Card Tournaments And Recruitment
I play in a local cribbage (crib) league, with ten players playing for each team. You play in pairs, which means there are 4 players a game.
Last Thursday, our ‘skipper’ was having to make the rounds to let us all know that our opponents couldn’t field enough players. An hour later however, we were getting the news that we were in fact playing.
During the game, it became apparent that our opponents had been forced to rope in anyone that had some connection to crib.
One of the opponents I was playing against made a comment along the lines of “I vaguely remember the game”. The opponent in question was the child of the captain of our opponents (who’d had to travel close to an hour to play). To their credit, they played a very good game!
Back To The World Of Staffing And Recruitment.
Our opponents at one point had a team (staffing) shortage. They were able to bring in additional players (temps), which allowed them to play the match.
It is widely documented that there is a skill shortage in the UK at the moment, with thousands of positions available. A key list of professions where there is a shortage of talent in the UK is the “United Kingdom Shortage Occupation List“
The list isn’t in a format that is the easiest to understand, being grouped by “Standard Occupation Classification” (SOC) codes. To give a general idea, here are 32 jobs which are in high demand in the UK:
- Civil Engineers
- Mechanical Engineers
- Electrical Engineers
- Electronics Engineers
- Design and Development Engineers
- Production and Process Engineers
- Programmers
- Web Design/ Web Developers
- Cybersecurity Specialists
- Doctors
- Nurses
- Psychologists
- Vets
- Medical Radiographers
- Occupational therapists
- Speech and Language Therapists
- Maths Teachers
- Physics Teachers
- Computer Science Teachers
- Mandarin Teachers
- Informatician
- Bio-informatician
- Architects
- Landscape Architect
- Quantity Surveyors
- Social Workers
- Quality Control and Planning Engineers
- Paramedics
- Classical Ballet Dancers
- Graphic Designers
- High Integrity Pipe Welders
- Head Chefs
If you are recruiting one of the above positions, the UK Government recognises that recruiting from outside of the EU is, in all likelihood, the fastest way to fill the role as there are too few suitably trained people in the country.
If on the other hand, if you aren’t recruiting a position on the occupation shortage list, there are certain criteria which you have to follow.
- You need to be posting a job twice (two different job sites)
- The job advert needs to be live for at least 28 days, or broken into two stages, with a minimum stage length of 7 days.
- You need to demonstrate that none of the applicants were suitable
Using a system such as an Applicant Tracking System (ATS) to keep track of your job applicants, might help you to prove that none of the applicants were suitable.
We recommend reading Centralising Recruitment With ATS.
You may have to demonstrate that the salary you were offering for the role was appropriate and you will probably need to include it in all adverts. If you end up paying someone you are sponsoring a higher rate than advertised, you will need to re-advertise your role to demonstrate that no one in the country is suitable.
Hopefully, this post has helped highlight a number of roles which are in short supply, with the start of the process which you might need to go through. We are involved in recruitment, not immigration, so please seek guidance from an appropriate professional.