I’ve lived and worked through four, or is it five, recessions now and have seen how the continual advancement of technology has changed the way that whole recruitment market works. I vividly remember a postal strike in the 80’s which meant that a client gave us permission to fax CV’s across rather than post them! And yet today we and certainly our younger consultants live in the electronic age where email or blackberry rules the roost. In fact we had to explain to a mid twenties consultant what a fax was. The thought of trying to explain what a telex machine was to him, was one explanation too many.
It’s a fact that whatever you do for a living your job has changed dramatically over the last few years. To me, Sunday morning is a mug of coffee, toast and The Sunday Times. Five years ago the appointments pages were a heavy two sections. These days it’s a few pages and mainly public sector appointments. So, why such a significant change?
In my view the reasons are simple and fundamental to the success of any recruitment project. Recruiting the right person in these challenging economic times has become ever more important and many more companies realise that advertisements are here today and in the recycle bin tomorrow.
True story: I was retained to recruit a senior Director for a client and about the eighth candidate that I spoke to got the job. However, during our first, second, third and probably fourth conversation he told me to me that he was very happy where he was. The fact that a couple of other candidates recommended him kept pushing me back to talk with him. Two months after the first conversation he finally agreed to meet me for a chat over a cup of coffee and two weeks later he resigned from his company and now works for my client.
If the client had advertised, he would have skipped the advert and my client wouldn’t have recruited the star that they did. Search is about persistence, about fine tuning your process and above all it’s about cherry picking the best candidates that meet the brief.
Wednesday 24 February 2010
Wednesday 17 February 2010
And the moral of the story is…
Now here’s an interesting one.
At the end of last week one of my colleagues was approached by a firm that we know of but have never managed to win work from. A year ago they retained a generalist search firm that knows little about their market sector to recruit a senior department manager for them. One of the reasons that they won the assignment was that they agreed a significantly reduced fee; naturally attractive to the recruiting company.
Six months later the client cancelled the project as the initial shortlist that had been submitted was rejected along with a couple of interviewed candidates and there appeared little chance of the search firm unearthing anyone else who matched their brief. So, they resorted to Plan B. The MD then placed the role with a number of mainstream recruitment companies across the country for a database search and on a success only fee of 15%.
Six months on, or twelve months since this whole process started, the client is no nearer recruiting this key role and the position is still vacant adding extra pressure on their existing personnel.
Which is where we came in. My colleague was asked to join the merry throng of recruitment firms already working on the assignment, but to search the role at an agreed fee of 15%. Not too surprisingly he very politely declined.
The problem here is two fold. Those recruitment firms that agreed to look at filling the position on a success only basis will have lost interest as newer roles at better fees will have dropped into their in-trays and now be the focus of their attention whilst the other role drops further and further down the pile. More importantly the brief to the original search firm handed the recruitment of a key position to a firm that had little or no expertise or knowledge of the client’s business streams, whilst focusing only on the perceived up front cost.
And the moral of the story is that whilst we understand that every single business in the UK has a duty to focus upon its costs in these difficult times, the need to find and retain the search firm that has the right expertise is increasingly important in the current economy and that process will in the mid to longer term almost certainly save the recruiting company money.
At the end of last week one of my colleagues was approached by a firm that we know of but have never managed to win work from. A year ago they retained a generalist search firm that knows little about their market sector to recruit a senior department manager for them. One of the reasons that they won the assignment was that they agreed a significantly reduced fee; naturally attractive to the recruiting company.
Six months later the client cancelled the project as the initial shortlist that had been submitted was rejected along with a couple of interviewed candidates and there appeared little chance of the search firm unearthing anyone else who matched their brief. So, they resorted to Plan B. The MD then placed the role with a number of mainstream recruitment companies across the country for a database search and on a success only fee of 15%.
Six months on, or twelve months since this whole process started, the client is no nearer recruiting this key role and the position is still vacant adding extra pressure on their existing personnel.
Which is where we came in. My colleague was asked to join the merry throng of recruitment firms already working on the assignment, but to search the role at an agreed fee of 15%. Not too surprisingly he very politely declined.
The problem here is two fold. Those recruitment firms that agreed to look at filling the position on a success only basis will have lost interest as newer roles at better fees will have dropped into their in-trays and now be the focus of their attention whilst the other role drops further and further down the pile. More importantly the brief to the original search firm handed the recruitment of a key position to a firm that had little or no expertise or knowledge of the client’s business streams, whilst focusing only on the perceived up front cost.
And the moral of the story is that whilst we understand that every single business in the UK has a duty to focus upon its costs in these difficult times, the need to find and retain the search firm that has the right expertise is increasingly important in the current economy and that process will in the mid to longer term almost certainly save the recruiting company money.
Wednesday 10 February 2010
The first signs of spring!
As we batten down the hatches against the second coming of winter which is being forecast for the next week, it seems an appropriate time to reflect back on the first six weeks of 2010.
Despite the bitter chill blowing across the land, we have started to witness a mild thaw in recruitment freezes as discussions on the hiring of new employees is starting to creep back onto boardroom agendas. The number of recruitment inquiries since the start of the month has increased from one a week in January to one a day and I have a candidate who has three job offers to consider; albeit that none offer a salary uplift on his previous role before his redundancy. But it’s a start.
Whilst trying to gauge the general economic feeling amongst clients we are also seeing an increase in enquiries to recruit overseas, as companies continue to look at expanding into new international markets for their products. The ability to use the global InterSearch network has opened a few new doors as clients appreciate the value of utilising a seamless cross border search firm.
The energy sector is continuing to buck many of the trends and show growth across most of its business streams whilst the consumer goods food sector keeps it company both at the multiple sector and amongst some luxury chocolate brands.
Easter must be on its way!!
Despite the bitter chill blowing across the land, we have started to witness a mild thaw in recruitment freezes as discussions on the hiring of new employees is starting to creep back onto boardroom agendas. The number of recruitment inquiries since the start of the month has increased from one a week in January to one a day and I have a candidate who has three job offers to consider; albeit that none offer a salary uplift on his previous role before his redundancy. But it’s a start.
Whilst trying to gauge the general economic feeling amongst clients we are also seeing an increase in enquiries to recruit overseas, as companies continue to look at expanding into new international markets for their products. The ability to use the global InterSearch network has opened a few new doors as clients appreciate the value of utilising a seamless cross border search firm.
The energy sector is continuing to buck many of the trends and show growth across most of its business streams whilst the consumer goods food sector keeps it company both at the multiple sector and amongst some luxury chocolate brands.
Easter must be on its way!!
Wednesday 3 February 2010
The latest thing. Or is it?
Do you have problems keeping up with the latest business trends that do the rounds?
Me too!
Some are now so out of fashion that sooner or later, just like that old cardi you’re hiding away in the cupboard, they’ll come back into the mainstream.
There are a number of useful tools that have come out of the NLP market place that are now used to enable HR professionals to asses current and potential employees. However, what I thought was a new one to me has popped up in two recent client meetings.
EI. Or Emotional Intelligence. EI describes the ability, capacity, skill or a self-perceived ability, to identify, assess, and manage the emotions of one's self, of others, and of groups. As I understand it different models have been proposed for the definition of EI and some disagreement exists as to how the term should be used. Despite these disagreements, which are mainly highly technical, the ability EI and trait EI models enjoy support in the literature world and have successful applications in different domains.
So: something new for me to get my teeth into. At least so I thought until I mentioned this to a different client who then proceeded to tell me that EI is old hat! The phrase was apparently first coined in the early 80’s or possibly even earlier which definitely doesn’t make it the new kid on the block.
Me too!
Some are now so out of fashion that sooner or later, just like that old cardi you’re hiding away in the cupboard, they’ll come back into the mainstream.
There are a number of useful tools that have come out of the NLP market place that are now used to enable HR professionals to asses current and potential employees. However, what I thought was a new one to me has popped up in two recent client meetings.
EI. Or Emotional Intelligence. EI describes the ability, capacity, skill or a self-perceived ability, to identify, assess, and manage the emotions of one's self, of others, and of groups. As I understand it different models have been proposed for the definition of EI and some disagreement exists as to how the term should be used. Despite these disagreements, which are mainly highly technical, the ability EI and trait EI models enjoy support in the literature world and have successful applications in different domains.
So: something new for me to get my teeth into. At least so I thought until I mentioned this to a different client who then proceeded to tell me that EI is old hat! The phrase was apparently first coined in the early 80’s or possibly even earlier which definitely doesn’t make it the new kid on the block.
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