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Growth in Rec-to-Rec assignments signal improving economic outlook for recruiters

Managing clients’ expectations is now the aim of the game when placing recruitment consultants into new roles. Serious doubts remain about the future skills of recruiters according to the Recruitment and Employment Confederation’s (REC) Recruitment to Recruitment (R2R) sector group.

Since the start of 2010 members of the R2R group have experienced a buoyant market. This is important news for the recruitment industry as an increase in R2R assignments is the first sign of a return to growth and investment in the industry.

However, even with this growth, concerns still linger over the future of recruitment with the number of good candidates decreasing. Commenting on the news, Tim Connolly, Chair of REC R2R, said: “following the recession a lot of recruiters are now moving for the money and not for the right jobs.

“There has also been a decrease in the number of candidates who exhibit the entire range of skills needed to complete the full recruitment cycle.”

The recession of last year hit the recruitment industry badly with the REC’s Industry Research Unit reporting in November 2009 that turnover in the industry had fallen from £27billion to £22.5billion in one year, with the number of staff in the industry falling from over 108,000 to 95,865.

“We have seen that those who left the industry in the recession are deciding not to return for various reasons. The problem is more acute at the senior end where senior recruiters have felt the industry let them down.

"As a result there is now a significant gap where middle managers once stood, with no one at the junior end experienced enough to move up the career ladder”, said Connolly.

As a result R2R members are now seeing candidates looking for stability in job assignments, with the need for stability anecdotally moving from 6th to 2nd important for recruiters wishing to move jobs.

This decline in middle managers has created some concern in the R2R industry about the skills of recruiters, with a skills shortage predicted as the best recruiters move and it is difficult to replace them.  In this changing market place REC R2R members have continued to provide their clients with succession planning and on the candidate side career management and guidance. The Institute for Recruitment Professionals is one of the REC initiatives which helps support career guidance in recruitment.  One of its aims is to encourage the growth of professional recruiters who develop their career in recruitment over several decades.

Key areas of growth highlighted by the group include healthcare, senior IT, investment banking and finance positions. These areas are also reported by non-R2R recruiters as areas of growth according to the latest REC Report on Jobs, highlighting the fact that REC R2R members provide leading edge insight on changes in the recruitment market.

Notes to editors

REC R2R is one of 21 specialist sector groups of the Recruitment and Employment Confederation, and represents recruiters who place recruiters. With over 3,500 members the Recruitment and Employment Confederation is the voice of the recruitment industry. For more information visit www.rec.uk.com/r2r or contact Chris Richards – Policy & PR Executive on chris.richards@rec.uk.com 

The Report on Jobs is a monthly publication produced by Markit Economics on behalf of the Recruitment & Employment Confederation and KPMG. The report features original survey data which provide the most up-to-date and comprehensive monthly picture of recruitment, employment and employee earnings trends available.

The Report features original research data from Markit Economics, collected via questionnaire from a panel of 400 UK recruitment and employment consultancies. In 2000, some 1,326,000 people were employed in either temporary or contract work through consultancies and over 450,000 people were placed in permanent positions through consultancies. Data for the monthly survey were first collected in October 1997 and are collected at the end of each month, with respondents asked to specify the direction of change in a number of survey variables.