The NPAworldwide’s twice annual business barometer survey has revealed that 47% of the 500 recruitment firms questioned have reported encouraging business performance results over the last six months.
Other findings show that 75% of those surveyed reported business performance as being either on the expected level or above in the last 90 days and as many as 72% of respondents are positive when it comes to looking at the next six months.
President of NPAworldwide, Dave Nerz, said, “Member recruiters are very positive about business conditions over the last 180 days and see a continuation of positive momentum for the future.
“More than 90% of the independent business owners surveyed are forecasting similar or improved market conditions in the next 180 days.”
He added, “Member recruitment firms view manufacturing / operations / engineering as a strong vertical market segment producing results for recruiters. Accounting / finance is also quite a hot vertical and human resources had several mentions for the first time in recent memory. Results of the business barometer survey point to increasingly positive results for independent firms working these active and positive segments.
“Candidates and sourcing of passive talent versus scraping names from LinkedIn is the challenge for truly strong recruitment firms. The healthy nature of the recruitment industry has created many new firms, services and competitors for independents. The market is fully candidate-driven now. Client assignments are taking longer to fill and perfect-fit talent is difficult to locate. Most member firms and the clients they serve have multiple jobs open.”