So, what does the world hold in terms of recruitment for CX professionals moving forward?! That – is the million dollar question isn’t it?! I can honestly say that I wish I knew! However, without a crystal ball to peer into – I can only give you my opinion on what the future holds and you can make of that what you will.
In our experience – CX recruitment has been quite badly hit in recent months – think Brexit, think election and now the ultimate in s**t storms – coronavirus!! What will happen moving forward is anyone’s guess. My own personal guess is that those firms with strong customer visions will continue to recruit as they see the importance of constantly improving the customer experience to retain customers and see an increase in referrals and so will rightly invest. Keep an eye on those companies who have continued to offer exemplary service and experiences for their customers. Look also to those companies who have quickly adapted their offering to suit the changing market. Some firms will have a recruitment freeze across the board potentially for many months to safeguard their existing employees and rightly so! These are all organisations to watch! Those companies with strong employee experiences also tend to be those with excellent CX reputations and so moving forward are likely to invest in new permanent hires in time.
With the reversal of the IR35 regulations for another year – it is likely that this will revive the contract and interim market. Permanent senior CX hires are likely to be put off and interims brought in to oversee CX projects and programmes. There will of course be a need to get those senior hires in place permanently – particularly towards the end of the year and the end of the IR35 extension. This will give firms time to ensure that the right person is put in place – assuming they give enough time for the recruitment process of course! I believe that firms will place even more importance on getting THE RIGHT person into a role than ever before. Hopefully they will use specialist agencies to find the right talent! I wonder also whether people will be likely to move around from job to job less than they have before and spend longer with employers again- a concept that has up to now been deeply unfashionable. This might allow greater job security and encourage businesses to be more diligent in their talent development and put sound career paths in place to retain talent – who knows!? HR professionals are going to have their work cut out – whichever way you look at it!
Digital transformation roles are likely to be hot – companies are seeing the need to move forward digitally quickly and effectively to keep pace with changing demands and in case anything like this ever happens again. So digital CX roles are more likely to be in more abundance once any recruitment freeze ends. Digital Product, Change Management roles, Customer Insight roles and M&A roles are also likely to be more popular as businesses look to adapt to the new landscape – as are the Insight and Data Analysis roles which can bring clarity to the changing marketplace and help shape how business can and should respond.
I also think that after this lockdown period – companies and Hiring Managers will be able to see how effectively people can work remotely. This will surely open up talent to organisations who might have previously felt a candidate was located too far away. This will be a huge and tangible benefit from this peculiar situation we find ourselves in. This will also mean that the job market will become even more competitive as the candidate pool for opportunities becomes much larger. So it’s even more important that candidates are on point with their CVs and Linkedin profiles.
In the short term, when furloughing comes to an end and companies have to rationalise staffing levels to match their new reality, it is likely again that there will more candidates in the marketplace for roles. So if you are looking for a role, really do act fast now to sharpen up your CV and LinkedIn profile to really accurately reflect your best, most marketable self.
Ultimately – we don’t know what is going to happen in Customer Experience moving forward. CX Talent Ltd intend to still be here and whatever the future holds for Customer Experience recruitment CX Talent Ltd is your go to partner whether you are a candidate or client or both. We will find you the RIGHT person for your role or the RIGHT job for you! Keep in touch with us – we are all in this together!
Watch out for our exciting new service launch – coming VERY soon!
