Does my employer branding ambition look big in this?

Something big, something very big is just around the corner. It’s looming into view and don’t we know it? Debates about TV debates, bacon sandwich consumption competences, pub landlords taking on pub drinkers. On May 7^th 2015, the most fascinating, most open, most diverse UK election in memory reaches its conclusion. With the outcome as balanced, as nuanced as it has perhaps ever been, it is interesting to see the platforms on which opposing politicians are pitching their tents. For Ed Miliband, there appears to be much focus on the parlous future of the NHS.

For David Cameron, a different tack. And jobs are very much to the fore. Cameron has spent much of the last month talking about the UK being ‘the jobs factory of Europe’ and of the last two years representing a ‘jobs miracle’. He is talking in terms of achieving, in practical rather than literal terms, full employment. UK employment currently sits at 72%, with Cameron seeking to overtake Germany’s 74%. Just Japan and Canada can boast better numbers.

Employment and jobs, lest anyone remain unaware, are front and centre. The last two years has seen a staggering turnaround in the UK labour market. (Whether this qualifies for miracle status is perhaps another thing). The latest snapshot from the Chartered Institute of Procurement and Supply suggests that firms within the UK service sector (representing some 70% of the domestic economy) are hiring at their fastest rate in 20 years. In real terms, this equates to some 70,000 hires a month.

If you’re old enough to remember the pre recession peak that was 2008 and sad enough to recall the relevant statistics from the day, the REC suggested late last year that the recruitment industry was now more than 6% larger than the dizzy heights of seven years ago. Last stats, I promise, Adzuna suggested that December 2014 had seen a year on year increase in the volume of advertised jobs of 30%.

You want more stats? Okay, no problem. And these are as telling as any. The end of last year saw the competition for jobs halving over a 12 month period. According again to Adzuna, there are now 0.85 candidates for every advertised job. Great for candidate communities, less ideal for those organisations seeking to make their case, land their employer brand and bring those candidates on board. Less competition for jobs, less choice of candidates.

For the CBI, ‘the worsening skills shortage is the biggest threat to Britain’s competitiveness this year’.

And this is early February. Early readings suggest the economy will speed up its already respectable growth rate and hit 0.7% for the year’s first quarter. If candidate competition for jobs halved last year, it won’t be getting any easier for recruiting organisations in 2015.

It’s a big problem.

It’s such a big issue that much of the election will be fought around the job issue. Cameron will be repeating his mantra about the UK being ‘Europe’s jobs factory’ and Miliband will take the position that many of the new jobs created pay poorly and offer little security. The fate and fabric of the UK will be shaped largely around the question of jobs.

Indeed, the careers of these two individuals rest to a degree on how well they pitch their respective thoughts on jobs.

Jobs, careers and employment really are that big right now.

But do we as an industry grasp this to the same extent? The CBI continued along similar lines, suggesting that skill and labour shortages now rank as the biggest threat to UK competitiveness for the first time in the last 17 years, surpassing as it has worries over regulation.

There are certainly signs. The recruitment communications and employer branding industry hosted perhaps their gala event of the year a week or so ago. The RADs, as they’re known, demonstrated a pleasing upturn in terms of quality, thought and execution. Equally pleasing was TMP emerging with no fewer than four gongs on the evening.

But are we as an industry making a big enough case for focus, investment and momentum around this skills crisis?

As we have suggested recently before, the war for talent is over. Sorry about that. And it’s been won by talent. Employers (and their resourcing partners) need to be aware of this and respond accordingly. And is this happening? Not according to the ever-astute Dr John Sullivan in the US. He estimates that up to 90% of hiring managers and recruitment leads remain mentally, attitudinally and financially fixed in the soft hiring markets of 2010-2013. Our own experience would suggest that such a position is not exclusive to his side of the Atlantic.

Perhaps not surprisingly, the major political parties can teach us all about the nuances and subtleties of branding. More surprising perhaps is that much of the substance and content behind this brand positioning is around a subject most readers of this blog will see as their own territory – jobs and employment.