The PR Recruitment market is healthy with excellent candidate skill levels says Ros Kindersley of JFL Recruitment

In our monthly catch up with Ros Kindersley, PRmoment reports that although the PR recruitment market seems to be relatively buoyant, there are concerns about how many new jobs are currently being created. What the affect of the 25% public sector redundancies will be is also uncertain. PRmoment: What are the trends in the PR interim market right now?  RK:I think that most people would agree that the interim market has sustained a reassuring buoyancy in the past six months and I am happy to report that JFL is over 20% ahead of this time last year.  What I find interesting is that there has been a decrease in public sector interim roles as a direct reflection of the cuts in the public sector, whereas in the private sector we are seeing an increase.  And 50% of this is due to maternity leave cover, usually as a 12 month contract, now that mothers are entitled to one year’s leave.   We are also noticing that the freelance market seems to be growing again.  At the beginning of the year we saw many PR consultancies cut back on freelancers, but they are now re-engaging them. Any interesting trends in the PR permanent placements market? As far as JFL is concerned, we have a healthy 20% increase on year to date for permanent placements from October/November 2009.  There is a lot more activity in the job market and this is being fuelled by people who have stayed in their jobs, ridden out the worst of the recession and now really need to move for career development.  So from a recruitment perspective, this is good news as the quality of candidates is great.  These are often ‘business critical’ employees who can add value to their new employer. Are their lots of new jobs on the market, or is the current level of activity more about churn between jobs? While the increase of activity is due to ‘churn’ rather than growth in the market, the new jobs are not purely replacement vacancies.  What we are finding is that when a ‘business critical’ employee moves from one company to another it creates more of a vortex than a vacuum and inspires a rethink or restructure in the original team.  This often results in at least one newly created role, prompted by the need to be innovative and to look forward. What are your predictions for Q1 next year? Innovation.  I find that on entering a recession the first reaction is ‘When is everything going to get back  normal?’ or ‘I am losing business, when am I going to get it back?’  In reality, when you come out of a recession you are often in a very different place.  It is rather like taking an aeroplane to Italy and finding you have landed in Holland.  You are not where you expected to be and feel disorientated.  It takes a while to accept that Holland is not Italy, but you can still make a go of it and be just as successful, if not more so.  Therefore, innovation and fresh thinking will be essential in Q1. What are recruiters telling you? Are candidate skills up to scratch? The quality of candidates is very good.  As I mentioned above, these are often the ‘business critical’ people who have weathered the recession, stayed in their jobs for 3-4 years and now need to move.  The very nature of the recession means that they have honed their skills and had to be inventive to keep their motivation alive.  It also means that their CVs show a good track record of career moves, rather than short shots of one job change after another.  Recruiters prefer candidates who show the ability to sustain a role through more than one business cycle and understand the high and low – or beginning, middle and end – of the cycle. What’s your take on the likelihood of a swathe of ex public sector PROs coming onto the jobs market? How employable are they likely to be? Will we see a period of reduced wage inflation in the PR market as the supply of labour outstrips demand? We are already receiving CVs from the Public Sector.  With 25% redundancy scheduled for many public sector organizations we are expecting an influx.  The advice I am giving is to think laterally, try to be entrepreneurial in your approach and above all, be innovative.  You are not going to find a replica of your current role, but by looking outside your comfort zone you may find a great opportunity to use your skills to do something different. If your are looking to recruit in the UK PR market, then maybe you should use PRmoment Jobs. It's a great way to target 11,000 UK based PROs.