Staffing Firms Rejoice

The economy isn’t just heating up for job seekers—it’s also turning out to be a hot year for employment agencies. Staffing and executive search specialists say they’re seeing a significant uptick in the number of companies looking to hire for both temporary and permanent positions, with some saying the demand for talent has reached pre-recession levels. “We’re looking at one of the strongest years we’ve had in a while—we’re going back to the 2006 and 2007 economy,” says Barry Roy, branch manager for Robert Half International
in Manchester.

More than one-third of employers expect to add full-time, permanent employees in 2015, according to CareerBuilder’s annual job forecast—the best outlook from the survey since 2006.

The survey found that:

• Temporary employment is expected to pick up over the next year. Employers are struggling to fill in-demand roles;

• 46 percent of employers plan to hire temporary or contract workers in 2015, up from 42 percent last year;

• Of those employers, 56 percent plan to transition some temporary or contract workers into full-time, permanent roles.

“Things are heating up. It reminds me of the late 90s, when the economy was really booming,” says Paul Wilson, president of Wilson Employment in Bedford.

For staffing firms, those hiring trends mean there’s much more demand for qualified candidates, especially for those with backgrounds in technology, finance and accounting, human resources, and marketing and sales. “The indicator for us is when we start struggling to find talent and when more companies are calling into our offices to find people, we know things are shifting, and we’re seeing both of those trends in the last few months,” says Roy.

Among the most in-demand candidates are those in IT, in-house finance executives and accountants. Both industries require highly specialized skills, making it difficult to find qualified candidates. In NH, IT in particular is “very sought after right now. It’s an incredibly competitive market. New Hampshire has continued to add strong, impressive tech companies and looking for top talent becomes even more competitive,” says Matt Nagler, founder and managing partner of  BANK W Holdings, the parent company of recruiting and staffing firms in Bedford, Portsmouth, and Woburn, Mass. “There’s a plain and simple shortage of talented people in those areas.”

Marketing and sales professionals hit hard during the recession now may find themselves with a wealth of new opportunities, says Wilson. “During the recession there was a plethora of candidates flooding the market as companies downsized their sales and marketing departments. Now, we’re seeing a lot more demand in those sectors,” he says.

As for the human resources demand, that’s an indicator that companies plan to continue hiring and need HR professionals to help manage that growth, says Nagler. “HR has come back really well. With both the current workload of trying to hire people as well as the future forecasts for growth, these companies are proactively hiring talent,” he says.

Staffing professionals also report that candidates transitioning from one career to another are finding new positions faster. “Typically it would take three to four months to make a career transition, and now they’re landing in a new position in two to three months,” says Len Rishkofski, former president and CEO of Snowden Associates, an executive search firm, and now a director with Stanton Chase International, an executive search consulting firm.

Rishkofski says he’s also seen a surge in the number of companies seeking help with filling positions, but is cautiously optimistic. “My goal this year is to get us back to where we were in 2008 when the world came to an end. If we can do that, we’ll know we’ve turned a corner on this economy,” he says.

A Tight Market

The increased demand for talent has meant staffing firms are beginning to feel the pinch of a tightening labor pool. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there are 5 million job openings, up 32 percent from two years ago and the most job openings since January 2001. But a survey by the National Federation of Independent Business found that more than half (54 percent) of small businesses reported hiring or trying to hire, but almost as many (43 percent) cited few or no qualified applicants for open positions.

“We’re seeing a real limit in the candidate pool as far as candidates seeking employment and finding those qualified applicants,” says Wilson, who says the company is searching social media sites and reaching out to people with certain skillsets, but still struggles to find qualified applicants. Agencies that do find a strong candidate must move quickly, says Roy. “We’re in a position where we have to be moving with an extreme sense of urgency. Otherwise, we’re losing good talent.”

Part of the tight market may be  a wariness by some workers to make a move. According to recent survey results from the global outplacement and executive coaching firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc. in Chicago, only 28 percent of 1,000 people surveyed said they believed they would be able to find new employment inside three months. That confidence level is only fractionally higher than in 2013, when 23 percent said they thought they would be able to find a new job within three months.

But staffing specialists say the demand from hiring companies is steady enough that job seekers shouldn’t be afraid to test the waters. “Three or four years ago, people wouldn’t even consider making a change. People were so afraid it wouldn’t work out, that they wouldn’t have any choices, but now there’s a huge demand for candidates,” Wilson says. “I think it’s actually becoming a candidate market versus an employment market for hiring. Candidates will have more opportunities to pick and choose
their employment.”