What can Recruiters do to tackle a Skills Shortage?

According to a survey conducted by the Recruitment & Employment Confederation (REC) in December 2016 – almost half of UK employers are expecting a skills shortage when recruiting in 2017.

With the above being noted – recruiters are having to rethink their strategies in order to attract the seemingly ‘hard to come by’ candidates.

So, we’ve pulled together our top 3 tips on recruiting during a skills shortage:

1. Recruit for values

Tackling the skills shortage isn’t entirely about attracting and recruiting candidates who already have the skills you need. In many cases – it can be more beneficial to hire candidates whose skills are transferable to your organisation, and have the potential and ability to pick up and learn the skills you’re missing.

Values-based recruitment is a recruitment method that’s used extensively in the Care sector (an industry that sits very high on the skills shortage scale). However, the idea also applies to recruitment across all sectors. It’s an approach adopted to help attract and select inexperienced candidates (not necessarily at entry-level; the lack of experience could just be in your sector), whose personal values and behaviours align with those of your organisation.

2. Invest in Future Talent

Graduates, School-Leavers and Apprentices all fall within the remit of Future Talent, and recruiting them can be a strong method of future-proofing your skills and filling your gaps.

Future Talent want to learn, meaning you can teach them any of the skills that you want and need them to have to become a valuable asset to your organisation. Not only this, but further investing in your Future Talent with ‘buddying schemes’ gives them time with your experienced employees, who can share their knowledge.

3. Increase your Online Presence

Technology is improving leaps and bounds every single year, and will continue to for the foreseeable future.

These improvements have provided recruiters with more tools than ever to reach out to and engage with their candidates – your talent pool is bigger than it ever has been. Increasing your online presence and taking advantage of all online platforms will put you directly into contact with the candidates that you want to speak to, whilst building awareness around your employer brand.

Shout about who you are online – your candidates will hear you.

To give you the best possible chance of filling all of your vacancies with the skills you need – you should look to implement a number of different recruitment methods. Sticking to what you’ve always done can be dangerous.

It’s important to remember that, especially during a skills shortage, you don’t always need to recruit employees with years of experience, because experience doesn’t always demonstrate skills or ability. But, at the same time, you don’t want to be solely recruiting inexperienced candidates who don’t have the potential to learn what you need.