With sector pressure and competition that can only be described as intense and volatile, the Energy & Utilities sector uses a mix of candidate sourcing channels to address their talent challenges.
We know from the 2021/22 UK Candidate Attraction Report that the Energy & Utilities sector is utilising many candidate sourcing channels. The results show that this strategy delivers a good balance of quality and quantity of candidates.
Energy & Utilities Candidate Sourcing Channels
The most used channel by in-house recruitment teams is the career site/website at 94%, followed by professional social networks (86%). Interestingly, careers/website usage has reduced slightly from the prior year (100%), which seems to have impacted the number of candidates sourced, with a reduced number of candidates. This also applies to results from professional social networks, seeing significantly reduced quantity and quality of candidates, despite just a 2% reduction in usage from the previous year.
Employee Referrals, General Job Boards and ATS/CRM have equal channel usage at 71%.
PSL/Agency use (57%) remains consistent with the prior year (56%).
The use of and results from ATS Software/Talent CRM is worthy of a mention – see top right quadrant. Often overlooked, an
Applicant Tracking System can support everything from candidate relationship management, proactive candidate sourcing, talent pooling, optimised hiring and performance tracking.
Levels of hiring in the sector over the coming year
- 68% of respondents anticipate an increase in levels of hiring
- 32% anticipate no change, and no one reported a decrease in hiring.
Will recruitment marketing budgets match anticipated increases in hiring?
Survey respondents answered as follows:
- 37% think budgets will increase
- 53% see no change
- 11% suggest a decrease in budgets
With this in mind, if UK job vacancies are at a 20-year high* and the sector is seeing an intense scarcity of candidates (79%), closely followed by competitors being seen as a more desirable employer, then we have a problem!
Post and pray recruitment, which creates an endless cycle of work for in-house recruiters and talent teams, had its day a long time ago - it’s time to revisit your recruitment & talent strategy.
Applicant Tracking System & Recruitment Platform Support
- Are you accountable for tracking the effectiveness of your recruitment efforts?
- Can you monitor the most effective sourcing channels for the type of vacancies?
- Are you using your applicant tracking system to fine-tune job adverts and react quickly to vacancy requisitions?
- Are you tapping into your recruitment platform/talent CRM to proactively connect, nurture and search for your open positions?
If not, then this is an excellent place to start. Not only will an applicant tracking system give you a competitive hiring advantage, but it will help to build and nurture talent pools. With the right tools, you can get your jobs in front of the right candidates with candidate-centric careers site content to build engagement - and automatically distribute relevant vacancies to the best job boards and search engines to ease the challenges faced.
You can download a FREE copy of the 2021/22 UK Candidate Attraction Report for sector-specific insight and compare the results against peers.
Take a tour of the key features you should be utilising to support the entire recruitment journey.
*Vacancies hit 1.1 million between July and September, the Office for National Statistics said, the highest level since records began in 2001.