The UK offices for The Global Recruiter are closed and our staff are all working from home. However, in the face of this global challenge we are keen to respond to, reflect, and promote the activities of recruiters as they adapt to and meet the challenges of work and talent in this fast changing world.
If you want to share you story, thoughts or ideas about the impact coronavirus is having on your business, on skill demands, clients and candidates please get in touch with the editor: [email protected].
The following thoughts have come from Taufik Arief, founder & director, People Search Indonesia:
During my long hours flight back to Jakarta, I tried to think how will we tackle this upcoming economy and talent market crisis. The pandemic will freeze some industries instantly such as travel, airlines, hospitality, entertainment, retail, lifestyle business and many more. I tried to map which industries might have less impact, or at least taking more time to be impacted heavily.
As permanent recruiter, and being generalist, we have the luxury of different types of client bases. We decided during this pandemic, we would focus on four sectors, indeed, we have some clients there: mining (especially gold mining), infrastructure related business, healthcare and education. These will probably have less impact, at last for a few weeks from now. Other than those sectors, we can’t expect much. Even on the first day I landed in Indonesia, I started receiving projection cancellation emails.
During this and the developing crisis, one product that we might sell customers could be “outplacement services”. More and more companies will be laying off their staff. If we are lucky and able to reach clients who care about their staff, this will be an opportunity – although of course we can only do this after the lockdown process is finished.
We are also about to launch our “employer branding” products. As public training and facilitation processes will be stopped during the pandemic, we will utilise our time, by giving webinars, socialisation and so on. It’s free of charge, but at least it will help to create a market for us once the Pandemic is done.
I do believe, as recruiter, we need to handle this strategically, not just through operational excellence, or simply adding more hours to work. We need to keep mapping the situation, and think smartly about how to insert possible solutions we can give to the market during this difficult time. As we set a strategy we need to put in some excellent work because any window of opportunity can be shut immediately. If the pandemic goes on for longer than we expect, clients might change their business plan, freeze the accounts, etc.
I am personally working 12 hours a day now, to make sure no single placement opportunity is lost. We need to make sure some placements booked, simply to ensure our business survives for next semester.
