Digital recruitment agency Prosperity said that due to the impacts of Covid-19, many highly skilled job candidates are now on the market.
According to Dublin-based agency Prosperity Recruitment, the impact of Covid-19 has led to a “surge of highly skilled talent” entering the market. The company said it has seen a significant number of skilled, sought-after candidates crop up in its network in recent weeks.
Prosperity’s managing director, Gary Mullan, said that in his 20 years in the industry, he has never before seen a surge like this.
“We have seen candidates get in touch over the last few days who we haven’t heard from in years,” he said. “It is unusual to see this level of skill and talent coming into us directly.”
Prosperity noted the difference between the current recruitment landscape in Ireland and the situation last month, when the country was nearing full employment.
According to ESRI’s latest quarterly report, Ireland’s unemployment rate is predicted to surge from 4.8pc in February of this year to 18pc in the second quarter due to the impact of the coronavirus pandemic.
Resurgent market
In the digital sector, Prosperity had been seeing “extremely high demand” for professionals in such fields as performance marketing, user experience, data and web programming.
But now, the agency said that businesses are scaling back operations or putting projects on hold, meaning many workers in these areas now have to explore new employment options.
Looking forward to what the company believes will be a “resurgent market”, Mullan emphasised the importance of staying positive.
“Some candidates are optimistic that this will lift soon and things will turn around within a couple of months,” he said. “Right now, the conversations are about keeping spirits and motivation up. We’ve been advising candidates about their options once the upturn eventually happens.”
Mullan also said that recruitment processes are still underway despite most businesses having to adjust to working remotely.
“At this point we have had no clients cancel recruitment assignments, but a share of them are putting decisions on hold or pushing out start dates.”
He advised companies to set out strategies that “enable them to keep conversations going with candidates”.
“When this crisis passes, they will then be well-positioned to hire staff quickly and return to normal as soon as possible,” he said. “If demand recovers quickly, these companies will be able to take advantage of the bounce back.”
Prosperity said that people facing unemployment should invest time in online courses to ensure their skills are current when recruitment kicks off again.
