It has been a busy year for the PR and Communications desk here at Boyce Recruitment; we have worked on roles across a multitude of sectors and levels. The common thread across the board has been the lack of applications for the core roles within account teams (Junior Account Managers, Account Managers and Senior Account Managers), leading us to ask… where have all the Account Managers been hiding in 2017??!!
With an overall shortage of candidates in the market, clients have been screaming out for talent at this level…so where are they? It has been evident that companies are doing their utmost to retain staff, determined to hold on to the anchors of their team, be it through pay rises or increasing responsibility, luring Account Managers out of their current positions is no easy task.
So what next? How can we draw out this talent in the New Year? For candidates to leave their current positions, they need to be offered something new, something desirable, an exciting opportunity to lure them away. As recruiters, it is important for us to understand the reasons why candidates are eager to leave their jobs, as well as why they wish to stay. If we can figure out if a person is genuinely happy in their role, or whether they have been tempted into staying by instant rewards, we stand a better chance of assisting them in finding their next position, one that will hopefully bring long-term satisfaction.
It is also important for companies to sell themselves to candidates; recruitment is a two-way street. Highlighting why a candidate would want to work with you is becoming increasingly significant in a talent-short market, as is outlining exactly where this person will fit in within the company and what they will be working on. Whilst this sounds simple, job specs can often be vague and generalised, with no further information to back them up. We all know what the bare bones of an Account Manager role entail, but we need to be able to flesh it out in order to sell the dream.
So how can clients and recruiters work together to secure the best Account Managers? From our experience, the clients who have approached the recruitment process with a more flexible approach have been put face to face with the best candidates. Thinking in a less rigid way and being more open to the different guises that talent can come in, be it from a different but still relevant sector or industry, opens up to the doors to a whole new world of possibilities; strong candidates who bring with them artillery of skills just waiting to be nurtured and grown.
So here is to hoping that 2018 is a time of change, there is no doubt that the current climate has also had an impact on people’s decisions to stay put. The communications industry is thriving, and showing no signs of slowing down; we are confident that candidates will be eager to explore opportunities in the New Year.