The market is turning again – don’t get caught flat-footed

A client held off on a senior hire earlier this year, wanting to wait for ‘more certainty’ before committing. Three months later, a competitor had appointed the exact candidate he’d been considering. The market hadn’t crashed. It had simply moved, while he was still waiting for a clearer signal that never came.

That’s the pattern I’m seeing across the market right now. Hiring intent has eased this year – recruitment plans have dropped from around seven in ten organisations to around six in ten – but the read from most economists isn’t a downturn. It’s businesses pausing to reassess costs, demand and workforce shape. Confidence is the real driver: when it dips, businesses pause; when it lifts, they move fast – and this year it’s expected to shift more than once.

The risk in a market like this isn’t hiring too early or too late. It’s hesitating in conditions that can flip quickly in either direction. Strong candidates – the ones actually worth waiting for – don’t sit on the market for long, in an up cycle or a down one.

What disciplined hiring looks like in a market like this:

• Know exactly who you need before conditions shift, not after

• Keep your pipeline and market map warm even when you’re not actively hiring

• Separate genuine must-haves from nice-to-haves, so you can move decisively when the right person appears

• Benchmark remuneration ahead of time – losing a candidate over a pay surprise mid-process is one of the most avoidable failures in a search

  
  

The cost of a wrong hiring decision is well understood. The cost of a missed one – the senior leader you needed but didn’t move fast enough to secure – rarely gets the same attention, but it’s just as real.

If you’re weighing up timing on a senior appointment, I’m happy to talk it through.