Recruitment as a sector could suffer from a ‘talent drain’ because office-based firms will not be attractive to bright school leavers and graduates, says executive search expert David Hunt.

As tens of thousands of students around the country are on the brink of picking up their A level results while many graduates are considering their first career move, Hunt, CEO of Hyperion Executive Search, said he was also concerned young people will be ‘unable to become the leaders of the future’ without learning how to work in teams and collaborate in person.

“Many school leavers and graduates might be looking for their first jobs and expect or want to move straight into the new world of work – flexi or remote work ,” he said, “But that is often not a reality for many recruitment firms, simply because of the way they need to train their staff and see them working together on sales floors.

“It will be interesting to see if the industry struggles to recruit new talent as school leavers and graduates pour into the market.”

However, Hunt, who specialises in recruiting C-suite and senior individuals and teams for the burgeoning clean technology (clean tech) sector, said he believed those new to the sector would in fact benefit hugely from office-based roles:

“The thought of working in an office might seem horribly unfamiliar to many young people but it is a huge advantage, in my opinion, at the beginning of their careers. How will young people learn to collaborate and lead if they are not in an environment to absorb that?

“Being in the office gives you an opportunity to be around people with experience and listen and learn. If you don’t ever have that opportunity and you don’t already have office skills, I do wonder how young people will develop those skills in recruitment and other industries. You simply cannot learn how to lead a team via Zoom!”

Hunt, a leading cleantech entrepreneur and early clean energy pioneer, who set up Hyperion in 2007, marrying his early career in recruitment with his expertise in setting up and running an award-winning solar installations business, said he was very sympathetic to the generation of millennials who had had their education marred by COVID.

He said: “Many of these millennials are effectively the COVID generation whose key exams and learning have been affected by the Pandemic – perhaps their exam results in a positive way, in some cases, but their social interactions, outside of close friends and family, negatively!

“Many young people – especially new and recent graduates – have undertaken the majority of their significant learning remotely so that is second nature to them. This year’s A level cohort have also been in lockdown and learning remotely for many months during a crucial period of their education.

“This means they are unaccustomed to dealing with people in person. This could be problematic in many sectors but particularly in recruitment where traditionally a new starter might learn on the job on a noisy and buzzing sales floor.”

He added: “I have worked in that environment myself when I first worked in recruitment and it’s a great learning curve. It is hugely beneficial to listen and learn on on-the-job training. Otherwise, how do you get graduates and school leavers to understand how to interact, build rapport and learn how to be part of a team and how to act appropriately in professional situations?

“I do really feel for young people today but I do worry about where we will find the leaders of the future if they do not have the experience of being in and around teams.”

Hunt, who says roles in the many cleantech businesses he works with in the UK, Europe and the US, tend to be flexi or remote at the senior level, says:

“I appreciate that there is a balance to be had and we have to be careful not to allow a gulf to form between those who are senior and can work effectively remotely because they have the experience and knowledge to those who are junior or blue collar and tend to be more office or workplace-based but we do need to accept that it may not be sensible for every industry to have flexi or remote roles at every level.”