ROMANIA REPORTING IN
It’s always nice to know what’s going on in the neighbourhood, so we reached out to Manuela Bot, who is the brand new Head of Recruitment of our branch in Romania. She’s been with us only since June, but that doesn’t mean that she’s not already up-to-date with what’s going on with their labour market.
- It’s been some time since Covid hit Romania. Looking back, what do you see as the important changes on the market due to the pandemic?
Well, first of all, with people being forced to work from home, it’s pretty obvious, that hybrid or remote work being seen as the new normal – job ads that specify “remote or hybrid type of work” attract even 5 times more candidates than the ones from the office. Also, candidates seem to be more passive nowadays, recruiting is now more than ever about hunting and active searches. In a situation like this, recruiters’ know-how and their personalised approach can make the difference. With remote working, people got used to a more easy transition from work to personal life, so candidates are specifically looking for companies that can offer a proper work life balance. Also, both the candidates’ journey and the employee’s onboarding are becoming more important topics than before covid.
- Knowing all this, which platforms yield the best results in finding talents?
For direct search – LinkedIn is still the most appropriate for us (for seniors, specialists, and more complex profiles; even though I am happy to see more and more students and interns appear on LinkedIn also). We could add Ejobs, Gipo, Glassdoor and many others, but the LinkedIn Recruiter account is the most useful for us, at the moment.
- Are candidates more or less willing to change jobs per your current impression?
It’s been known that people are, by nature, resistant to change. What we can do, as people practise specialists is to continue educating the public, and setting correct expectations for our candidates regarding the job opportunities, the salaries available in the market and the effort needed to access these opportunities.
- What should a recruitment agency keep in mind to be successful? What should we focus on in your opinion?
A recruitment agency should focus on clients’ satisfaction and retention, on finding new opportunities in the market and on building an experienced and cohesive team.
A successful recruitment agency must focus on speed, without neglecting quality. In other words, agencies must understand the profile, find, and deliver the best candidates from the market, while taking the shortest amount of time (24, 48 hours) to do it.
Emphasising customer experience is so important!
Also, for the team to be successful, all of them must be adaptable – to have the ability to adjust to each client, depending on their specific profiles and needs.
And to be resilient (working in an agency can be an emotional roller coaster).
You must look at the silver lining: understand that they can learn from every feedback received from the client; and to be cohesive, because it is a demanding job, that can be done by a united team. Also, having a strong sense of humour is a must for every successful long term team member of a recruiting agency.
- How challenging is the recruitment work nowadays per your experience?
The challenges are growing. But technology, remote work, can help. The physical borders of countries will no longer matter in the struggle for human resources. On the long term, the future will belong mostly to the companies that will be willing and open to hire people remotely, to work from anywhere. Also, internal training, internships, and trainee programmes, as well as professional reconversion, will increasingly become the new reality.
- Do you miss times before Covid? Was it easier to hire back then?
The labour market was always challenging, even before Covid. Hiring was not necessarily easier before the pandemic. It brought new challenges, for sure, but also new opportunities – technology helps us now to access human resources not only from a specific location, but also it increases our chances of finding suitable candidates – in a larger search area.
