How Will Recruiting Change Moving Forward?

Andy Jordan is President of Roffensian Consulting S.A., a Roatan, Honduras-based management consulting firm with a comprehensive project management practice. Andy always appreciates feedback and discussion on the issues raised in his articles and can be reached at [email protected]. Andy's new book Risk Management for Project Driven Organizations is now available.

  Career Development  

I recently had a conversation that surprised me. It was with a recruitment consultant, someone who makes a living finding the right candidate for open positions. Even if you’ve never used one as a candidate or an employer, I’m sure you’re familiar with the industry. He told me that he was leaving the business because there was no call for his services anymore. He wasn’t involved with project management—it was a more niche specialization. But I was still surprised that his outlook was so negative.

Obviously there has been a huge slowdown in hiring due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and that undoubtedly hit the recruitment industry hard—no hiring means no commissions and no revenue. But I expected that, as the recovery begins to take hold, there would be a bounce back in the recruitment industry as well. That may take some time, and clearly (just like virtually every other industry) there would be casualties. I didn’t consider that this would be an industry with a longer and slower recovery, but that was certainly his expectation.

I’m not entirely sure that this model will apply to project management recruiting. I spoke to several people in that industry in preparing this article, and didn’t get consensus from them. Some think that the recovery will be as quick (or as slow) as the recovery in the industries they serve; others…

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