take the temperature. Below you’ll find their shortened quotes in no particular order.
However, we’ll start with a KPI that gives a quite good feel of the overall trend on the job market:
Number of published job ads on LinkedIn
Note: some job ads might have been taken off LinkedIn, not because the recruitment process was put on hold or canceled, but because they are costly, especially if you have dozens of them. A company might have wanted to simply cut costs and move to more cost-effective alternatives. Some local job portals are offering substantial discounts.
| Initial list of 18 countries | Sorted |
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| Extended list to 38 countries | Sorted |
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Note: the numbers are collected at the beginning of each week, on Monday afternoon. In the full version of the report, you can find separate data for regions such as: Visegrad, Baltics, Northern Europe, Southern Europe, Iberia, SEE, BENELUX, DACH, Western Europe and EU.
Worth mentioning
First an overview of the indices:
Index18: This week, 6 countries published more job ads on LinkedIn than in Week 13: Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, Ukraine, France and Germany.
Index36: 52% of the countries published more job ads in Week 45 than in Week 15, which is a 6% decrease compared to last week. 75% of the countries published more job ads this week than last week – an increase of 22% compared to Week 44.
The European Union: In Week 45, the European Union noted a +25.94% increase: 1,009,243 more job ads were published than in the initial Week 17. Since last week, it’s a -6.12% decrease.
Winners of the week: When it comes to regions, the winning result of Week 45 belongs to Northern Europe: an increase of +21.88% was noted in comparison to Week 15 (21,405 job ads more). Country-wise, Montenegro noted the best result: an increase of +883.33%.
Losers of the week: In Week 45, the worst result out of all the regions was noted in Visegrad: a -11.76% decrease and 25,606 job ads less than in Week 44. Worst country result: Poland with a -15.83% decrease and 25,333 job ads less than last week.
Collected Quotes from CEOs and HR Directors:
The vast majority of executives are with market leaders in their respective industries. By default, the board members are members of local boards; if not, we’ll indicate the exception.
Automotive: Around 30-40% of our clients withdrew their contracts since March. We have also been experiencing severe fluctuations in profitability.
Heavy Industry: The structure of our company has been optimized and some management positions were merged, which caused lay-offs.
Mechanical Engineering: The Polish subsidiary has had no intention to lay anyone off. We’ve reduced our costs, frozen the recruitment processes and put the investments on hold. Globally speaking though, around 600 managers were laid off.
Industry: COVID-19 caused a significant development in our IT areas. It didn’t really influence the way we work – I managed to arrange the remote work of my team two years ago.
And candidate side:
Communication Manager / Finance: I am still in the job search mode. In the past few months I’ve had a few meetings and interviews but they weren’t finalized because of COVID-19. Recently, I’ve taken part in a very interesting recruitment process in a Fintech company that has been growing ever since the pandemic started, and needs to improve the communication area in their company.
Transformation Manager / Entertainment: The place I used to work at has been closed since March. My position was eliminated and all the processes I was working on stopped.
Useful observations & tips for candidates from one of our contacts:
Head of Talent Acquisition / International public organization
Before CV-19, sometimes we’d have only 20 applicants for a post. Now, there’s a massive increase. For some roles it’s double the amount of candidates – for HR roles, even more! A recent posting received 50 applicants within 12 hours! I can see that online interviews are more stressful for candidates because of all the technical challenges. Consequently, their performance is different. The overall candidate experience is also different – not worse, just different.
I still see two struggles for now and beyond CV-19: to formulate proper remote working policies, and to design appropriate digital onboarding processes.
About the future: everything will depend on the success of developing a vaccine. However, there are definitely elements that are here to stay: remote work if physical presence is not required (it currently saves me 5 hours per week, 20 hours per month on commuting – why would I voluntarily want to go back?) and online interviews!
Tips for candidates:
- Cover the basics: our ATS “enforces” as complete applications as possible. Having said that, it still surprises me that approximately 30% of the candidates still don’t get the absolute basics right!
- Don’t apply to everything. Constant rejection affects your motivation. Keep applying to the job ads where you see a fit and don’t give up!
If you want to discuss your professional situation confidentially or if you are considering hiring Career Angels for support, contact Bichl.Sandra@CareerAngels.eu who will personally match you with the most appropriate consultant. For efficiency, add your CV and availability for a Skype call.
If you want to contribute, email your signals to Sandra (everything will be kept confidential).
Market Signals published thus far:
Week 44
Week 43
Week 42
Week 41
Week 40
Week 39
Week 38
Week 37
Week 36
Week 35
Week 34
Week 33
Week 32
Week 31
Week 30
Week 29
Week 28
Week 27
Week 26
Week 25
Week 24
Week 23
Week 22
Week 21
Week 20
Week 19
Week 18
Week 17
Week 16
Week 15
Week 14
Week 13
