Here is a bit of nice news to take us to Christmas. The Times Fast Track 100 league table came out at the start of the month. 20% of the fastest growing companies last year were recruitment companies, representing the largest industry grouping to demonstrate that growth. On reading further, the majority are niche recruiters. Obviously many recruiters are still struggling badly at present but this shows that if some firms can achieve superb growth there is hope for all.
Many businesses reduced permanent headcount during the height of the downturn and projects planned to start during this time were canned with no real impact or risk assessment. Most businesses I worked with during this time simply stopped all but critical projects instantly and culled large chunks of workforce. Once the impact of this knee jerk reaction was fully understood and with no employees to restart important business activities and projects, most have been forced to turn to the temporary recruitment industry for help to cover the shortfall. Ironically I have seen many instances of the same people who, having been made redundant only a few months ago are now engaged through an agency on a temporary contract at 3 times the pre redundancy cost, redundancy package tucked safely away in the bank! This situation is exacerbated by lengthy recruitment processes and often unnecessarily complex layers of middle management sign off of permanent headcount positions.
So maybe there is a question around whether the downturn may have been extremely beneficial for those recruiters already partnered with such organisations or for those who have been smart enough to identify the opportunity and forge relationships in these areas.