Agency Recruitment Roundup 2020

Emma Burke our Associate Director has recruited into agencies for over a decade now. With 2020 being like no other she gives us her roundup of how this year looked for her department, candidates and clients. 

Well, what a year! It has flown by, but at the same time, has been the slowest that I’ve ever experienced.

I remember having conversations with one of my clients, who heads up a network agency in Manchester in January/February time, and we were speculating on what “could be” and how it would affect the Asian market, but as COVID slowly but surely creeped into the UK, I don’t think we necessarily anticipated the extent of how this virus would affect so many lives.

We ploughed on. Yet come the end of March, all processes and recruitment were put on hold. I was working on 20+ roles, and day by day, each client would call me regrettably to say that they were no longer able to make hiring decisions, and many interviews were cancelled. I can honestly say that this was the first time in my career that I was severely worried about the agency market. With clients cutting their spend, and the uncertainty of what a pending lockdown would mean for businesses, the future didn’t look too bright. One thing was for certain, we all knew that there were going to be huge changes afoot, and this we were going to have to adapt in ways we never thought possible.

Recruitment had new challenges

After a couple of worrying months, the end of June started to look promising. Checking LinkedIn like some crazed stalker, trying to spot signs of activity on an hourly basis, there were shoots of growth and the odd agency here and there started to post their vacancies. However, I noticed a Digital Marketing Manager role posted by a business in Manchester and within the first 3 hours, it had received over 250 applications. This posed a different kind of problem, of the market being the most buoyant we’ve ever seen it, yet in turn, it meant hiring managers were trying to manage an influx of applications, and that is when we, as a recruitment business, became busier.

Our candidates during the pandemic

I found that I was speaking to three different types of people over lockdown: those who had unfortunately been made redundant, those who were in limbo and weren’t sure whether their roles were secure, and also more latterly towards August and September, I was speaking to more and more candidates who had used this time to reflect on their career and whether they were getting the most out of their current roles and what they wanted to do (and where they wanted to be) longer term. Luckily, we’ve managed to help a multitude of people throughout this period and the agency market, on the whole, has thrived. Whilst the network agencies experienced recruitment freezes during Q1 through to Q3, we are seeing lifts in these, and they’re starting to bounce back with vigour.

Our clients during the pandemic

We’ve seen the largest successes in the independents; especially start-ups, and I’m working with 5 agencies in particular who have not only recruited throughout lockdown, but who have thrived throughout this period. Two in eCommerce, which is an area which has obviously boomed due to increased online activity, but others who have a different agency model to the norm, and have a more consultative and adaptable way of working with their clients. Not only have we recruited Heads of departments for these, but bolstered their team with delivery and client services.

There is hope on the horizon

With the promising news of vaccines, and the end of this in sight, with a new way of working remotely and the effectiveness of working from home, I feel extremely positive going into 2021 and so proud of how we’re coming out of this devastating time.

There have been casualties along the way, and I’m so saddened to have lost agency clients who have had to close their North West operations; but on the whole, those people who had been made redundant have secured new roles.

I look forward to catching up with everyone in the New Year, once we’ve all had a well-earned break. Thank you to all of our clients, who have trusted us to deliver throughout an incredibly difficult time, and we’re thankful that things are slowly getting back to some kind of normality.

I wish everyone a happy, healthy and well-deserved break, and catch up with you next year. 

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