A recruitment industry observer has claimed, in a recent discussion, that the attitudes of candidates and employers have taken a divergent path in the past year, and that there are "delusions" on both sides of the employment equation. And that the end result will be dissatisfaction from both sides.

We have asked Madalina Popescu, our General Manager, to comment on this.

One of the first conclusions was that candidates are misguided on two fronts: firstly in their belief that they can switch jobs and be paid more; and secondly that now is the time to switch sector "because of a belief that their sector was the only one impacted by the Financial Crisis".

"On one hand we have candidates who are expecting to go out into the market and make a change - they don't care what sort of change, they just want a change. We've seen that from people who've sat in the last year with their employer, and as soon as something else has come along they've been out the door.  For some reason they think they can get paid more for basically doing the same. They also think they can take this opportunity to change industry sectors. That's not going to be the case," Madalina said.

She added that all employees had to go the extra mile beyond what they considered to be 'normal' during the Financial Crisis. "There was no industry that I'm aware of that didn't have that scenario. There are less people doing more work so it's all about productivity and return on investment at the moment," Madalina said.

In addition, she warned that skills development had taken a backseat during the Financial Crisis, and many candidates were unprepared for the burden that new roles in new organizations would bring. "People are coming with 2008 skill levels into the 2010 workplace and they're not as competitive - but they still think they should be paid more."

On the employer's side she said there was a misguided belief that the relatively high unemployment rate equated to more people looking for jobs and therefore more candidates to choose from.  "I'll get candidates doing more and pay them less - that's the belief," she said. "Far from paying less, the expectation will be to pay more, and I think salaries are inching back upwards."

Employers should also be wary of 'stayers' - those who took a compromise position in order to remain employed but who are now looking to move. "Those people were often overqualified for those jobs, so when the employer goes to replace them they're not getting the same level of skill for the money on offer," Madalina said.

Madalina added that some employers also have an unreasonable expectation of ROI from new hires. "During the first period of the downturn there was immense labor cut out of most organizations. Now things tend to stabilize. They're happy with that. But they're being cautious about re-hiring so they're sticking with temporary contract workers and setting unrealistic expectations on what they'll get from new employees. At the moment that's impacting on two things: at the upper end of the market for mature temporary workforce employers may have to pay more but get the experience so the work gets done; and at the entrance level where people perhaps have the technical or academic skills but don't have work experience."

Madalina said that the trend of temporary workforce being favored over permanent hires will likely continue "until that skill base is exhausted", and added that most leadership teams are looking to put themselves in a position of minimal risk. "The world has changed - the labor market in the mid to long term will have a more significant element of contracted employees so employers can turn off and turn on their labor requirements based on demand," he said.

Madalina urged employers not to forget talent currently residing in the organization, to provide career pathways and career development. "Many employers have taken the foolish attitude of thinking, 'employees have been with me during the downside, they'll stay during the upside'. That might not happen. People are disgruntled."

To start to bridge the gap between what employers are looking for from candidates, and vice-versa, Madalina said both parties need to be clear on their value proposition.  "For a candidate this concept of candidate value proposition is commonplace - they must understand what their strengths and weaknesses are, and where they can add value to an employer. Then they must do as best they can to match these up to vacancies in the market. Similarly employers must be realistic about what their value proposition is to a new employee - whatever it was prior to the Financial Crisis it has probably changed."