In the last recession employers who overly reduced recruitment suffered a talent shortage in the upturn that was difficult and expensive to fill. ISE CEO, Stephen Isherwood, offers advice to support student and graduate recruiters making critical recruitment decisions that could impact the future of the organization.

When you are in crisis management mode the pressures of resolving immediate problems can make it hard to consider the long-term impacts of your decisions. Yet evidence from previous recessions shows the impact on vacancies in the graduate market are often not as severe as predicted.

Every business is facing unique challenges, and some will have to take more drastic action than others.

Today’s graduate and apprentice hires are your talent pipeline for the future, the high performers who will fill critical roles in the coming years. If you don’t factor in your organisation’s future needs, you could face one of many resourcing problems as the economy recovers:

• Your organisation could lack key talent in delivery roles when the economy expands so productivity and output suffer.
• You could struggle to find the talent in the labour market as all organisations overly trimmed recruitment – it doesn’t exist.
• Even if the talent exists elsewhere, you may have to pay a premium in search fees and salary packages to hire in the open market.
• Hires brought in at a more senior level can lack the knowledge and experience gained by home grown talent.

When making the business case to protect early talent hiring you may be able to use as evidence the recruitment costs for lateral hires and challenges faced when sourcing at higher levels.

Seek out those in your organisation who have experience of previous downturns for evidence from previous recovery cycles.

By taking informed decisions now, you will strike the right balance in your resource planning that deals with the immediate crisis and delivers success in the long-term for your organisation.

This is an excerpt from ISE’s Student Employer’s Guide to Covid-19

You can find more insight on how employers are dealing with the current situation in ISE’s research report: how student recruitment and development teams are responding to coronavirus