The art of transparency

There is little that riles most of us more than being told that something isn’t what we thought it was or what it seems. A number of the low cost airlines seem to have made a real art out of this. The £9.99 return fare to Barcelona turns out to be £150 once you have added taxes, insurance and the cost of a seat on the plane and then god forbid if you want to take a bag with you or check in at a counter! No wonder most of us are left fuming by it all and would much rather the true cost was shown up front before we click through all the options.

This lack of transparency hit home to us recently when we were asked by a potential client for advice about a fee that they were being asked to pay by another recruitment company. Having agreed the original percentage placement fee and offered a candidate the role, the placement invoice arrived with a hefty addition to it as the recruitment company valued the candidates company car at £10,000 which was added to the invoice, boosting the fee handsomely thank you very much!

The fact of the matter is that this was in a tiny clause hidden away in the contract that the client had agreed to and signed. Equally, £10,000 is a disproportionate amount in relation to the actual car allowance and more importantly to the base salary. There are a number of other recruitment firms which add into the fees guaranteed bonuses, healthcare and pension contributions. Lovely adds on from their side of the table but clauses that are not going to win them many friends.

Our view is that our long term client relationship is paramount and as a consequence we only use base salaries and in many cases we work with clients on a fixed fee basis. No hidden extras, no subterfuge, clear open and transparent. Isn’t that the type of firm that you would rather work with?

First Impressions

It was said a long time before I was born that you only have twenty seconds to make an impression on someone; whether that is face to face or via a letter. Obviously this was before email and why handwriting was so important and why so many firms used graphology to assess candidate’s suitability.

Whilst the world has moved on to email as very few people actually write letters, let alone thank you notes at Christmas, this old adage hasn’t changed one bit. Those twenty seconds after you walk through the door for an interview or a bid meeting are so important. How you dress for them, how you present yourself, what you say and how your body language expresses itself.

So why do so many people get it wrong right from their first foray into the business world? Complacency? An I know better attitude? Or simply bad advice? I’d go so far as to suggest a combination of all three if our experiences over the last few weeks are anything to go by.

This year we believe that approximately 30% of all CV’s that pass across our desks have no contact details. In almost all cases the candidates have been told that they were advised to leave them off by firms that they have paid to write their CV’s. The concept of how to contact these candidates seems to have bypassed these firms as the emails rarely have contact details on them either.

Candidates who turn up for interviews having carried out none of their own research on the person or firm that they are about to meet; expecting instead to be able to wing it through the interview. They didn’t!

In the current economic climate there are high numbers of candidates chasing each position. Without preparation and getting the basics right from the start of the application process you simply won’t be able to make that first impression.

And first impressions count!

Social Networking

I don’t think that I’m stepping out of line if I said that social networking is the phenomenon of the last three years and that these days it is almost impossible to escape its daily influence on our professional and private lives.

There are endless social networking sites, ranging from YouTube and MySpace which are predominately aimed at a younger generation to the likes of Facebook and Bebo for personal networking and LinkedIn, Viadeo and ecademy which are aimed at the business networker. Then there is of course Twitter.

The fact that you are reading this – if anyone is reading this – means that you are already an integral part of its existence. Whether you have signed up to one of the sites or receive daily spam asking you to change your Facebook password, you cannot have escaped its influence on the way that we interact with each other.

So far this year my colleagues and I have been invited to six business briefings on how to maximise social networking to our best advantage. Whilst attending one might almost certainly be worthwhile, attending all six would use up quite a few hours of our working time and in reality add very little to our knowledge. So, which should you choose?

Whilst not wanting to be responsible for wasting hours of your time, I’d suggest that LinkedIn is the place to start, but have a look at the others and the many that I haven’t mentioned before committing yourself. All offer different routes for you to put both yourself and your company in front of a much wider audience. They offer the ability for you to sell yourself or your products and for the wider community to see what you can offer them. There are many successful businesses out there that have used them. Why not you?

And finally.

A quiet word of warning. These are all public sites, so be a little careful exactly what you post on them. Many potential employers use them to check out candidates and aren’t likely to be hugely impressed with candid photographs or graphic descriptions of nights out!