4 ways recruitment agencies can help job seekers

Job hunting has evolved over the years and one of the biggest problems plaguing job seekers today is that they aren’t keeping up with all of the latest trends to land their next job or their next promotion.

We live in a time when there are zero limitations to landing jobs and that’s because the digital age has made it possible for employment globally. Whilst we now have all the tools and platforms to land jobs anywhere, what we lack is the info on getting started.

When prepping this article, I was looking over some of the top recruitment agencies and job boards’ websites and their social media; they're very underwhelming. There is no real focus on industry insights or tangible content to help job seekers or to guide employers on new roles, skills to hire for or hiring best practices.

We need those in recruitment agencies whose focus has been to specialise in hiring to start doing more. Here are four things they could be doing to help the job market:

1. Publish reports on job/position demands.

2. Publish reports on new industries that can help the Caribbean and about industries booming in other markets.

3. Act as a bridge between schools and employers.

4. Create salary reports.

Publish reports on jobs/position demands

There is nowhere to go online to get information about what jobs/positions are in demand or being heavily sought after. This is a great area for recruitment agencies to start collating the data around the positions needed. Since companies are coming to them with their needs, they should be publishing monthly reports about the posts that are being sought after.

This will give jobseekers insights into what types of positions are in demand in many different industries. They can also start creating content around positions that are on the way out. So if people are currently working those jobs for companies, they can get a head start on looking for new skills or new jobs, so they aren’t caught unaware when they get the axe.

Will this be easy? Nope, but it will help the industry and also position the agency far ahead of the others and build more trust with the public. This will lead to more companies reaching out to them to do business and more people registering with them to become clients.

Reports on new industries locally and internationally

We don’t have any place to go with information on what industries are seeing a surge in growth in the Caribbean. Sure, we hear about individual entrepreneurs doing some great things, but never enough about entire industries.

One of the questions I constantly get is people straight up asking, what industry should they get into?

I point them to websites that do training for skills and tell them to pick a skill and research, but we don’t have any local context for many of these skillsets.

Based on one minute of research on the topic of nursing in TT, here are three quick points of data.

The top five places for nursing online in TT are (in order) – Sangre Grande, Rio Claro, Point Fortin, Princes Town and San Fernando.

There were 1,600 searches for “nursing” in TT, and 66 per cent of those searches were done by people between the ages of 45-54.

That’s just one minute of data research: just imagine what you could have when a full research package is done for you or by your team.

Bridge between schools and employers

Agencies can act as the bridge between schools and employers and this would be a great time to do that. Whilst doing their research into new industries, and in-demand jobs and publishing those reports, the agencies should know exactly what schools are offering the courses needed to fill those positions or populate those industries.

I think it would be amazing for someone to read a job title, and learn about the demand in the various Caribbean countries, and schools locally, regionally and online to obtain the qualifications needed for those roles. This will also help businesses, because they don’t always know what they need or what they should expect from candidates in terms of qualifications or experience.

Salary-range reports

This one doesn’t need much explanation, but we need the agencies and job boards to step
way up in this regard.

Publish salary-range reports on industries and individual job titles. You should also force companies to list salary ranges so that companies get the most suitable candidates and candidates don’t waste their time applying for jobs that are below their salary expectations. There was one company I found that collated all of the salary range data, but charges a hefty fee to other companies to access this. We need an online free portal sharing this data, like Glassdoor or Salary.com, or other popular online platforms.

We have a long way to go to build a healthier job market across the Caribbean, but these are four things that I believe could be implemented this year and have a good impact.

Keron Rose is a digital strategist who works with Caribbean businesses to build their online presence. Learn more at KeronRose.com or check out the Digipreneur FM podcast on Apple Podcast/Spotify/Google Podcast.