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...