The things that make you go aaarrggghh!!

There are a thousand and one hurdles in business, most of which at one time or another make you want to retreat to a quiet (sound proofed) corner and scream in frustration!

I was approached earlier in the year by a client to recruit an important role for one of their global business streams which needed some specific difficult to find skills, without which the candidate would be out of their depth. The global Head Office in the States had been looking internally for a year for this person and given up, finally tasking EMEA to find this mystical candidate.

Which is where I come in!

Three weeks after being briefed I had a shortlist of five candidates from three countries, all of whom had proven track records and reputations in their field. My client and his boss started to put some diary dates together for the five candidates to be either interviewed in person or by video conference: at which point the States announced that they had transferred one of their spare Project Mangers across on a contract so that he could learn on the job!

Yup, it’s the things that make you go aaarrggghh!!

Making life easier for whom?

Following last week’s blog I received a number of comments and a link to a vociferous debate which was taking place on another LinkedIn forum. It too was intrinsically linked to the PSL debate but had been expanded to take in CV management systems. Rather than repeat the debate chapter & verse, I’ll tell you a brief tale of our experiences of them.

Following a number of major presentations to a global infrastructure group a couple of years ago we were selected to join their PSL as the sole recruiter at senior (non Group) board level. Terms were agreed and we were set up on their CV management system and following a few minor teething problems (clerical vacancies!) we started on our first assignment for the company. When it came to presenting the shortlist reports along with the candidate’s CV’s their system wouldn’t accept/recognise anything other than the CV. Presenting that shortlist to the line managers resulted in a swift telling off by the recruitment team. The line managers selected those that they wanted to interview based upon the reports, which were then rejected by the system as the CV’s didn’t match the recruiters key criteria template for the role.

Eventually we negotiated a way around this for other future assignments but after a year working with them we decided not to renew the agreement when we were asked to. The CV system is still in place but the number of firms who have passed through the same PSL process is a worrying sign of their view on their recruitment suppliers.

Our role is to work with companies and recruitment teams to deliver a service that goes beyond CV shuffling, but when so many companies these days use comparable systems, we have to ask who they are being implemented for? At senior level they negate the value that we add by running search processes but at the high volume end of the market their value becomes apparent.

If you are interested in talking with any of the heads of our practice groups then please contact us at www.intersearchuk.com