Confidence & Change

Changing Circumstances

In last week’s Blog we spoke about taking advantage of seasonal circumstances to apply for new positions. Recruitment leaders see the drop-off in applications as often being advantageous to job seekers. Before making a change, many applicants find that they face an unexpected barrier, particularly if they have been in the same job for a long time. This unforeseen obstacle is confidence. There will always be a sense of trepidation when deciding to change your circumstances and this is entirely natural.

Arianna Huffington, founder of The Huffington Post, has summed this up well in a recent quote where she writes, “Fearlessness is not the absence of fear. It’s the mastery of fear. It’s about getting up one more time than we fall down.”

Business Confidence

On November 28^th the Bank of Ireland released their Economic Pulse. This survey found that two in five Irish businesses expect to increase investment spending in 2017. Alongside this news were the results of a British business survey conducted by Lloyds Bank which found that 37% of UK firms expect business prospects to improve and 47% citing confidence in an upbeat economy.

At Elk Recruitment, we believe that this augers well for job seekers looking to approach recruitment agencies, and applicants looking to change their circumstances.

In the same survey, the construction sector, one of Elk Recruitment’s speciality areas, revised previous growth forecasts upwards a further 3%, from 25% last year, to 28% this year and this confidence allows job seekers in this sector to feel less apprehensive about changing position and to know that there is an assured stability for applicants.

Finally, in Germany, business confidence is stable at the highest level since 2014 according to recent figures released by the Munich-based IFO institute. The Bundesbank reaffirmed these finding by stating that growth is strengthening “considerably”.

Deciding on Change   

When deciding to change job, an applicant can feel more confident when business leaders and recruitment agencies themselves share that same mindset. Change is not always easy but in the words of Thomas Edison, “If we did everything we were capable of doing, we would literally astound ourselves.”