Dublin has become a Candidate Market

2015 is an exciting year to be looking for a new job in Dublin.  After exiting the recession, which stymied recruitment activity in most sectors for the previous 6 years 2015 has so far seen a resurgence of activity across industries and levels.

Entering the first quarter after a bounce in the last half of 2014, recruiters reported a great upsurge of activity from their client base looking to increase headcount at all levels.  This has been brought about by confidence in the economic climate by candidates that no longer feel insecure and are now more able to take a chance to progress what, for the most part, has been stalled careers while riding out the recession.  Now, particularly at middle management levels, there has been a domino effect of managers departing for greener pastures and their roles requiring back-filling and this has filtered down to more junior levels, as a result. 

Positively, more companies are hiring in-house recruiters to join their busy HR teams, as this activity has stretched the skeletal staff employed through the recession and the good news is that a lot of these in-house recruitment roles are permanent, a marked difference from the contractors hired through the recession, companies only hire permanent recruiters if they can see a great deal of recruitment in the pipeline over the next year and beyond.

So now the catchphrase 'candidate market' has returned, this is similar to the 'bull market' used in financial industries.  What it means is that candidates have their pick of jobs, instead of 1 or 2 jobs there may be 10 jobs being advertised by ten different companies looking for the same people.  That means that you, as a candidate, get to pick and choose your jobs without having to compromise too much.  The flow of candidates looking to leave, although increasing is not at recessionary redundancy levels but the quality of the competitors has changed.  Instead of those made redundant and unemployed making up a large pool of available candidates during the recession, you may be up against people that have worked solidly and successfully through the recession and are now on the market but looking at options while still in a secure job.  This means you will still need to impress and work hard at interview to get the job offer. 

Incidentally, although the recruitment world are on top of this shift in market direction some companies still believe it is an 'employers market', which means they hold the balance of power in deciding who they want to hire.  This can mean that they take their time and can be too slow in a busy market. They also haven't yet moved on offering higher salaries or sign on bonuses such as seen in the boom years but this will probably start to change in 2016, as a few employers have started to incentivize new joiners. They are slowly seeing that they are losing talented people at interview stage  to competitors by being too slow and they will probably pick up speed, as the year progresses (we hope).

Recruitment goes go in cycles, matching the economic cycle and this is my second experience of riding out a recession and entering a candidate market so the vital signs are in evidence and let's hope they continue in this vein for a good time to come yet.