Career Advice

January 5, 2026 by Julie McGrath

Why Training Matters When Your Recruiters Come From Internal Backgrounds

Hiring recruiters with internal recruitment experience seems like a sensible move. They understand hiring processes, they’ve worked with hiring managers, and they know how to assess candidates. On paper, the transition to agency recruitment should be straightforward.

In practice, it rarely is.

Internal recruitment and agency recruitment are fundamentally different disciplines. They share surface similarities, but the pace, pressures, skills, and success metrics diverge significantly. Without proper training, even talented internal recruiters can struggle to adapt, leading to frustration, underperformance, and turnover.

Investing in structured training for these hires isn’t optional. It’s essential for their success and yours.

Two Different Worlds

Before designing a training programme, it helps to understand exactly how these two environments differ. The gap is wider than most people realise.

Speed and Volume

Internal recruiters typically manage a moderate requisition load with reasonable timelines. They might handle 15 to 25 roles at various stages, with weeks or months to fill each position. Urgency exists, but it’s usually manageable.

Agency recruitment operates at a different tempo entirely. Consultants often juggle 30, 40, or more active roles across multiple clients simultaneously. Deadlines are tight. Competition is fierce. A role that isn’t filled quickly goes to another agency. The pressure to move fast never lets up.

This shift in pace catches many internal recruiters off guard. They’re accustomed to thoroughness and process. Agency life demands speed without sacrificing quality, a balance that takes time to learn.

Revenue Responsibility

Internal recruiters are cost centres. Their success is measured in hires made, time to fill, and hiring manager satisfaction. They contribute to the business, but they don’t directly generate revenue.

Agency recruiters are revenue generators. Every placement means income. Every lost deal means missed targets. There’s a direct, visible connection between individual performance and the agency’s financial health.

This commercial pressure transforms the role. Agency recruiters need to think like salespeople, understanding margins, managing pipelines, and prioritising opportunities based on likelihood to close and fee potential. For recruiters who’ve never carried a revenue target, this shift in mindset requires deliberate development.

Client Relationships

Internal recruiters work for one employer. They build deep relationships with a stable group of hiring managers over time. They understand the culture intimately. They know the unwritten rules about what works and what doesn’t.

Agency recruiters serve multiple clients with varying needs, cultures, and expectations. They must quickly understand each client’s environment, build credibility with stakeholders they may rarely meet in person, and manage competing demands without the benefit of insider knowledge.

This requires a different kind of relationship skill. Internal recruiters often underestimate how much work goes into winning and maintaining client trust from the outside. They’re used to being seen as a colleague; in agency life, they must prove their value repeatedly.

Business Development

Most internal recruiters have never sold anything. Roles come to them through workforce planning, manager requests, or organisational growth. They don’t need to prospect for business or pitch their services.

Agency recruitment involves constant business development. Even recruiters who aren’t in dedicated sales roles need to identify new opportunities, follow up on leads, and contribute to client acquisition. The expectation that everyone participates in growing the business surprises many internal hires.

Training must address this gap directly. Recruiters from internal backgrounds often feel uncomfortable with anything that resembles selling. They need frameworks, scripts, and practice to build confidence in business development activities.

Candidate Ownership

Internal recruiters work collaboratively with candidates who’ve applied to their company. The dynamic is relatively balanced: candidates want the job, and the recruiter wants to fill it. Ghosting happens, but candidates generally stay engaged through the process.

Agency recruiters must compete for candidate attention. The best candidates have multiple options and little loyalty to any particular agency. Building and maintaining candidate relationships requires persistence, follow up, and genuine value creation. Candidates will disappear without warning if a better opportunity emerges.

This requires a more proactive, almost sales oriented approach to candidate management. Internal recruiters accustomed to reactive candidate engagement need coaching on how to build pipelines, nurture relationships, and stay top of mind with passive talent.

Rejection and Resilience

Internal recruiters face rejection, but it’s buffered. A candidate might decline an offer, or a hiring manager might choose a different finalist. Disappointments happen within a supportive organisational context.

Agency recruiters face rejection constantly. Candidates drop out. Clients go silent. Deals fall through at the last moment. Other agencies win placements you worked hard to secure. The emotional toll accumulates quickly.

Resilience isn’t innate; it’s developed. Training programmes for internal hires should explicitly address how to handle setbacks, maintain motivation through dry spells, and avoid taking rejection personally. Without this preparation, talented recruiters burn out or give up too soon.

Building an Effective Training Programme

Understanding the differences is step one. Translating that understanding into practical training is step two.

Start With Mindset

Before teaching tactics, address the mental shift required. Help new hires understand that agency recruitment isn’t just internal recruitment done faster. It’s a different profession with different rules.

Be honest about the challenges. Discuss the pace, the pressure, and the rejection. Set realistic expectations about the learning curve. Recruiters who understand what they’re getting into are more likely to persist through early difficulties.

Teach Commercial Awareness

Internal recruiters rarely think about revenue, margins, or client profitability. Build commercial literacy into your training from day one.

Explain how your agency makes money. Walk through fee structures, payment terms, and the economics of different placement types. Help recruiters understand why certain roles are prioritised and how their individual performance affects the business.

This isn’t about turning everyone into accountants. It’s about ensuring recruiters understand the commercial context of their work so they can make better decisions about where to focus their energy.

Develop Business Development Skills

Don’t assume recruiters will pick up BD skills through observation. Provide structured training on prospecting, pitching, handling objections, and building client relationships.

Role play is invaluable here. Simulate client calls, practice responding to common objections, and provide feedback in a safe environment. Recruiters who’ve never sold before need repetition and encouragement to build confidence.

Consider pairing new hires with experienced consultants for joint client meetings. Watching skilled practitioners in action accelerates learning faster than any classroom session.

Train on Speed Without Sacrificing Quality

Internal recruiters often equate thoroughness with quality. They take time to craft perfect job descriptions, conduct extensive screening calls, and document everything meticulously.

Agency recruitment requires a different calibration. Teach recruiters to identify what’s essential versus what’s nice to have. Show them how to screen efficiently without missing critical information. Help them understand that a good candidate submitted quickly often beats a perfect candidate submitted late.

This isn’t about cutting corners. It’s about developing judgment around prioritisation and recognising that speed itself is a form of quality in a competitive market.

Build Resilience Deliberately

Don’t leave emotional resilience to chance. Include training on managing rejection, maintaining motivation, and developing healthy coping strategies.

Share stories from experienced consultants about tough periods and how they pushed through. Normalise the ups and downs of agency life. Create space for new hires to discuss challenges without judgment.

Mentorship programmes help enormously here. Pairing new recruiters with supportive seniors gives them someone to turn to when things get difficult, before frustration turns into resignation.

Provide Ongoing Support

Training shouldn’t end after the first week or month. Agency recruitment has a long learning curve, and skills develop over years, not days.

Build in regular check ins, coaching sessions, and opportunities for continued development. Celebrate early wins to build confidence. Address struggles promptly before they become entrenched habits.

Track leading indicators like activity levels, candidate submissions, and client conversations rather than waiting for placement numbers that may take months to materialise. Early feedback helps recruiters course correct before falling too far behind.

The Cost of Getting It Wrong

Agencies that fail to train internal hires properly pay a significant price. New recruiters underperform, miss targets, and often leave within the first year. The cost of recruitment, onboarding, and lost productivity adds up quickly.

Worse, struggling recruiters can damage client relationships. A consultant who doesn’t understand agency dynamics might over promise, under deliver, or fail to meet basic client expectations. Repairing that damage takes far longer than preventing it.

There’s also an opportunity cost. Every month a recruiter spends struggling is a month they could have been contributing. Proper training accelerates time to productivity, meaning faster returns on your hiring investment.

The Payoff of Getting It Right

When agencies invest in training internal hires properly, the results compound. These recruiters bring genuine strengths: process discipline, candidate assessment skills, and an understanding of hiring from the client’s perspective. With the right support, they can become exceptional agency consultants.

They often develop strong client relationships precisely because they understand the internal recruiter’s world. They can speak credibly to hiring managers about challenges they’ve personally experienced. They bring empathy and insight that pure agency recruiters sometimes lack.

The investment in training isn’t just about fixing weaknesses. It’s about unlocking potential that would otherwise remain untapped.

Final Thoughts

Hiring from internal recruitment backgrounds can be a smart strategy, but only if you’re prepared to bridge the gap between two very different professional contexts. Assuming the skills will transfer automatically is a recipe for disappointment.

Build training programmes that address the real differences: pace, commercial pressure, business development, client management, and resilience. Provide ongoing support rather than expecting instant results. Be patient with the learning curve while maintaining clear expectations.

The recruiters who successfully make this transition often become your strongest performers. They combine the best of both worlds: the discipline and candidate focus of internal recruitment with the pace and commercial acumen of agency life. That combination is worth investing in.

January 2, 2026 by Julie McGrath

Why Employer Branding Is Your Most Powerful Business Development Tool

When recruitment agencies think about business development, the mind typically jumps to outbound calls, networking events, and LinkedIn prospecting. These activities matter, but they often miss a fundamental truth: the clients you want to win are researching you before you ever reach out to them.

That research shapes their perception of your agency. And increasingly, what they find (or don’t find) determines whether your call gets returned, your proposal gets read, or your pitch gets a fair hearing.

This is where employer branding enters the business development conversation. It’s not just about attracting candidates. It’s about building a reputation that makes clients want to work with you.

The Reputation Economy

Recruitment is a relationship business, but relationships now begin long before the first handshake. A hiring manager considering your agency will likely check your LinkedIn presence, read your content, and scan your website. They’ll form impressions about your professionalism, expertise, and culture within minutes.

If what they find feels generic, outdated, or inconsistent, you’ve lost ground before the conversation starts. If they find a compelling story about who you are, what you stand for, and why you’re different, you’ve already begun building trust.

Your employer brand isn’t separate from your commercial brand. They’re the same thing viewed from different angles. The way you treat your own people signals how you’ll treat clients and candidates. The quality of talent you attract to your agency reflects the quality of talent you’ll deliver to theirs.

Clients Buy Confidence

Hiring is risky. Clients are entrusting you with decisions that affect their team’s performance, their projects’ success, and their own professional reputation. They need to feel confident that you’ll represent them well in the market.

A strong employer brand provides that confidence. When a client sees that your agency attracts and retains talented recruiters, they infer that you must be doing something right. When they see thoughtful content from your team demonstrating market expertise, they trust that expertise will be applied to their search. When they see consistent, professional communication across every touchpoint, they expect that same standard in your work together.

Conversely, a weak or invisible employer brand creates doubt. If a client can’t get a clear sense of who you are and what makes you credible, they’ll default to safer choices: larger agencies with established names, or competitors who’ve done a better job telling their story.

Differentiation in a Crowded Market

Most recruitment agencies struggle to articulate what makes them different. Their websites feature the same stock photos, the same vague promises about “connecting great talent with great companies,” the same list of sectors and services. From a client’s perspective, they all blur together.

Employer branding forces clarity. To tell a compelling story about your agency, you need to actually know what that story is. What do you believe about recruitment that others don’t? What kind of people thrive at your agency, and why? What do you refuse to compromise on, even when it costs you?

These questions don’t have easy answers, but working through them creates genuine differentiation. An agency that can clearly articulate its values, culture, and approach stands out from competitors who speak only in generalities. That distinctiveness attracts clients who share those values and want a partner, not just a vendor.

The Talent Connection

Here’s where employer branding creates a virtuous cycle for business development. The better your employer brand, the more talented recruiters you attract. The more talented your team, the better results you deliver. The better your results, the stronger your reputation. The stronger your reputation, the easier it becomes to win new clients.

This cycle works in reverse too. Agencies with weak employer brands struggle to attract top recruiters. With weaker teams, they deliver inconsistent results. Inconsistent results damage their reputation. A damaged reputation makes business development harder, which puts pressure on margins, which makes it harder to invest in people and culture.

Employer branding isn’t a marketing exercise. It’s a strategic investment that compounds over time, affecting everything from talent acquisition to client retention to revenue growth.

What Strong Employer Branding Looks Like

Effective employer branding for recruitment agencies typically includes several elements working together.

A clear narrative about who you are and why you exist. This goes beyond mission statements into genuine storytelling: how did the agency start, what problems were you trying to solve, what have you learned along the way, and where are you heading?
Visible, credible people. Clients want to know who they’ll be working with. Profiles, content, and thought leadership from your actual team members build connection and trust in ways that corporate messaging cannot.
Consistent candidate experience. How you treat candidates reflects directly on your employer brand. Candidates talk to each other, post reviews, and share experiences. An agency known for respectful, professional candidate treatment builds a reputation that attracts both better candidates and better clients.
Evidence of expertise. Content that demonstrates genuine knowledge of your specialist markets signals credibility. This might include salary surveys, market reports, hiring trend analysis, or simply thoughtful commentary on industry developments.
Authentic culture. Clients can sense when employer branding is performative versus genuine. The goal isn’t to pretend you’re something you’re not, but to clearly communicate what you actually are and attract people who resonate with that.

Measuring the Impact

Employer branding can feel intangible, but its effects on business development are measurable. Track metrics like inbound enquiry volume, conversion rates from first meeting to proposal, win rates on competitive pitches, and client feedback about why they chose you (or didn’t).

Over time, agencies with strong employer brands typically see higher inbound interest, shorter sales cycles, and better win rates on competitive opportunities. They spend less time convincing prospects of their credibility because that credibility has already been established through their presence in the market.

They also tend to retain clients longer. When clients feel aligned with your values and culture, the relationship becomes stickier. They’re more forgiving of occasional missteps and more likely to expand the partnership over time.

Getting Started

Building an employer brand doesn’t require a massive budget or a dedicated marketing team. It starts with honesty about who you are and a commitment to communicating that consistently.

Begin by articulating your values and what makes your agency distinctive. Talk to your team about why they work here and what they’d tell others about the experience. Look at your external presence through the eyes of a potential client or candidate and ask whether it accurately reflects who you are.

Then start showing up. Encourage your team to share insights and perspectives on LinkedIn. Refresh your website to tell a genuine story rather than listing services. Respond to Glassdoor reviews thoughtfully. Create content that demonstrates expertise rather than just promoting placements.

Small, consistent efforts compound over time. The agencies that invest in employer branding today will have a significant competitive advantage in business development tomorrow.

Your reputation is being built whether you actively shape it or not. The question is whether you’ll let it happen by accident or by design.

August 15, 2024 by Julie McGrath

The Still Ready for Work programme supports people aged 50+ to remain in work, to change career or to source employment. It helps individuals to stay motivated, confident and connected as they prepare their next steps in to the world of work.

The programme offers a range of services to help people over 50 with all aspects of their working life including: regular online employability workshops; e-learning covering a range health and wellbeing topics; and one-to-one job search support from a consultant.

Participants can sign up for or as many or as few workshops as they wish and, following the workshop/s, they will have access to the other Still Ready for Work offers: e-learning and one-to-one support.

All offers as part of the Still Ready for Work programme are free for participants, delivered by professional trainers or facilitators, and are lively and interactive.

Online Workshops

The workshops below, which cover four key job search topics, are run regularly and facilitated by an employment and recruitment specialist.

Participants can pick and choose which sessions they wish to register for or sign up for all four. Attendees are welcome to engage and ask questions throughout the session, or simply use the session to listen and receive information.

The four sessions on offer are:

How to create a digital CV and cover letter

Learn more about why it is essential to have a digital version of your CV, and how to identify and highlight strengths, skills, and experiences that are relevant to the job you are applying for. Attendees will discover why quality over quantity is important when making job applications.

16 January | 2:00 – 3:30 pm Register now

How to use recruitment agencies and job boards to work on your behalf

Learn how to team up with relevant recruitment agencies that can work on your behalf when seeking employment. This workshop will cover networking both online and offline, and provide tips that will help set you apart from other candidates.

18 January | 2:00 – 3:30 pm Register now

How to use social media to find new job opportunities

Learn how to use social media to identify new job opportunities and how to automate the job searching process. This workshop focusses on the top three social media sites used for employment and covers the importance of having an online social presence to secure a new job.

23 January | 2:00 – 3:30 pm Register now

How to succeed in online and face-to-face interviews

This workshop will help you to prepare for various interview formats and learn more about both verbal and non-verbal communication. The workshop covers online interview formats including pre-recorded interviews, and what you need to consider and do in order to succeed.

25 January | 2:00 – 3:30 pm Register now

January 1, 2024 by Julie McGrath

Basic digital skills and competencies and why do today’s learners need them?

We’re now in the age of the 4th industrial revolution, which primarily marks the implementation of smart technologies, these changes are happening faster than ever. In some cases, new industries have developed entirely; an obvious example is the software industry. But even in sectors that have existed for centuries, including industries as diverse as farming and finance, technology is now widely used to streamline processes and better adapt to an increasingly interconnected world. In this context, today’s graduates not only need to have a sound understanding of their subject area but also how to apply this knowledge in digital contexts.

What are digital competencies?

In a world that’s more digital than ever, a good understanding of technology is obviously key. A report from the European Commission showed that 93% of European workplaces across all sectors use computers and 94% use broadband internet. This means that almost every job requires basic digital skills such as being able to use the internet to find information, communicate with colleagues and customers, buy goods and services and so on.

However, the importance of digital skills for learners goes beyond just understanding how to use various software and hardware. After all, it’s likely that they’ll be obsolete in 5 years or even less. Arguably even more important are attitudes that allow workers to embrace digital technology and associated changes throughout their careers, such as creativity, collaboration and flexibility.

How can today’s learners develop their digital skills?

It can be tempting to think that many millennial and gen-z students already understand digital tools and possess the necessary attitudes to be successful in today’s workforce. While this may be the case for some, we should remember that not every student has the same digital access opportunities and that others may be very used to technology for entertainment, but less knowledgeable about workforce competencies. Regardless of comfort level, students benefit from being able to practise and develop their skills in a range of contexts.

Institutions can support students in developing and refining digital competencies in several ways. Attitudes such as creativity, collaboration and flexibility can be supported through group work, projects, interviews, and presentations. These activities give learners an opportunity to participate in scenarios similar to those that they’ll encounter in the workplace or in everyday life.

How do we bridge the digital divide?

As government and businesses continue to make their services “digital by default” there is an increased need and urgency to ensure that everyone has access to and the ability to use the Internet. Being digitally competent is now a necessary part of modern life and no one can afford to be left behind.

Regardless of age or ability, we believe going online has digital and social inclusion benefits for everyone. Bridging the digital divide would improve digital literacy, digital skills, social mobility, economic equality, and economic growth.

For more information on how we can help please get in touch: hello@2icglobal-com.stackstaging.com

January 15, 2022 by Julie McGrath

COVID-19 has accelerated three broad trends that may reshape work after the pandemic recedes

The pandemic pushed companies and consumers to rapidly adopt new behaviours that are likely to stick, changing the trajectory of three groups of trends. We consequently see sharp discontinuity between their impact on labour markets before and after the pandemic.

1. Remote work and virtual meetings are likely to continue, albeit less intensely than at the pandemic’s peak

Perhaps the most obvious impact of COVID-19 on the labour force is the dramatic increase in employees working remotely. To determine how extensively remote work might persist after the pandemic, we researched its potential across more than 2,000 tasks used in some 800 occupations in the eight focus countries. Considering only remote work that can be done without a loss of productivity, we find that about 20 to 25 percent of the workforces in advanced economies could work from home between three and five days a week. This represents four to five times more remote work than before the pandemic and could prompt a large change in the geography of work, as individuals and companies shift out of large cities into rural areas and small towns. We found that some work that technically can be done remotely is best done in person. Negotiations, critical business decisions, brainstorming sessions, providing sensitive feedback, and onboarding new employees are examples of activities that may lose some effectiveness when done remotely.

Some companies are already planning to shift to flexible workspaces after positive experiences with remote work during the pandemic, a move that will reduce the overall space they need and bring fewer workers into offices each day. A survey of 278 executives by McKinsey in August 2020 found that on average, they planned to reduce office space by 30 percent.

Remote work may also put a dent in business travel as its extensive use of videoconferencing during the pandemic has ushered in a new acceptance of virtual meetings and other aspects of work. While leisure travel and tourism are likely to rebound after the crisis, it is estimated that about 20 percent of business travel, the most lucrative segment for airlines, may not return. This would have significant knock-on effects on employment in commercial aerospace, airports, hospitality, and foodservice. E-commerce and other virtual transactions are booming.

Many consumers discovered the convenience of e-commerce and other online activities during the pandemic. In 2020, the share of e-commerce grew at two to five times the rate before COVID-19 (Exhibit 2). Roughly three-quarters of people using digital channels for the first time during the pandemic say they will continue using them when things return to “normal.”

Other kinds of virtual transactions such as telemedicine, online banking, and streaming entertainment have also taken off. Online doctor consultations has grew more than tenfold between April and November 2020. These virtual practices may decline somewhat as economies reopen but are likely to continue well above levels seen before the pandemic.

This shift to digital transactions has propelled growth in delivery, transportation, and warehouse jobs. In China, e-commerce, delivery, and social media jobs grew by more than 5.1 million during the first half of 2020.

2. COVID-19 may propel faster adoption of automation and AI, especially in work arenas with high physical proximity

Two ways businesses historically have controlled cost and mitigated uncertainty during recessions are by adopting automation and redesigning work processes, which reduce the share of jobs involving mainly routine tasks. In a global survey of 800 senior executives in July 2020, two-thirds said they were stepping up investment in automation and AI either somewhat or significantly.

Many companies deployed automation and AI in warehouses, grocery stores, call centers, and manufacturing plants to reduce workplace density and cope with surges in demand. The common feature of these automation use cases is their correlation with high scores on physical proximity, and research finds the work arenas with high levels of human interaction are likely to see the greatest acceleration in adoption of automation and AI.

3. The mix of occupations may shift, with little job growth in low-wage occupations

The trends accelerated by COVID-19 may spur greater changes in the mix of jobs within economies than we estimated before the pandemic.

We find that a markedly different mix of occupations may emerge after the pandemic across the eight economies. Compared to pre-COVID-19 estimates, we expect the largest negative impact of the pandemic to fall on workers in food service and customer sales and service roles, as well as less-skilled office support roles. Jobs in warehousing and transportation may increase as a result of the growth in e-commerce and the delivery economy, but those increases are unlikely to offset the disruption of many low-wage jobs.

Demand for workers in the healthcare and STEM occupations may grow more than before the pandemic, reflecting increased attention to health as populations age and incomes rise as well as the growing need for people who can create, deploy, and maintain new technologies.

Before the pandemic, net job losses were concentrated in middle-wage occupations in manufacturing and some office work, reflecting automation, and low- and high-wage jobs continued to grow. Nearly all low-wage workers who lost jobs could move into other low-wage occupations—for instance, a data entry worker could move into retail or home healthcare. Because of the pandemic’s impact on low-wage jobs, we now estimate that almost all growth in labour demand will occur in high-wage jobs. Going forward, more than half of displaced low-wage workers may need to shift to occupations in higher wage brackets and requiring different skills to remain employed.

March 3, 2021 by Julie McGrath

Since the pandemic began in March the UK jobs market has changed substantially, take a look at what this means for recruitment and occupational shortages and what jobs are in high demand.

Before the pandemic began, a report from Luminate, Skills shortages in the UK 2019/20, which takes its data from the Employer Skills Survey (ESS) 2017, stated that a third of vacancies (33%) in the UK were considered hard to fill. Vacancies are often hard to fill due to a lack of required skills, qualifications or experience among applicants.

What sectors has COVID-19 affected?

The graduate labour market has suffered significant damage, particularly in the arts – but things are far worse for non-graduates. Many key graduate employment sectors – in health, social care, IT, business services – have been much less affected than other areas of the economy. And it’s notable that many vacancies that were hard to fill before the pandemic is in that group. Of the top five graduate professions for the number of hard-to-fill vacancies only HR and recruitment has clearly seen a very serious fall in demand. Nursing, medicine, IT and housing/welfare are all still in demand.

What about the future?

There’s still a way to go before we can be completely clear about the effects of the pandemic, but many businesses are thinking hard about their future skills needs.

PWC observe that the Local Government Association estimates that the ‘low carbon workforce’ will treble by 2030 and that demand for digital skills and transferrable skills such as creativity, critical thinking, interpersonal communication skills and leadership skills will also become more important as technology advances and virtual working becomes a lot more common.

Hard-to-fill and skills shortage vacancies

The report highlighted the professional level occupations, which were reported by employers to have experienced the most vacancies during the survey. ‘Professional level’ means managerial, professional and associate professional roles. Nursing came top of the list, followed by HR and industrial relations professionals, business sales executives, welfare and housing associate professionals and IT user support technicians.

The report also demonstrates that despite thousands of graduates entering the job market every year employers still find certain positions difficult to fill. An employer reported a vacancy as hard to fill if they found it difficult to recruit for, for any reason. The largest number of hard-to-fill vacancies were:

nurses
programmers and software development professionals
human resources and industrial relations officers
medical practitioners
welfare and housing associate professionals.

Design engineers, accountants, marketing associate professionals and vets also made the list.

Vacancies that recruiters find hard to fill due to a lack of relevant skills, qualifications and experiences are often referred to as ‘skills shortage vacancies’. Similar to the hard to fill list graduate jobs that experience the most skills shortage vacancies include nurses, programmers and software development professionals and business sales executives. However, unlike the hard to fill list teaching and other educational professionals, finance and investment analysts and advisers and graphic designers also feature.

According to the report, the following industries are also in high demand:

architectural and engineering activities
computer programming and consultancy
education
employment and HR
financial services
human health activities
legal and accounting services
office administrative, support and business activities
public administration and defence
residential care activities
retail trade
social work.

Occupational shortages by region

The UK is not one homogenous labour market and workers are not infinitely mobile, therefore local shortages exist.

In the East Midlands, like in most regions, nursing has the most hard-to-fill vacancies. However, draughtspersons and product and clothing designers are particular to the region. The East of England has the longest list of shortage occupations and these include medical practitioners, nurses, design and development engineers, veterinarians and business executives.

With a large and business-oriented labour market, it’s unsurprising that London’s appetite for business support professionals in IT, recruitment, consultancy, law, sales and marketing is reflected by shortages in these occupations.

The top four shortages in the North East include nurses, medical practitioners, human resources and industrial relations officers and programmers and software development professionals. The region also struggles to recruit graphic designers.

The North West has more hard-to-fill vacancies in sales than any other. It also has one of the most serious shortages of nurses, recruitment professionals, housing professionals, youth workers and accountants.

The South East has a strong graduate labour market. However, the region has the largest number of shortages in the UK in nursing, IT support, insurance and housing.

Solicitors and legal professionals are in particularly short supply in the South West. Other shortage occupations include medical practitioners and programmers and software development professionals.

There are notable engineering shortages in the West Midlands. Sales staff, nurses and human resources and industrial relations officers are also in short supply.

Yorkshire struggles to recruit electrical engineers, IT operations technicians and child and early years officers. Marketing associate professionals are also hard to find.

Why vacancies are hard to fill and in high demand:

Skills shortage vacancies frequently occur at a managerial level, with candidates often failing to demonstrate sufficient work experience. 43% of ESS respondents said that managerial positions were hard to fill due to a low number of applicants with the required skills. 29% cited a lack of required work experience, while 19% blamed a low number of applicants generally.

Professional-level jobs also show a similar pattern, although there are fewer issues with insufficient experience and more with applicant shortage. Competition from other employers and lack of interest in these types of roles also played a part. 46% of employers said that candidates for professional roles lacked the required skills, 28% said that a low number of applicants generally made these types of roles hard to fill.

When asked what skills were particularly hard to obtain for managerial jobs, over half of employers found it hard to recruit applicants with a demonstrable ability to manage. 67% of employers said it was hard to obtain specialist skills and knowledge related to the job, while 52% found complex problem-solving skills to be particularly scarce. Knowledge of products and services and of how an organisation works also proved elusive. Soft skills that were lacking included managing and motivating staff, influencing others and the ability to manage own time and prioritise workloads.

When recruiting for professional jobs specialist knowledge was again the hardest skill to find. Advanced or specialist IT skills and complex numerical or statistical skills were also hard to come by. Applications for professional roles also lacked evidence of the following soft skills – ability to manage own time, motivating other staff and customer handling skills.

We understand that it is a competitive marketplace when trying to attract the top talent to your business or organisation. As a specialist recruitment agency, we only work with top-level professionals that want to make a difference and add value to your organisation. If you require support with recruiting top talent to your business or changing career please get in touch to find out how we can help.

-Prospects