Thanks COVID.
Recruiting in the Call Centre industry, or even If you work in the industry, I am sure we have all come across them few ‘hoppers’. Now come on, lets all be honest, we have all looked at their name pop up as an advert application and thought, ‘not again’ or maybe you have been reviewing a CV and thought ‘wow, how many jobs this year?!’.
No matter where you are across the country you will have that pool of candidates and it is rife in the Call Centre Industry, but now its about to get a hell of a lot worse. We are still in the middle of a global pandemic; we are now in a recession and god knows how many people have sadly lost their jobs. So, the natural course of action for these people that have been affected is to apply for as many jobs as possible to secure a job, any job, that will pay the bills until you find your comfort zone again.
Over the last few weeks, I have been speaking to close friends who are also in the industry and we all agree – this is now a nightmare for the recruiter, at first you are struggling to survive with recruitment on hold and then you loose the candidates as fast as you find them.
You go from having a candidate lined up for a job, interviewed, offered, started and then they either go walkies or resign within the first couple of months. Meaning, yes, you guessed it, as a recruiter we are in the rebate zone (depending on your terms of course). We then get back to work to either refill that role or rebate the candidate, again meaning that either we do double the work for the same fee or that the fee is refunded back after all the work you have done – this is hell.
Now I am not sat here blaming our well known local hoppers, but this is just people who have sadly been affected by the difficulties of COVID and the knock-on effects. As an owner of a recruitment business, it is more important than ever that I support my clients as much as possible. I will not just be chucking candidate’s CV at my clients in hope the candidate will stay, but I will be asking my clients to be just as ruthless in their approach. Afterall, they don’t want their attrition figures to go through the roof.
I am, also not saying that people should not be proactive in earning a living, we know that people need jobs, but just be upfront and honest with us. Who knows, we may even have an opportunity that is better suited to them (because we all know that not all jobs get advertised!).
Sadly, the Call Centre world is one area of a business market that will be greatly affected with hoppers – if you have worked in it, you will know!
So lets stand together for this industry and say no to placing for the sake of it, but yes to supporting the industry find their unicorns and yes to the candidates finding the job that is just perfect for them.
