Recruiters’ high hopes on the High Street
23 January 2013
After several high-profile retailers ran into major difficulties in recent weeks, recruiters to the industry tell Recruiter they are confident in the broader health of the sector and in the continued demand for their services.
Wed, 23 Jan 2013
After several high-profile retailers ran into major difficulties in recent weeks, recruiters to the industry tell Recruiter they are confident in the broader health of the sector and in the continued demand for their services.
All stores of electronics retailers Comet and Jessops have recently ceased trading, respectively in November of last year and earlier this month. In addition to the thousands of jobs lost there, film and games rental chain Blockbuster’s future is in the balance as it is currently in administration. Meanwhile hopes for troubled entertainment retailer HMV have been raised after restructuring specialist Hilco took effective control by buying its debt.
A key message from industry staffing providers is that retail recruiters will prosper if they can adapt to new realities of the digitalising High Street – and that even on the bricks and mortar High Street itself, there is still money to be made.
But the prospect of more retail talent becoming available is greeted with some caution by recruiters. Justin Linger, director at Barracuda Group, which includes specialist mid-tier retail search firm G2exec, says: “There is talent inherent in these businesses and people will find jobs elsewhere, hopefully in retail. Also, I don’t think that the High Street is dead – so there will always be a need for good retail operators.”
He adds: “There is a dearth of really good retail skill sets across the market, so there will always be a need for companies to upskill.” As such, he adds: “Headhunters are always going to be needed really.”
Grant Morris, managing director of retail recruiter Elite Associates cautions that despite a potential influx of candidates from collapsed businesses, “it is always going to be difficult to find good candidates”.
This view is echoed by Charlie Ryan, managing director of The Recruitment Queen, which works with several SME and high-profile retail names. “Yes there will be a flood in the market to a certain extent, but our experience on interviewing and meeting the 'talent’ within retail in the more traditional sales assistant role are not proving to be ‘talent’ required by the market. There is a higher expectation on service and communication, both skills which don't appear to have been honed well in this field.”
She also notes that those working in head office and support will have broader options and “will not need to stay in the retail industry as their job function is more relevant and is likely to exist in most industries”.
Ryan further worries that “over the last five years, retail has become the fall-back position as opposed to the career choice”. The present bad news might further deter people from making it their career of choice – and she adds that workers in the sector “may need to think about how transferrable their skills are to the leisure industry which is growing in terms of public presence”.
But Morris disagrees: “It’s more of a career than it’s ever been, that’s my view, people just have to be more selective with who they’re working for,” he says. Frontline staff, he adds, will have found the sector more open to engaging with their skills and abilities “because lately companies are realising that it’s not all about head office, they’ve started to put a lot more emphasis on making sure they’ve got the right frontline people selling the product.”
Adapting to change is key, as Barracuda’s Linger notes. “The fact of the matter is that the market is changing, it’s becoming a digital High Street and businesses which are one-dimensional in terms of their offering are susceptible.” There is therefore an opportunity for recruiters to bring in the talent able to help businesses prosper in this new reality. Prospects are good, Linger says, but “only for those recruiters – like for the retailers themselves – who adapt”.
Aside from recent bad news, the biggest story in retail this week was the opening of Tesco’s latest so-called ‘dark store’, a mix of distribution centre and customer-free shop at which online orders are fulfilled.
With Amazon also increasing warehouse facility staff and head office positions of late, behind the dire headlines good news continues to emerge from the industry. As Chris O’Connell, the chief executive of executive recruiter Timothy James Consulting – which has seen significant recent uplift in e-commerce recruitment demand – puts it: “Due to the online element, some people are seeing retail as an emerging market.”
After several high-profile retailers ran into major difficulties in recent weeks, recruiters to the industry tell Recruiter they are confident in the broader health of the sector and in the continued demand for their services.
All stores of electronics retailers Comet and Jessops have recently ceased trading, respectively in November of last year and earlier this month. In addition to the thousands of jobs lost there, film and games rental chain Blockbuster’s future is in the balance as it is currently in administration. Meanwhile hopes for troubled entertainment retailer HMV have been raised after restructuring specialist Hilco took effective control by buying its debt.
A key message from industry staffing providers is that retail recruiters will prosper if they can adapt to new realities of the digitalising High Street – and that even on the bricks and mortar High Street itself, there is still money to be made.
But the prospect of more retail talent becoming available is greeted with some caution by recruiters. Justin Linger, director at Barracuda Group, which includes specialist mid-tier retail search firm G2exec, says: “There is talent inherent in these businesses and people will find jobs elsewhere, hopefully in retail. Also, I don’t think that the High Street is dead – so there will always be a need for good retail operators.”
He adds: “There is a dearth of really good retail skill sets across the market, so there will always be a need for companies to upskill.” As such, he adds: “Headhunters are always going to be needed really.”
Grant Morris, managing director of retail recruiter Elite Associates cautions that despite a potential influx of candidates from collapsed businesses, “it is always going to be difficult to find good candidates”.
This view is echoed by Charlie Ryan, managing director of The Recruitment Queen, which works with several SME and high-profile retail names. “Yes there will be a flood in the market to a certain extent, but our experience on interviewing and meeting the 'talent’ within retail in the more traditional sales assistant role are not proving to be ‘talent’ required by the market. There is a higher expectation on service and communication, both skills which don't appear to have been honed well in this field.”
She also notes that those working in head office and support will have broader options and “will not need to stay in the retail industry as their job function is more relevant and is likely to exist in most industries”.
Ryan further worries that “over the last five years, retail has become the fall-back position as opposed to the career choice”. The present bad news might further deter people from making it their career of choice – and she adds that workers in the sector “may need to think about how transferrable their skills are to the leisure industry which is growing in terms of public presence”.
But Morris disagrees: “It’s more of a career than it’s ever been, that’s my view, people just have to be more selective with who they’re working for,” he says. Frontline staff, he adds, will have found the sector more open to engaging with their skills and abilities “because lately companies are realising that it’s not all about head office, they’ve started to put a lot more emphasis on making sure they’ve got the right frontline people selling the product.”
Adapting to change is key, as Barracuda’s Linger notes. “The fact of the matter is that the market is changing, it’s becoming a digital High Street and businesses which are one-dimensional in terms of their offering are susceptible.” There is therefore an opportunity for recruiters to bring in the talent able to help businesses prosper in this new reality. Prospects are good, Linger says, but “only for those recruiters – like for the retailers themselves – who adapt”.
Aside from recent bad news, the biggest story in retail this week was the opening of Tesco’s latest so-called ‘dark store’, a mix of distribution centre and customer-free shop at which online orders are fulfilled.
With Amazon also increasing warehouse facility staff and head office positions of late, behind the dire headlines good news continues to emerge from the industry. As Chris O’Connell, the chief executive of executive recruiter Timothy James Consulting – which has seen significant recent uplift in e-commerce recruitment demand – puts it: “Due to the online element, some people are seeing retail as an emerging market.”
- For more on the retail industry, see the Sector Focus from the October 2012 edition of Recruiter.
