Fred Recruitment February Update

Fred’s February Newsletter

Whilst January felt cautiously optimistic, February felt like the real start to 2025 for us.  NZ businesses are back into full swing, and this year there is a noticeable shift.

We always say the recruitment industry is at the coal face of the ebbs and flows of the economy.  Particularly so for us, as we are a generalist agency that works across all industries.  By the time the media are discussing it, we have been experiencing it for months.  With that said, what are we noticing so far?

Sales roles

Account Management and BDM roles appear to be on the rise this year with Fred recruiting a record number of them. Businesses are investing in their sales teams and holding a very high standard to the candidates they will consider.  Sales roles remain very well paid in the market.  Job seekers with strong sales records know their worth, and will always chase positions with good pay structures, and a reputable offering.  We have already placed several good sales candidates this year and have some fantastic talent on the books looking for work.

Salaries

Candidates in certain roles (construction especially) are bending extensively to meet the market – while we don’t recommend heavy negotiations on this front, it is a time in recruitment where job security factors more highly than hourly rate or annual salary.  On the contrary, we don’t always recommend negotiating candidates down on salary. The result is you’ll hold people for a short time, they will continue to watch the market and you’ll be replacing them again before you know it.  Replacing good people is expensive – in the current market the cost of a bad hire is in excess of 20% of the employee’s annual salary, not including the time it can take to replace the person.

Redundancies

There are still plenty of organisations teetering downsizing or closing their doors, though we feel that the peak of the number of organisations restructuring has been and gone.  We speak to hundreds of active job seekers each week, and the shift is slowly moving away from ‘readily available’ to people having notice periods.  We anticipate 2025 will need all of the 12 months ahead to continue to recover on this front.

Confidence

While we can never generalise what the whole market is doing, there is less discussion around what a rough time it’s been and more looking to the future to build strong growth going forward.  We speak to many businesses across the country on a daily basis, and can confidently say, the mood is shifting to being considerably more positive.

Internal news at Fred.

Hard to believe but Fred turns 1 in March – we are celebrating this with some tennis and Aperols because in true Fred form, we are always up for a bit of competition and we do love to get the team together to celebrate over a bevvie.

We are loving the new office space and renewed collaboration this year.  It has us thinking about what we do differently.  If you don’t know the inner workings of the agency you’re partnering with, now is a good time to ask the questions that will affect your business.

Does your agency reach out to all the market, or just post an ad and hope?

Does your agency have the capacity and investment in search tools to even access the passive market?  (60% of our placements are from the best candidates who weren’t currently looking for a new role.)

Does your agency stand by their work – in particular, are you being billed appropriately for your recruitment or are you being billed for incomplete work, and then held to an agreement that isn’t servicing your need?

Does your agency have the power of the whole team across the roles you’re working with them on? At Fred the team is very focused on collaboration over your roles, and often times the right person comes from an internal referral within the consulting team.  This is highly unusual in recruitment, but means you have a team and not just a consultant when you engage us.

At Fred we prioritise our partnership experience, so if you would like any support please don’t hesitate to reach out to us.