Ep. 95: Brad Ledford - What Does the Job Market Look Like Now?

About Brad Ledford: https://www.dhg.com/people/userid/278?filter=bledford
Contact Brad Ledford: bledford@dhgsearch.com
or https://www.linkedin.com/in/expertrecruiterbradledford/

DHG Search:https://www.dhgsearch.com/

FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:
Adam: (00:00)
Welcome back to episode 95 of Count Me In, IMA's podcast about all things affecting the accounting and finance world. This is your host Adam Larson, and I'm here to preview today's conversation and introduce our featured guest speaker, Brad Ledford. My cohost Mitch talked to Brad about the changing job market and the new norms and job seeking, interviewing and hiring. Brad is the President of DHG Search, where he provides advisory and recruiting services for candidates in finance, accounting, audit and tax. In this episode, he explains what recruiting looks like today and describe some new opportunities in the workforce to hear a great career-related discussion, keep listening as we head over the conversation now.

Mitch: (00:48)
So Brad, to start in broad terms, from what you've seen, how has the job market really changed over the last six months? How did companies change their approach for hiring? What did the overall job availability look like? You know, just from your perspective, what has this last few months done for the job market?

Brad: (01:09)
Yeah. Great question, and there's no doubt, it looks different. The one thing the unemployment rate has jumped from 2.4% approximately now up to 8.4%, and that's down to slightly where it was maybe just just a few weeks ago. So that, that right there in itself is a very good indicator of some significant change in the job market. And what I saw during that window, as COVID-19 started to impact the marketplace, were companies really pushing the pause button or, in some cases, opportunities just drying up. And really from that, I'd say that March to May or February to June window is where that started to really show,and of course, unemployment rates started to spike. You then saw in that same window of times, companies starting to lag their process or slow their process significantly. Even if they already had just started a search or recruiting process. So a lot of times individuals would be, in the beginning stages and all of a sudden feel like, Hey we're where did that search go? Where does that process, end up and companies were kind of, Hey, wait and see mode during that window. And then some just really were not interested at all in hiring, during this last six months. So you've seen a little bit of pockets in both areas where, you know, some companies are starting to come back, but, you know, from that last six months, we've, we've seen a big change and, and how, the market has been impacted. And then part is your second question, I guess, how the companies approach hiring and what does it mean to overall job availability? You know, I think companies started to realize there are some candidates coming on to the marketplace and then they started looking at their job profile and their role and what they needed. And what I saw was companies starting to add more boxes to the checklist that they needed. So instead of it being, Hey, at 2.4, under 3% unemployment, and if these people had these couple of things and then this good accounting skills or certification or background, it jumped to, wow, I need these 10 things checked and their background to consider them for the position. So it really did change how companies were approaching, hiring, and then also, you know, availability, job availability changed. Now I'll also say it was interesting that there was, there was some organizations that looked at this as a scenario of, hey, there's an opportunity to add resumes to their database or add connections or contacts. And so you may have still saw some folks, I guess, taking candidates, but it just, it just slowed significantly.

Mitch: (04:19)
So our listeners, accounting and finance professionals, they span many industries, and I'm just curious again, from what you've seen, are there particular industries that remain more active or even successful in hiring through this? And then I'd like to get your thoughts on the opposite as well. Are there any roles or industries that really suffered more because of the change in the hiring process and the availability and everything you just mentioned?

Brad: (04:47)
Yeah. Great, great question. At the firm, I'm part of Dixon Hughes Goodman, and the team I lead within DHG Search. We go to market as an industry and service specialists, of course. And so that industry piece was very important that we had a wide range of industries we serve during this time, because there were, there was significant change in that as well. You know, a few of the industries that stood out as continuing to hire with course ones that had the essential business aspect to them, and those were construction, healthcare, some real estate, and then the other one that you saw kind of spike during this window of time, is IT, and IT companies, or IT roles because as people were going more remote, IT needed to step in and really add to their team to be able to service their own internal teams or external clients that they were serving. So those, those are a few industries that jump out to me as, as, we saw continued, activity in. And another one that was kind of surprising was automotive space, the automotive dealership space. I have a team, and a leader that does a great job in that space, and what she saw was definitely they pushed the pause button, but it kind of came back a little quicker than others. And I don't know if that was just where some confidence was or some opportunity was there for individuals to, with low interest rates or whatever the case may be to, to purchase a vehicle. And so we saw that bounce back a little quicker as well. But then there's others that were a mix I'll, I'll put healthcare in that space too, because in some areas of healthcare, it was, we need talent and we need to find talent, but there was some specialty areas where people were not being able to utilize or get out to that then also were impacted. And then the other one that was significantly hurt was hospitality, and the restaurant space. That space, there, there were companies that are no longer in business now due to this pandemic.

Mitch: (06:57)
And how about what things look like today? What is recruiting, as far as what's available and, you know, for our listeners, whether they are passively looking for work or, you know, actively looking for work, maybe they came from one of those industries that really suffered, you know, what can those looking for a job? Or those looking for recruiting help, expect today?

Brad: (07:19)
Yeah. So it looks a lot different today. the first thing I would say you want to do today is make sure you have your own technology ready to be able to do Zoom videos, paint team videos, videos, remotely of course, for these interviews. So that, that's the first thing I would say. That looks way different. A video, a viral video comes to mind as you asked that question and our world looks a little different in, and I think it was several years ago, maybe 2017, 2018, a reporter maybe in the BBC or a professor was on a reporting segment and his child walked through the background of the video, and then the wife walked through the background of the video and he he's trying to do this very serious news report and just, it just goes wrong. Right. So what I would say today, is the first thing is ma...