New year, new job: channel recruiters expect busy 2014

Recruiters to cash in on new year's resolutions and rising economic confidence

Channel recruiters are expecting a bumper start to 2014 as staff throughout the industry eye up new jobs for 2014 and business confidence improves.

January is traditionally a busy month for recruiters as many people resolve to find a new job in the new year, but channel players say the trend has been boosted further this year as employers look to welcome new recruits for the first time since the recession kicked in.

Channel recruiter Genesis Associates' director Craig Austin said his firm had back-to-back meetings planned for this month.

"January is a notoriously busy time for us: new year; new job," he said. "But even from last quarter, we've seen a huge surge in partners proactively coming to us with more roles, from sales to tech and across [the board].

"Everyone is factoring in more requirements for 2014 and we are genuinely excited for it. Companies are a lot less cagey about taking people on now and there is a move to taking people onto the books permanently – there was a big surge in contractors during the down times."

Austin added that the buoyant recruitment industry within the channel has prompted his company to take on a further 15 staff this year, which he claims proves the business's commitment to growing and developing.

Channel Recruitment Solutions' (CRS) sales director Zoe Albans agreed that the improving economy is driving a recruitment frenzy in the channel.

"Oddly, even the week before Christmas I had many new vacancies to work on and my team had a similar amount – we're expecting the same now too," she said.

"In the channel, everyone at senior level wants to move from distributor to vendor, but now there is movement from vendors back to disties, which is quite interesting."

She added that roles in cloud and virtualisation are hugely popular and said that, as companies dust themselves down after the recession, recruitment is top of their list.

"In the past 18 months, we have seen a massive hike [in business]," Albans said. "We are out of recession and are seeing improvements – we're [setting] targets high because we can see it happening – clients are recruiting a lot more heavily and that is positive."