Overall the recruitment market seems to suggest that career progression is more important than a pay rise when motivating a broad number of candidates who are looking for new roles.
Webrecruit recently completed a study of 987 applicants which showed that 38% of candidates consider career progression to be the most important factor when applying for a position. 23% said role responsibilities matter to them most.
In contrast, only 11% are attracted most by the salary of a position, 10% said they look for training opportunities, 9% look at the company’s brand, 6% want support towards qualifications and 3% are attracted by a position’s benefits package.
Aside from redundancy and the need to find work quickly, the teams at Boyce definitely agree.
Market Research job hunters in London definitely seem to focus on career development. Many of our applicants are seeking more responsibility and exposure to working with new and innovative methodologies. Being seen as a specialist is also important but having the opportunity to learn and work with talented people is a primary motivator for many of our candidates is key.
The Broadcast recruitment team have many candidates who want to “do more” and move up the ladder in their career within operations and technical support. Whether this means becoming a teamleader, or scheduling supervisor , or if it means becoming an Account manager for a large global account then their employer may not be offering this and so they are looking elsewhere. When applicants do decide to move sideways, it may be because they love their job but feel stale doing the same thing within with the same team environment, or they may feel that the culture where they work has changed dramatically and they no longer identify with the managers they report to.
In the language job market, there is very little difference. The opportunity to travel and meet clients face to face can be a great deciding factor for a career move, especially if the job seeker has invested a lot of time in building up their linguistic and cultural knowledge of the country they work in.
On the other hand, our Corporate Services team, who manage recruitment for “head office” functions including administration, HR and customer services have been very heavily influenced by job instability and the desire to work for a company with a strong financial track record and the ability to offer great working conditions, a supportive team structure and training opportunities.