Legal job seekers' intentions

The candidate shortage has led firms to rethinking their attraction and retention strategies. For many, this meant increased salaries and bonuses, office fit-outs, new and improved benefits packages, flexible work hours and location. The lack of talent brought hiring managers to relax candidate criteria in order to fill their vacancies, and recruit more temporary workers to cover staff shortages.

So what are job seekers' intentions for 2022?

25% - Looking for a new job right now

24% - Looking for a job in the next 3 months

8% - Looking for a job in the next 6 months

2% - Looking for a job in the next 12 months

41% - Won't look for a job within the next year

Recruitment challenges in 2022

The recruitment process has become more challenging, with a clear decrease in the number of applicants, but also candidate hesitancy in their job search: more job seekers have been unexpectedly pulling out of the recruitment process without notice to the hiring manager, and more have also rejected or negotiated their contract after offer.

The biggest recruitment challenges of 2021 and 2022 have been:

69% - There has been a decrease in the number of applications

44% - More job seekers are negotiating their contracts after offer

43% - There has been a significant increase in rejected job offers

30% - Job seekers have ghosted hiring managers more than ever

To counter these undesirable challenges, hiring managers need to identify

early in the process why candidates are looking for a new role in order to assess their desire to join a new organisation, but also understand salary and benefits expectations earlier so the job offer complements those. By doing so and by reviewing their employer value proposition, organisations will be able to write job ads that perform better and attract more candidates, identify candidates that are less likely to pull out, and reduce the number of offers rejected or renegotiated at the end of the process.