Blog: Bullish & Bearish: Recruitment

Talent Acquisition

Bullish & Bearish: Recruitment

Bullish and Bearish recruitment phases are like high tide and low tide, each has its own advantages
Bullish & Bearish: Recruitment

Not indicating the rising and falling of stock prices in NSE, BSE etc.; people in HR/Recruitment industry may relate to what I am writing. Some pointers you may consider applying to yourself as a recruiter in times of Bullish or Bearish recruitments.

Here’s a holistic/helicopter view on Bullish/Bearish Recruitment.

When in a booming economy, companies hire with a plethora of opportunities for professionals, recruitment is Bullish. On the other hand, Bearish means the slack time in recruitment i.e. when there are not enough positions to work on and either the companies are rightsizing or restructuring.

Bullish is the time when recruiters are occupied with sourcing, interviewing, on-boarding resources, running around, interacting with various stake holders like hiring managers, vendors, employees etc.

Bullish is the time when a recruiter gets hands on experience in recruitment. It’s the time when an individual is recognized for the efforts put in to hire resources. However, there is no time to think about up-skilling. It’s when people do not look out for jumping ships; recruiters are highly occupied with work, late hours, weekend drives, number pressure etc.

Bearish is the time when there are less opportunities to fill. It does not mean organization is not doing well. Organization might go in reconciliation mode to review their headcount. Hiring Managers are in hibernation, relooking their strategies, re-evaluating their TOM (Target Operating Model). This is the time to relook at our strategies, aspirations, strengths, and weakness as an individual.

Relooking at our performances, we may look at our style or identify our trend to close an opportunity. Analyze whether you take more time in closing junior opportunities as more time should be spent on closing niche or senior requirements. Utilize this time to up skill in other areas, may be making use of other departments within HR.

I have learnt that no learning goes waste, hence revisiting management workshops like Time Management, Decision making, competency based workshops etc. can be helpful in doing the job.

Work on the Predictive metrics which help in upcoming recruiting opportunities/building a healthy pipeline (which is seldom used in Recruitment) - Refer blog ‘11 tips for strategic hiring’ on People Matters.

Bringing innovative ideas on the table that makes difference to the trend of hiring, or department, will act as a catalyst in meeting ambitions. Make use of other teams to cross skill and earn brownie points which can act as a catalyst during one-to-one appraisals at the year end. Support other departments like CSR, Learning & Development, Employee Engagement, Resourcing, Corporate HR, HR communication etc. based on your aspiration and interest. Participate in various colleges’ guest lectures which helps in bridging industry-academia gap and also in embellishing the organization’s brand.

Up-skill, Cross-skill and create a niche for yourself. Trending is, making your own niche in the market. It’s like marketing yourself. Colgate is the brand that has ruled the Indian market and launched its campaign as a germ killer; it did not do as expected. Colgate re-launched its campaign as a Toothpaste which protects your teeth for 12 hours and the sales went up.

Bearish is not time to look for job changes, it’s an opportunity to up-skill and reinvent ourselves.

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Topics: Talent Acquisition, #ChangeManagement

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