Just kidding... But it's nearly that time of year where TV is crammed with 100 best whatever of 2009 shows and prediciions for next year. Even Peter Gold is getting in on the act with his prophecy for recruitment in 2010. So not to be left out, here's my predictions on where recruitment will head in 2010

While costs have been squeezed over the past eighteen months fixed fee recruitment has made an appearance as companies consider the cost of recruitment. For a lot of roles it makes sense. Where there's a candidate heavy market it's an no-brainer to recruit a couple of candidates for around £500 compared to 10-20% of salary for each candidate. However employers will still look for for payments by results on specialist or difficult recruitment searches. 

As employers look to gain more value from their inhouse recruiters expect to see more roles being handled direct. Job boards will make a play for direct recruitment as they attempt to recover from the recession. Inhouse recruiters will build and develop their own talent pools and inevitably this will lead to disputes as contingency recruiters work out what constitutes ownership of a candidate. While inhouse recruitment will become more common for whatever are core roles in that company 

There's a talent shortage in a number of key areas and that is only set to get worse as the recovery accelerates. Healthcare, power generation engineers, even experiences sales professionals are difficult to find. Even in the middle of the recession Manpower report that 11% of employers had difficulty getting the staff they needed. Recruiter style bounty hunters who can deliver talent are going to be in demand.