Digital Recruitment Insights: Will Covid-19 have an impact in 2022?

In the digital recruitment space, we get to see just how fast paced the industry is. However, it’s safe to say that the events of 2020 brought many industries to a halt. Did the digital world see the same impact?

We suppose the clue is in the word digital! Many people were lucky enough to work in companies that were always prepared for remote working. Furthermore, we as an industry are used to many different ways of connectivity.

It’s important to remember the individuals in the industry too – it’s not a collective after all. In our 2021 digital salary & insights guide, we wanted to know how our respondents were feeling. That’s why we introduced the ‘impact of Covid-19’ section in our annual questionnaire. We understand that things have changed, with a return to the office and easing of restrictions. However, this does not mean Covid-19 has disappeared completely.

What do our respondents expect from the hiring process as a result of the pandemic? Have career outlooks changed for some individuals? We’re about to reveal the key insights from our salary guide on this important topic.

How were digital job roles affected?

Were digital jobs affected by the pandemic? We asked respondents if there was any direct impact on their role due to the pandemic – here’s what they shared…

• Role was not affected: 66%
• Redundancy: 15%
• Furloughed: 11%
• Left role for other reasons: 8%

It is good to see the majority of our respondents did not see any impact on their role. However, it is surprising to see 26% within the redundancy or furlough categories. As a result of these responses, do digital professionals see a brighter year ahead in 2022? We asked how the pandemic changed our respondents outlook on their working life, ranking the change from 0 to 10. We can reveal that the average score was 6.2/10!

To conclude, there are probably many factors that have impacted this score. From a big shift to remote working to experiencing furlough, it is expected that respondents might have some uncertainty on their work outlook.

Working from home – the new normal

It will be hard to forget the time the whole country came to a stand still and remote working came into place immediately. While many companies are now adopting a hybrid approach for their employees, has everyone adapted? As we mentioned, the digital world was always capable of remote working but perhaps it was never as frequent until the pandemic.

So, that begs the question: do employees prefer working from home? We asked our respondents if they were happy to be back in the office, if they had returned at all that is. 61% revealed that they had not yet returned to the office. Of those who had returned, 24% were unhappy to do so. This leaves 15% who were happy to get back to the office environment.

Furthermore, a huge 89% of respondents plan to request more working from home opportunities. We can see from this that working from home is something digital professionals want. Productivity is at an all time high and these insights show that companies need to incorporate remote working to attract digital talent.

The digital recruitment forecast- will hiring processes change?

Digital recruitment, as we know too well, is a competitive and fast-paced world. Consequently, the digital hiring landscape during the pandemic experienced a change. We wanted to know if our respondents believed this would continue in 2022?

Firstly, it’s important to note that 72% of respondents shared that their company did hire throughout the pandemic. So, it’s good to see that the recruitment side did not slow down and remote recruitment played its part.

In the table below, you can see what respondents think the digital hiring process will look like in the year ahead. Please note, our questionnaire invited respondents to select all that applied. Therefore, results will not equal 100%.

Here to help your digital recruitment process

While it has certainly been an eventful 18 months it has been, we are glad to see an overall positive outlook for the digital industry. You can download a full copy of our digital salary report for all of the exclusive insights. If you are hiring digital talent, simply fill out our enquiry form and get in touch!