Ignore this and it might kill you…

There is one thing that is unavoidable in recruitment. It is something we all have. It can be good or bad, and it can change. It is one of the biggest things that will affect your business and your career… but is often ignored or misunderstood.

Anyone… anyone……(Hint: It’s not Voodoo Economics)

I am talking about your reputation.

A lot of people mistake reputation for something else. It isn’t what your website says about you. Or your “employee value proposition” (or whatever else you call it). It’s  not what your bosses say it is, or what your employee’s tell you it is. It is not necessarily about what awards you have won or the LinkedIn recommendations you get. It’s also not just about how much money you make. These are all important things… but they are not your reputation.

For me, reputation is what other people are saying about you. It is the conversation two recruiters catching up over lunch have about you. It is the reaction on someone’s face when you mention a name. It is the reason that people refer to you with a unfortunate nickname!

I met a guy last week who owned a successful agency, but was struggling to hire another consultant. I already knew this company had a tainted reputation (for various reasons), and I knew this was a big factor in why they were struggling to attract people. But I wanted to know what he thought first… and amazingly he was totally unaware that his brand was seen like this. For him it was all still sunshine lollipops and rainbows. You could forgive him because it was once a much better business, internally the signs were not obvious and the business was still doing well financially. But over the last few years the jungle drum had been beating with negative stories and the brand had begun to lose it’s shine… it was just that no one told him! He fell into the big trap we all make…

You don’t determine your own reputation… everyone else does.

In my job, I often find myself having this same conversation with agencies, and my advice is always the same when it comes managing reputations:

• Don’t ignore it. It is out there so find out what it is.
• Ask lots of different people… not just people who are going to tell you what you want to hear.
• Be honest with yourself. We all like to think people like us and no one enjoys hearing negative things about themself, but it’s not always the case.
• Check it regularly. Reputations can and do change.

Like it or not you cannot avoid having a reputation… so you may as well know what it is… and then at least you can do something about it if you need to. You could carry on kidding yourself everyone loves you all the time, or worse still ignoring it all together… but you are playing a dangerous game. Think Lance Armstrong, Oscar Pistorious or  any ‘celebrity’ that has  appeared on any reality TV show!

On a side note, (and I’ve got no lame segue to this)… Craig will be speaking at the upcoming ATC Events’ sourcing conference Sourcing.Social.Talent #SST2014 in November where he will be discussing best practice blogging for recruitment success. This event will bring together sourcing innovators and social media experts. Register now for the event in Sydney or Melbourne and take advantage of our special discount for this event by applying Code: WC-SST2014 when registering.

Luke Collard…

Rip up the Recruitment Consultant job spec….it’s out of date.

Over the last couple of years or so there has been endless chat around the recruitment fire camp that things are changing. Depending on who you listen to, we are somewhere between the dawn of an exciting era in recruitment…or the end of the world as we know it.

The rise of social media and the variety of new recruiting tools that has brought…… the trend for big corporations to bring their recruiting back in-house…what clients want from us recruiters…..the way candidates look for jobs….and even what they are looking for. Whether you like it or not, and whether you buy into it all or see it as just a fad …I think by now everyone recognises that things are changing.

So, why is it that the majority of agencies still look for the same things when hiring a new recruiter?

Is it more important that a recruiter has an existing network, or that they have the street smarts around social media to source really hard to find candidates? Do they still need to be great sales people and happy making 20 cold calls a day? Is it better to have a recruiter that has the gift of the gab…or one that can write engaging content to build a talent community? Is a recruiter who is driven purely by money the best fit? Is it even necessary that they have experience recruiting before?

In sport they talk about a player’s career being over once ‘the game has moved beyond them’ and they are unable or unwilling to adapt. Many a ‘once great’ has quickly become ‘less great’, and successful teams have fallen to earth with a thud by not recognising that the game has changed (..being a football fan from Manchester, I couldn’t possibly think of one!) It probably didn’t happen over night, more likely realised with the benefit of hindsight after a few years of dwindling performances.

Some of the core traits of a successful recruiter will always be pre-requisites. But if you are only looking for the same things in your next recruiter as you were 20, 10 even 5 years ago, then you might find in the not too distant future that the recruitment game has moved beyond these people. You might be finding that already, especially if you are hiring based predominantly on reputation and past performance (of course no one in recruitment does that !!!)

We will probably hire a new recruiter into our business next year. Before I even consider their experience, what they look like, or what their motivations are, I will be looking at how they use social media, do they understand what Gen Y and Z are looking for in a job and how to find and engage with them. Because these are the core skills great recruiters (are going to) need.

{Whilst you are here, take a moment to check out part 2 of our current Agency in Focus…especially if you are over being in just another recruitment job}

Luke Collard….

Recruitment… it’s all about the show!

Two recruiters meet in a coffee shop (where else !)…

Recruiter 1…”So, how is business?”

Recruiter 2…”Amazing. We have just had our record month. ”

Recruiter 1…”Us too… and next month is looking even better”

Recruiter 3 (sitting at the next table)…”Same here”

Recruiter 4 (sitting with Recruiter 3)… “And me”

Whole coffee shop in unison (because they are all recruiters) … “Me too”

 *****

I speak to a lot of recruiters in my line of work and sometimes it feels like everyone is having a record month… every month. It reminds me a bit of being back at school when everyone was apparently having sex (or at least doing some heavy petting). Even the geeks who would congregate around the stairwell playing dungeons and dragons… yep, they were also getting their fair share… apparently. I hear “record month” so often that I generally take it with a pinch of salt. It becomes difficult to believe anyone when a CEO tells you they have just had another ‘record month’… and then have the administrators at their door the next day.

I don’t know what it is about the recruitment industry that we seem pre-disposed to be always painting an ‘over the top’ picture of our success. Maybe it is because our industry has been built on a culture of sales, of being the best and always winning… and if you are not actually being successful, make sure you are making out that you are… It’s all about the show!

Over the last 18 months we have seen a series of spectacular collapses in the industry, most of which were proceeded by positive chat. Crappy figures, profit downgrades and diminishing revenues were spun out in press release as something more positive. Even at the edge of the cliff these companies were still talking a good game.

Obviously every business wants to market itself in the most positive light possible. Nothing wrong with that – I do it with my own business. But in the highly competitive world of recruitment, where the green eyed monster lives large, and everyone wants to be number one, it is sometimes difficult to know where the truth starts and the lies finish… like accepting a new job with all the promises in the world, and then finding your new employer has gone bust two weeks after starting. Surely more ‘fraud’ than ‘positive marketing’!

It’s tough out there in the modern recruitment world. Not everyone is doing well. And maybe those that aren’t would benefit from being a bit more honest about that. That would be a good first step on the road to recovery… rather than just trying to keep the show going.

 

Luke Collard

What makes a recruitment agency ‘the best’?

What makes a recruitment agency ‘the best’?

Well up until recently it was seemingly based purely on how many people an agency could get to vote for them in the SEEK awards. Whilst there are other industry awards, the ones run by SEEK have arguably been seen as the biggest, and therefore in a lot of people’s eyes the one to win. 

But the awards were just a popularity contest, and the agency that could put together the most effective marketing campaign to get votes would win. It had little to do with actually recognising the best… in the same way that the winner of X-factor recognises the best singer!!! A lot of very good agencies would never get close to wining because they simply didn’t have the resource that their larger competitors had to run a campaign… or more likely just couldn’t be bothered involving themselves in such a ridiculous game.

But that has all changed now.

SEEK have thrown the reality TV show-esque popularity contest out of the window and replaced it with a judging panel. I admit that I don’t know the ins and outs of how this new system works and what specific criteria they are judging agencies against… (you can view it here)…but I think this makes the awards far more credible and valuable.

But how do you define what being ‘the best’ actually means in recruitment?

Is it the amount an agency bills, their profit, service levels, client list, staff retention, community involvement… the fact that they have a pool table and dress down Friday? Obviously, it will mean different things to a candidate who will be more interested in the quality of service, than it will to an employee who might be focused on how lucrative the commission structure is. For the owner of the agency it might be all about profit, where as the client is more interested in the strength of their candidate database. For the office administrator it is the fact that he or she is given flexibility so they can pick their child up from school every day. 

It is probably impossible to get a consensus on what being ‘the best’ agency actually means. But surely it has to be more about being good and successful at recruitment, than just a popularity contest. So well done SEEK. Maybe those agencies that don’t agree are a bit annoyed that they will now have to actually show why they are ‘the best’ if they want the right to wear that label.

So, if you were on the judging panel, what criteria would you be using to determine which agency is ‘the best’… and how would you score?

Luke Collard

Experience required …..why?

Why is the recruitment industry so obsessed with hiring experienced recruiters?

I don’t want to underplay what we do as recruiters but, for all its challenges, let’s be honest it isn’t rocket science. Anyone with a modicum of intelligence, an outgoing personality and good communication skills can become a good recruiter …many have carved out a successful and lucrative career on far less!

So why do so many recruitment agencies insist on experience? 

When I started in recruitment I was put through a couple of in house training sessions to cover off the basics and then was thrown in to the deep end running an end-to-end desk. I picked it up pretty quickly and was fairly effective more or less immediately. Not because I was particularly talented…..I was just enthusiastic and keen to get stuck in. And I am certainly not an exception. I was talking to a guy last week that started in recruitment only 5 months ago but has already billed over $160k in a start-up business…where there was no training…just a desk and a phone and ‘get on with it’. The history of people entering the recruitment industry with no experience and being successful quickly is there for all to see…….look in the mirror.

The argument is that with experience comes a track record, and therefore a better chance of that person being successful…or less risk of them failing. There is sometimes a perceived value in the client base and network an experienced recruiter can bring with them (although how often does this turn out not to be the golden goose it appears to be!). In leadership roles it is obviously important.

I get all of that. …and I am not saying experience means nothing. But to make it the number one criteria doesn’t make sense. Especially when it means you have to wait months and months to hire someone. Would it not make more sense to hire someone now with all the right raw skills who you could have up and running, making you money and growing your business……than waiting….and waiting ….and waiting…. When you consider that it is such a candidate short market, and good experienced recruiters are reluctant to move, even if you think you are selling them something ‘market leading’ and ‘unique’ it makes even less sense to hold out for that experience.

I value experience, but I think it is often overrated. Quite often experience just equals bad habits and a burnt out attitude. And you pay a lot more for the privilege!  The perceived need for experience is actually  just a mixture of ‘that is what everyone does’, ‘that is what we have always done’ laziness, and a morbid fear of the unknown. Only in a very few situations is it absolutely necessary.

We are seeing some agencies move their hiring away from experienced recruiters and investing in fresh talent, and not just at the graduate level. What is your experience? Would you only ever hire an experienced recruiter ….how much experience is enough…..and more importantly …..why?

Luke Collard

Recruiters…..how low will you go?

I tend not to get too bothered about most of those annoying things that are sent to challenge us recruiters. People turn down jobs. Clients make crazy decisions. Stuff happens. It is not that I don’t care…I just accept that there are some things that are out of my control and there is no point wasting emotion on them. I save that for shouting at the TV when my team is playing…because that definitely helps!

However, when a client tries to negotiate my fee at the end of a process and then tells me “I am standing in the way of him being able to offer my candidate a job because of my fee”…I get a little hot under the collar.

Let me get this right Mr Client. We agreed fees at the very start. You signed a document saying so. You happily met my candidates and never once mentioned the fee again. A few weeks later you now want to offer one of them..…but also want to negotiate / re-negotiate / take the piss. And you have the brass to tell me that if I can’t do something about the fee then it will be me standing in the way of this guy getting a job!

Where is his justification in doing this? Well, there isn’t any. But that is not his point. Mr Client thinks that he has me over a barrel. Surely I will see that some sort of fee is better than no fee. Add a little emotional blackmail on top of that and I will have no choice but to crumble and agree.

Most recruiters out there would have experienced something similar. And it raises a vital question for every recruitment business….especially at the moment.

At what point are you prepared to walk away and just say no?

When you have already done the work, it is tempting to rollover and just accept a reduced fee…something is better than nothing, right? Take the money and run. Even if you are dealing with a more honourable client who understands that negotiations happen at the start, dropping a percent here or there to get the gig is tempting. When your competitors are dropping their pants at any opportunity just to work with a client, you might feel you need to do the same to keep in the game. In a competitive market place these things might be tempting…but then so is that last drink on a big night out….and that rarely ends up well.

It makes little long-term commercial sense to keep lowering your fees. In my experience, once you start doing this then it is a slippery slope. You open yourself up to more of it in the future and it is hard to build a credible reputation. But the main reason I say no is not a commercial one. I say no because some things are just not worth it. If you are the sort of turkey that has the brass to say I am standing in the way of a guy getting a job because you won’t pay the agreed fee, then you don’t deserve my hard work or the awesome candidate I found you. And I don’t want to go home at night and have to scrub myself with pumice stone to feel clean again.

To complete the story, I called the candidate, explained that my client wanted to offer him the role but didn’t think he was really worth the $867.00 that he was trying to knock off the fee. Suitably unimpressed, he called the client to pull out of the process. “If you don’t think I am worth $867.00 then you are not the right employer for me”. That was nice!

A lot of people who use recruitment agencies see it as a buyers market at the moment. DIY solutions like LinkedIn, internal recruitment teams and other pressures mean that clients potentially have more power at the negotiating table than ever before. How much depends on how much you let them have.

So, do you have a line in the sand that you just simply refuse to cross?

Luke Collard

Come on recruiters – get around each other.

A few weeks a story broke and hit the local recruitment sector like a tsunami. The story soon escalated into a full-blown tabloid-esque scandal, also receiving a fair amount of mainstream media airtime .  I refer of course, to Myer-gate… but, before you tune out of yet another Myer blog, this isn’t going to be all about what went wrong, who is to blame and how awful and ashamed everyone involved should be.

As a recruiter, the story interested me. But as anyone who has worked in recruitment for long enough knows, it’s not that uncommon a story…just a little bit more scandalous because of who was involved. It was not the scandal itself that I was interested in, more the recruitment industry’s reaction to it…

We seem to love a scandal in recruitment. We cannot wait for the next misfortune or disaster to fall at some recruiters door so we can circle and give their reputation a public flogging. When someone posts something a little salacious about something that has happened, the cry of “Name and Shame!” goes up all over town. We are seemingly desperate to judge and make life more miserable for those that have ‘done wrong‘.

The irony of the Myer story is that, as far as I can tell (although accurate research is never the strong focus of this blog) the recruiter who was the focus for a lot of the blame seemed to do little really that wrong. As I understand it they floated a candidate into a role and got lucky. As long as they didn’t purposefully mislead Myer then I wouldn’t knock them for that. Good on them for giving it a go. Had they been deliberately cheating Myer then they deserved to be named, shamed, and publicly flogged like any cowboy. But at worse it appears they were simply being opportunistic….hardly Clint Eastwood riding into the sunset.

I’m not suggesting we all recruiters get together for some big love in. Recruitment is a competitive industry and along with that comes some boundaries, challenges and realistic behaviours with competitors. But are we really that competitive that we take pleasure in seeing other recruiter’s misfortunes? I am yet to find the perfect recruiter who never ever made a mistake or stuffed something up… so maybe those in glasshouses should stop throwing stones.

Come on recruiters… it’s tough enough out there with half the world seemingly queuing up to knock shreds of us… we don’t need to do it to each other too!

Luke Collard

A typical day in recruitment…..and I’ll be a monkey’s uncle !

Taking five minutes out of a busy day yesterday, I stumbled across this YouTube clip from Robert Half. It was an employee-branding piece and depicted a typical day in the life of two of their consultants.

If you can’t be bothered sitting through the three minutes and fifty two seconds, the general gist is two good looking recruiters having the time of their lives. Their day starts with a sprightly jog along Bondi beach before heading into the office and the morning meeting, where we see them adopting serious looking business type faces before a moment of great hilarity and back slapping. Into the day proper …..cue lots of sharp looking types standing up speaking into headphones and arm gesturing enthusiastically as they ‘make deals’ (think Wolf of Walstreet minus the naked brass band). It all finishes with our two protagonists enjoying a glass of wine and beer and looking forward to more of the same tomorrow. A happier two people I have rarely seen !!!

It was what you would probably expect from a video designed to attract people into recruitment and into their business….and good on Robert Half for doing something like this. OK, I might think the content is a little cheesy but as the industry moves more and more to looking outside of the industry for new talent, this types of strategy makes sense.

But I compared the typical day of a Robert Half recruiter with my day…

Awoken at 6.30am by a client who wanted to re-schedule a day of interviews I had lined up. I am a bit hungover from celebrating a deal I made yesterday so could do without this. So before I have had a shower and coffee, I am on the phone trying to re-organise four people’s diaries.

I get into the office and the first email is the candidate I had just placed (or so I thought!). He tells me his present company have counter-offered him and he is thinking about staying. So then I am into fire fighting mode and back and forth with client and candidate thinking about how I can resurrect this deal. Not how I was planning to spend my morning.

I have to put that on hold when my interview arrives. Really keen to meet this chap as his background looks great and I have a number of clients that would take him in a heartbeat. Ten minutes later I have changed my mind. How disappointing!

Fast forward to lunch which is a rather disappointing cheese sandwich at my desk, as I catch up on what I was planning to do today.

I thankfully get a good run in the afternoon. It seems like I have managed to talk my candidate down from the counter offer cliff and he is now back on board. And I pick up a great role with a new client. Plus, the feedback from the client who ‘rudely’ woke me up this morning is really positive too. Things are looking up. “But I want to talk about your fee Luke”. Maybe not !

OK, I chose a particularly challenging day ! But I  bet that my day is probably more typical of most recruiter’s day than our friends at Robert Half. It’s champagne and razor blades, highs and lows, brilliant and rewarding but also frustrating, laughter and tears.

It is great that the recruitment industry is looking outside for new talent and selling the positives about the industry. But we also need to be careful that the message we are putting out there is realistic and not a sugar coated version of an industry that, quite frankly, can be bloody tough and not for everyone. The world doesn’t need any more jaded ex-recruiters who quickly realised that recruitment was far away from the sunshine lollipops and rainbows dream they were sold.

Talking of agencies showcasing themselves…..checkout our latest Agency in Focus which is Bluefin Resources 

Luke Collard

The Recruitment World Cup 2014

Unless you have been living under a rock recently, even the most passionate non sporty person will have realised that the biggest sporting tournament in the world kicks off tomorrow….. nope, not the 44^th Annual Kenya ProAm Golf Challenge …..the Wold Cup. Even those that normally have no interest at all in the beautiful game (including die hard one eyed AFL and rugby fans), or those who don’t know their Lionel Messi from their Lionel Ritchie, will probably find themselves watching grown men kick a ball around at some point over the next month or so. Even my Mum has been known to enjoy the drama of a good penalty shoot out.

In our sports mad office, the World Cup has been a hot topic for a while as we dissect and analyse the teams and predict who is going to do what. In a vain attempt to try and make it ‘work related’, we played a little game this morning called “World Cup Recruitment Agencies”… what would it mean if each country were a recruitment agency:

Brazil – all about playing the beautiful game and looking beautiful whilst doing it, the Brazil agency is all about the show. It’s sales over service, and turnover and over profit. Big, bright and colourful… sometimes they even do well.

England – perennial underachievers, The English agency always promise a lot but rarely delivers. They constantly forecast results they never get close to achieving, and are so bogged down in red tape, reviews and layers of management, they will never change, however much they might want to.

Spain – what everyone aspires to be, the Spanish agency has strengths right across their business and is admired by everyone.

Australia – the underdog of the market, the Australia agency is a small boutique battling with the big boys that no one takes seriously.

Uruguay – very aggressive, the Uruguay agency doesn’t care what anyone else thinks about them, will happily play outside the rules and have been known to bite the hand that feeds it.

Switzerland – champion team, as opposed to a team of champions, the Switzerland agency plods along doing well without any big billers or big budgets.

Germany – well organised, the Germany agency is a well oiled machine that keeps trucking along regardless of who is working there. It is always hanging around, making a nuisance of itself, much to the annoyance of anyone that isn’t Germany

Belgium – normally not even on the radar for most people, the Belgium agency is currently boasting a golden generation, benefitting from training and developing their own over a number of years. and now able to mix it with the big boys

Argentina – the Argentina agency is built around one big biller who will make everyone else around them look good.

Cameroon – lots of energy, try very hard but with little strategy or direction, everyone wants the Cameroon agency to do well but you know that at some point they will score a few own goals.

Italy – often thinking that they are better than they are, the Italian agency has a sense of self worth that is often not justified. They have an issue with absenteeism as their staff commonly succumb to illness over the slightest thing. Boy band looks and a slick wardrobe will often be enough to be employed here

Columbia – drug problems?

Here at WatsonCollard, we decided we are Korea… splintered off from an existing country, trying to remain at the cutting edge of technology, most people know us but don’t expect too much !!!

What about you… which country is your recruitment agency and why?

Luke Collard

Your boss might not like you reading this…..

Kym Quick, the MD of listed recruitment company Clarius announced her resignation a few weeks ago. Her resignation was possibly not a massive surprise, but it was the reasons she gave in her announcement, which grabbed my attention.

“The world is changing and our industry is changing with it so it’s a positive thing for the business in terms of having the opportunity to re-evaluate and hopefully look at the future and where we sit”

For the last 12 months, possibly longer, Clarius’ performance has, by their own admission, not been fantastic. A business that was once one of the darlings of the industry in Australia, has seemingly lost its way somewhere along the line, as Kym pretty much said in her resignation.

Clarius has been a long-standing client of ours and, whilst I have never met Kym myself, my colleagues know her well and hold her in vey high regard. Her track record is certainly very impressive and she has achieved more than most ever will. In certain areas, Clarius is well in front of the industry, specifically their growth into Asia and now looking at the power of social media. But, by her own admission, she recognises that the industry is continuing to change dramatically, and it is testament to her that she feels Clarius would be better served with someone else at the helm.

Kym’s resignation message raises some very important question that everyone who is serious about a career in recruitment should be asking, now more than ever. Questions like “Is the person heading up this company understand recruitment today and is moving with the times?”……“Is the culture here one that is genuinely open to change and doing things differently?”……. “What are we doing differently than we did 12 months ago”.

Obviously there is a lot to consider when choosing who you work with. But surely the most important thing is that they are going to help you be successful….and that means moving with the times. So if you can’t answer those questions positively then you should be asking yourself one more……“Where is this company going to be in 2 years and where does that leave me?”

 

Congratulations Kym on a very successful career and best wishes for the future.

 

Luke Collard