In honour of Shelflife’s 30th year milestone this month our Director of Grocery Retail Recruitment, Nikki Murran, thought it would be fun to reflect on the changes in recruitment over the last three decades.
When our founder Barry Whelan started recruiting, we had a fax machine, recruiters smoked at their desks and everyone wore a full suit every day, there was no zoom calls, every interview was in person and What’sApp didn’t exist!
The evolution of technology has obviously had some of the biggest impacts on how we recruit, from how we advertise, how candidates apply and how candidates are referenced to how we communicate between candidates and employers. But there has also been a shift of focus to include soft skills, a heightened awareness on diversity and inclusion, the emergence of employer banding and of course remote working has been added to the mix.
The market has flipped several times over the last 30 years. If you look back to 1994, the year of Shelflife’s first publication, unemployment was nearly 15%, so jobs were in short supply, with an abundance of candidates on the market. Some notable retailers of the day would have included Crazy Prices, Quinnsworth, St Bernard’s Dunnes Stores and Superquinn. Notably Aldi and Lidl had not yet joined the market.
By 2001 the unemployment rate has drop as low as 4% where is would stay for the next number of years while Ireland experienced the Celtic Tiger Era. Similar to today’s market, candidates where scarce and many turned away from jobs in the retail sector. Until 2009. By 2009 Ireland was experiencing a recession and unemployment was back to 12% and continued to stay at this level over the following 8 years, peaking in 2013 at nearly 14%. During this era, it was a client driven market with employers once again having ample candidates available for every open job. The last ten years has seen a steady decline in unemployment, bringing us back to today – near perfect unemployment and retailers again shouting out for talent to remain in the industry!
30 years ago, retailers looking to attract candidates would place an ad in the Irish Independent – on a Thursday – which included an address you could post your CV to and a landline number for more information. Today we have a multitude of professional online job board forums, as well as a dedicated social media platform in LinkedIn. Mind you, the old process of an “apply within” sign is still holding firm! I guess some things don’t change after all. Radio Ads also went through a phase in the early 2000’s but later died out too.
One of the more amusing trends I have noticed over the last decade is how candidates present themselves for interview. As recent as 10 years ago, every candidate wore a full suit, and every man wore a tie to an interview. This was a given, even for trainee managers or apprentice butchers and bakers coming straight from school – they borrowed a suit if they didn’t have one. Today, more and more candidates show up in much more casual attire – sometimes too casual. Fashion retailers no longer wear suits, but dress to match the brand they represent, junior candidates believe a pair of jeans and their best runners is a full effort and whilst some still wear suits, it appears ties are mostly a thing of the past!
Over the last 15 years, as the unemployment figures have come down, candidate’s behaviours have shifted substantially, nearly directly in line with the unemployment trend. The market is now full of passive candidates, rather than active. With the emergence of CV databases like Indeed and LinkedIn, increasing numbers of candidates have an expectation of being approached or headhunted, rather than compiling a CV and submitting it. With the acceptance of online interviewing, there is now a reluctance to travel too far for interviews. Whereas go back even 12 years and I don’t ever recall a candidate refusing to come to Dublin to meet me, weather they were travelling from Donegal or Cork, regardless if the job was for Deli Supervisor or Store Manager, they came, no questions asked.
There has also been more unsavoury candidate behaviour – many retailers have plenty of stories of no-show interviews, counter offered candidates and new starters leaving after a week. At the risk of sounding old, these things didn’t happen when I worked in retail – or certainly not to the extent of today’s candidates. It’s hard to know if it’s an era thing or reflective of today’s economy or perhaps both?
I’ve enjoyed watching the changes by clients over the years as they have moved from a wish lists for potential candidates which included all hard skills to a much broader wish lists, which now, nearly always, include softer skills. Most roles I had registered when I started recruitment cited things like – experience with store ordering, stock takes, floor standards, newspaper returns etc. Now, skills such as having an ability to lead people, bring their team in on the journey and increase customer engagement are much higher on the priority list. The best retailers have gone from being excellent managers to outstanding leaders instead.
And finally – formality – the whole level of formality has changed – we have gone from cover letters addressed to “Dear Sir” 30 years ago, to today’s world of Text and What’sApps!
I wonder what the next 30 years will look like!
For more information call us on 01 814 8747 or email nikki@excelrecruitment.com. You can view all of our live jobs here.
