Are we on the verge of the best recruiting market any of us has seen before? Or at least a thriving environment for recruiters? Maybe. Conditions have been incredibly tough for our business, but I think it is entirely possible that we will roll into a great period for our business. Here’s why.



My hope through the last year or so has been that it won’t take much of an improvement in general business conditions for those of us left in the recruiting business to do really well. Looking around the industry, many of us feel that something along the lines of half of us are left from those who were in the business at the beginning of ‘08. I’ve heard some people say they feel we’ll be at 20% to 30% of the total number of people in recruiting when all is said and done. Without a doubt, our industry has been reduced to only the strongest and most committed players and much smaller numbers. So it makes sense that any improvement will provide more business for each of the recruiters left, a bigger piece of the pie.



Recently in a LinkedIn group discussion, Michael Maher added some fuel to this fire for me. His argument was that we are headed for good times because as unemployment improves, recruiting thrives. He provided the following numbers to back up his thoughts.



Unemployment



1999 3.4% — thriving economy‪

2000 3.9%. — thriving economy‪ (.03 uptick in unemployment as recession begins to take hold)

2001 5.7%. — 1.8% rise as recession takes hold

2002 6.0%. — 2.1% rise as recession is in full swing

2003 5.7%. — .03% decline as recovery begins‪ in late 2003

2004 5.4%. — .06% decline from recession high of 6%‪ unemployment rate ‘02

2005 4.8%. — 1.2% decline from recession high of 6%‪ unemployment rate ‘02

2006 4.4%. — 1.6% decline from recession high of 6%‪ unemployment rate ‘02

2007 4.9%. — .05% rise from ‘06 low as economy slows‪

2008 7.2%. — 3.8% overall rise from ‘06 low as recession takes hold‪

2009 9.7%. — 5.3% overall rise from ‘06 low as recession is in full swing (Subprime Mortgage and Credit Crisis compound matters as fear grips business globally)‪



He makes the case that ‘03 through ‘07 were great for recruiting as we came off the highs in unemployment. I always like to take it down from an overall statistic level to what we see happening in individual businesses, a more realistic view for me. If you imagine businesses cutting staff and holding off on hiring through tough periods, they are reducing their operation to what they need to get through that period. That leaves them with a slimmer operation, but not in a great position to grow. This is where we are when we hit higher levels of unemployment. When that bottoms out and they start to look to grow, they have to hire and they have to make key hires which will require recruiting assistance. This doesn’t take unemployment numbers at 3.5% as we see above, it just takes getting to the bottom and starting to recover. Even if the recovery is really long and drawn out, you still have businesses that have slimmed down to the barest level of employment to sustain their business, and then starting to move forward from there. Combine that with a recruiting industry that has been reduced in size by half or more to only its strongest and most committed players and you could have the conditions for a great environment for recruiting.



Todd Kmiec

Todd Kmiec & Associates

todd@toddkmiec.com