CMA Recruitment: 2021 saw incredible candidate demand

Richard Dibden, Commercial Director of CMA Recruitment, discusses the company's sponsorship of the Mid-range Deal of the Year category for the Solent Deals Awards 2022.

Dibden talks about the high demand for staff during the pandemic and the uncertainty the company experienced in the beginning stages of lockdown.

The Solent Deals Awards 2022 celebrates the Solent region's corporate finance advisers, lawyers, bankers, private equity investors and accountants; the ceremony will take place on 24 March.

What has been your main motivator to sponsor the Solent Deals Awards?

CMA Recruitment Group has been involved in the Solent Deals Awards for a number of years now and despite the obvious lifestyle and market challenges of the last 2 years, the M&A market has proved incredibly resilient over this period and we are keen to acknowledge this.

CMA is delighted to be supporting the Solent Deals Awards once again in order to showcase the amazing businesses we have in the South, along with the strength of the professional advisory community. This has enabled an impressive volume of transactions, including some complex and high profile deals, which have added significant value to the Solent region.

What kind of qualities does a team need to take home an award from this event?

Transactions can take many forms, in terms of size, complexity and commercial rationale. But for a team to be successful in the Solent Deals Awards and specifically for the ‘Mid-range Deal of the Year’ category which CMA is sponsoring, they need to demonstrate they have added significant strategic value and revenue potential to the on-going performance and vision for the business.

Strong collaboration with a number of advisors in the South is also important to enable the region to continue to prosper and support the local infrastructure.

What were the challenges your company faced during the pandemic and how did you overcome them?

Demand for staff and top talent in the region has been incredibly volatile over the pandemic. The initial lockdown period saw a considerable drop in job volumes due to the uncertainty in the market and ‘fear of the unknown’. Whilst the option to furlough staff was taken by many in the recruitment sector to reflect job volumes, CMA took the decision not to furlough any of the consultancy team and instead to focus on supporting our client and candidate community.

This has shifted the focus even further towards candidate availability with our multifaceted candidate attraction methodology having to operate at full pace to satisfy the demand.

Can you name some of the recent trends in the recruitment sector in the South East region this year?

In addition to the extremely high demand for staff over 2021 and the well-documented candidate shortages, we have seen considerable pay inflation, particularly for newly hired staff. This was increasingly evident as we progressed through 2021 as the ‘war for talent’ heightened with niche roles and experience commanding the greatest increases.

Work flexibility has also surfaced as one of the major requirements, if not the number one prerequisite, for people looking for their next position. With the self-imposed ‘Working from Home’ model over the lockdowns proving it can be successful, individuals are keen to achieve at least a hybrid work situation in order to maintain work-life balance aspirations.

What do you expect in the short and medium term?

Despite the on-going challenges and threats of new variants, we see the recruitment market continuing to be extremely buoyant throughout 2022. The high level of demand will require businesses to display an urgency to their recruitment processes and be able to articulate compelling reasons for potential new staff to choose them over and above other organisations. This needs to be allied to a competitive salary/benefits package and the offer of work flexibility that is clearly desired and is here to stay.

From speaking to our client base across the Solent area on a daily basis, the overriding sentiment is of growth, recovery and investment and therefore we are very optimistic of a positive period for the region and the UK as a whole.

Learn more about the Solent Deals Awards 2022 here.