Recruiters… maybe my hips do… but the stats don’t lie…

So… we’re all sick of being told how crap we are right? Next to politicians and Lindsay Lohan… and maybe the Bieber, recruiters are right up there at getting a pretty universal bad rap…

I hate it… I hate the fact that a very small percentage of bad recruiters spoil it for the rest of us… I include me in the ‘us’, but you can make up your own mind…

You see those bad recruiters have a very loud voice. Like the NRA in the States… or Malfoy in Snape’s potions class… or Miley Cirus at the VMA’s. They kinda drown out the good stuff. But that’s ok. It just means that the silent majority need a voice… and I want to provide it… partly because I’m running out of blog ideas, but mainly because I think it’s important to promote good news stories for our industry.

Sure we’ll get the usual suspects attempting to knock us down… (you’ll find those negative Nellies in the comments section… too lazy to write their own blog… too cynical to accept that maybe… just maybe recruiters offer a valuable and positive experience… and too caught up in their own ego to be gracious… whack).

Anyway, I’m prepared to open up our blog (probably should have run this one past Luke first… sorry mate!), to those of you out there who have changed a life, provided a client with a solution that changed their business… or have used your recruitment skills to benefit the community… here is your chance. Feel free to leave your stories in the comments section… or email me craig@watsoncollard.com.au.

Over the next 6 months I will be reaching out to some of you and carefully packaging your stories (in my own little style), into some positive blog posts!

Take that Haters!

On another note, I wanted to share with you some of the statistics and trends we have collected in our Consultant Census. With over 1000 respondents the data is very telling and gives us insight into where the industry is… and where it is going…

I’m actually presenting them tomorrow at the RCSA conference, so here’s a sneak peek!

What are your thoughts on the stats? Agree? Disagree?

Of course this data is very generic, and there are many unique aspects that present around specific sectors…

So… I tell you what… if you want me to produce a set of data relevant to your business and more detailed than above let me know… there is a cost, but it will be worth it!

We’ll be back next week… with a real blog post… Until then send me your feel good stories…

And whilst you are here, check out this months Agency in Focus …if you are looking for a different type of recruitment opportunity this might interest you.

Craig Watson

 

7 Traits of Great Recruiters…

So… you want to be a recruiter… or… you want to be a better recruiter?

Well listen closely my friends…

I speak conservatively to 5 recruitment people a day – Consultants, Managers & Owners. Well I don’t speak conservatively… I conservatively speak… if you get my drift… Geez… how 70’s is that? Drift…

These Consultants, Managers & Owners come from different niches and from different sized companies. That means over the past 5 years I have spoken to in excess of 5,500 recruitment professionals… OK… I may have spoken to a couple of you more than once, but it is still a shit load of recruiters in anyone’s language…

So, you know what? Over the journey I’ve kind of worked out the magic formula… the traits and idiosyncrasies that all of the very best recruiters possess. Forget about the process, your social media coverage and market reach… forget about the number of times you pick up the phone in a day… and forget about your ability (or lack thereof) to update the database and complete reports. *Disclaimer… when I say forget about the above I mean forget about them for the 3 minutes and 42 seconds it takes you to read this blog…

Come along for the ride with me… look at the list below and ‘tick off’ the ones you have… and work on the ones you don’t.

1. Commercial Acumen – To be a great… a truly great recruiter you need to understand business. You need to be aware of the commercials behind your desk. Break-even points. Profitability etc. I’ve banged on about it before in other posts, but it’s key and will help drive other areas like urgency, activity & time management…
2. Passion – You need the fire in the belly! The desire to wake up every day and work your market. Passion feeds you the energy you need… and you need a butt-load (not sure there is a hyphen in butt-load… but… anyway), you need a butt-load of energy to be a successful recruiter. If you don’t have the passion and drive to be successful you need to find it… or get out.
3. Resilience – The best recruiters have this in abundance. The number of things that can… and do… go wrong in a day in the life of a recruiter are many & varied (and I’m putting that nicely). Resilience is a magical trait that allows you to move on from disappointment and tackle the next assignment with the same vigour and positivity.
4. Empathy – Guess what? It’s not all about you. It’s about your candidates and clients… and if you don’t understand their drivers and motivators you just can’t be the best… sorry you can’t.
5. Bull Shit Radar – No hyphen there… you know what? Candidates and Clients lie… not every time… not even most times… It kinda feels like most times, but believe me it’s not… stats show that clients and candidates lie to you about 36.87% of the time… I made that stat up, but I’m tipping I’m pretty close to the mark! Fact is you… yes you… need to be able to sort out the bull shit from the truth. The best recruiters can do this. How’s your Bull Shit Radar?
6. No Fear – Most deals that don’t happen can be avoided. I think I said that backwards… what I meant was… You can avoid most deals falling over… no actually the first time was better… Most deals that don’t happen can be avoided. ‘How?’ I hear you ask… Well funny you should ask, because it’s all about asking questions. If you ask the tough questions early in a process you can control it much… much better. Sometimes the answers aren’t what you want to hear… which is why many recruiters are too scared to ask them… but wouldn’t you want to know a deal is dead in the water early in the process – rather than later? It gives you more time to focus on the real deals. In my opinion (if I was cool I would have said IMO), FEAR or lack of it is one of the absolute must haves for the very best recruiters.
7. X-Factor – Do you have it? What even is it? If you ask Danni Minogue, Redfoo or any of the other judges it’s the ability to juggle flaming samurai swords whilst riding a unicycle and singing Ava Maria. But for me it’s a combination of points 1 to 6 coupled with a knack for getting things done. If you have 1 – 6 you will be a very good recruiter… throw in the x-factor and you become great!

There you have it. My 7 Traits all Great Recruiters Have… If I were really smart I‘d make it into a sexy acronym… say… like… FREXCAPB and make a fortune on the e-book deal… but clearly I’m not.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on what traits or attributes define a great recruiter.

Have I hit the mark… or am I way off? And more importantly… Do you have FREXCAPB? It’s starting to grow on me…

Craig Watson

Do you believe in recruitment? Really believe in recruitment? I do…

I consider myself a man of ok intelligence… I reckon I sit somewhere on the scale of genius between Dr Stephen Hawking & Lloyd Christmas… depending on topic and whether or not alcohol is involved… If we were talking about… ummm… I don’t know… say… Melbourne Cup Winners since 1861 I go ok…

1861 – Archer

1890 – Carbine

1968 – Rain Lover… etc. See… pretty good hey?

Transcendental meditation, on the other hand… ummm… not so knowledgeable.

But you don’t have to be a rocket doctor to understand that to be successful in any sales based industry (and a big sorry to those who believe that recruitment isn’t primarily a sales based industry… it is… you’re wrong…), you must… above all else… believe in the value of the service you provide.

Ask yourself a simple question… You are a recruiter right? (That’s not the simple question… yes, it is a simple question, but not the simple question to which I was referring…).

OK… so you’re a recruiter… you know the standard terms of business of your company. Here comes the simple question… Do you believe in the value of the service you are offering?

The reason I ask is this… As some of you may know my core business is rec2rec. We believe that most in the rec2rec space aren’t providing real value… so we have invested a great deal of time tackling that issue.

Firstly, we created a differentiator. A different sourcing channel based on social media recruitment communities and this crazy blog. Secondly, we ever so slightly reduced our fee. Not because we don’t believe in our service… because there has been a market correction and we were over-priced… simple.

Finally, we introduced a solution where we only charge our clients 75% of the fee. Pretty cool hey? Then… following the guarantee period, and if our candidate hits expectations we invoice the remaining 25%. It’s like a bonus for keeping up our end of the deal…

Anyway… the way we see it… we are sharing the risk, allowing our clients to better manage their cash flow while their new hire comes up to speed and really attempting to partner with our clients… the little diagram below probably explains it a little better…

So, we promoted this solution via Linked In & Twitter. It was accepted pretty well by most… But we did receive a pretty strange response from a Senior Manager within the Recruitment Industry… I’m paraphrasing here…

 

‘nice marketing, this is offering discount, more value would be paying a fee upon successful completion of probation where the 3 parties agree specific measurables? If the ” hire” out performed measurable the fee could be made higher?…’

 

‘Hmmm…’ I thought. ‘Is this guy suggesting that we place people into his business… and then invoice nothing… nothing at all until probation is completed… 6 months in this case?’

I must admit at this stage I was a little miffed, but I shrugged it off… surely I misunderstood?

Not too much later… a colleague of the Senior Manager within the Recruitment Industry who posted the above comment decided to add his 2c worth…

 

‘If the candidate pays his/her way after 6 months, happy to pay the fee, If not they can have the candidate back free of charge. As (name deleted) says happy to share the risk, a lot of crap out there.’

 

So, there we have it. Not one, but two senior recruiting professionals – both from the same company – suggesting that my business should provide staff to them… free of charge for a period of six months… Then… and only then… if my candidate is successful I am rewarded by being allowed to send an invoice.

I did ask them if that is how they transact with their clients, but surprise surprise the answer was no…

Do you see what I am getting at here? The simple fact is that if recruiters can’t see the value in the service we are providing, then they really can’t believe in their own service… can they?

Maybe I’m having a Lloyd Christmas moment, I’ll leave that up to you to decide, but if you are a recruitment business owner, who can’t see the value a good rec2rec holds for you as a business in growth mode… then I would suggest you don’t believe in recruitment at all… Thoughts?

PS. Any recruiters out there please take 5 minutes to complete our Recruitment Consultant Census. It helps us track trends & bench marks within the industry…

Craig Watson

The most annoying phrase in recruitment…

‘We have cut down our use of job boards and recruitment agencies by 95% in the last 18 months…’

I hear phrases similar to this bandied around like confetti at a 80’s wedding these days. Here is my problem with it…

So what!!!!

I don’t really care where my candidates come from as long as they are the right candidates. If they come via an advert I have placed on a job board, it doesn’t make them any worse a candidate than if that same person sent me a message on Twitter or responded to a head hunting approach. I could meet them in a Baghdad nightclub for all I care. The fact that I am working with them – and they are right – is all that matters.

Don’t get me wrong. This isn’t a Seek sponsored blog, defending job boards, or a shot at the old internal versus agency argument.

Like everyone, I don’t like spending money unnecessarily and personally I would be happy to never write another advert. But, just like LinkedIn, Twitter, blogging, Pinterest, etc etc… job boards have proven to be a relevant and useful sourcing channel for me (and for the majority of recruiters at one point or another I suspect). I have successfully sourced candidates through all these channels and still do. I certainly wouldn’t rely on job boards, and about two thirds of my placements come from other sources. But then I wouldn’t solely rely on any single one source. That’s crazy talk!!!!

Obviously a lot of the anti job board / anti agency argument is about cost (although I think there is an element of smug snobbishness going on here too!). Of course we all want to save money wherever we can, and if we can get the same result for less, then that makes sense. In this respect, social media has been a blessing for many and changed the monopoly job boards once had… and the power agencies had over desperate clients.

But the argument that not using job boards or agencies is cheaper is simply not accurate. Even if most social media sites are free to use at some level, there is a hidden cost. It takes time and effort to make social media work really well as a hiring source. And like everything that takes time and effort, there is an associated cost. I estimate that it takes 2 hours a day to build and maintain a really effective social media recruitment strategy. It’s not enough just to be on LinkedIn and Twitter and check in every now and then. So, what is 2 hours of your time worth?

Surely, our job as recruiters, internal or external, is to do everything possible to find what we are looking for. So it makes far more sense to have a sourcing strategy that is inclusive and uses whatever channel you have available… even if it is not where your candidates come from most of the time. Can you be certain where your next ideal candidate is going to come from? Ignoring any sourcing channel is stupid.

Now, I’m off to a Baghdad nightclub to find a particularly difficult candidate… that’s my excuse anyway…

Luke Collard

 

 

Put your hand up if you’re different…

I just returned from a new client visit… well… given that it is 7:30am, as I sit in front of my sexy little MacBook Air (cash for comments if you’re reading Apple ™ – don’t be afraid to send a newbie my way), I didn’t really just return from a new client visit – it was yesterday… Now that we have that cleared up let’s move on… quickly…

So… I was on a new client visit yesterday… the early conversation went a little like this…

Welcome… pleasantries… how’s the weather… blah… blah… blah… etc…

‘If you don’t mind me asking Mr Miyagi,’ I inquired, with my very best let’s get down to business voice. ‘I understand you have a strategic need within your business… but why did you reach out to me?’

‘Well,’ Mr Miyagi countered, with his predatory eyes stalking an errant fly buzzing around the board table, and his left hand – clutching chopsticks – steadily poised for action. ‘I have read your blog…’ probably never again after this post I’m guessing. ‘I have seen the research you have conducted into the industry… you have a very strong social media presence, and I have spoken to a number of senior people in the market and you come highly recommended…’

‘Really?’ I blushed, barely able to contain the excitement at being recognised… finally… for being able to add value to a client’s requirements… ‘Go on…’

‘Pardon?’ Mr Miyagi asked.

Did I just say that out loud, I thought… ‘Did I just say that out loud?’ I asked.

‘Say what out loud?’ Mr Miyagi questioned, as he sprang at the fly with his chopsticks… and missed.

‘Oh… nothing.’ I responded… well saved Craig.

Anyway, the remainder of the meeting went well. I took a detailed job brief… made sure Mr Miyagi was on board with our terms of business… and even tied Mr Miyagi down… not literally, he’s a black belt… to a month’s exclusivity on the role… and to all you ‘retained or nothing’ people out there, I gave it my best shot!

We were bringing the meeting to a natural conclusion…

Thanks for seeing  me… warm shake of the hand… do you have any plans for the weekend… blah… blah… blah… etc… And then Mr Miyagi hit me with one right out of left field…

‘Wax on… wax off… wax on… wax off…’ Ok, I made that bit up… what he really said was…

‘And just before we finish up here… tell me Craig… why should I use you? There are plenty of recruiters out there in your space…’

I looked at him blankly for a moment, before gathering my thoughts… ‘Well Mr Miyagi… you really answered that question yourself… earlier on. I have an extremely unique candidate sourcing channel via our blog… We have conducted extensive research into the industry to make sure we understand it and can consult on it better than our competitors, we are very active in social media meaning we have created an interactive community of candidates… and in your own words… I come highly recommended…’

Mr Miyagi smiled… and as I entered the lift he called after me… ‘I expect to see the profiles of three quality candidates by tomorrow…’

‘In your dreams…’ I responded.

‘Pardon?’

Did I just say that out loud? I admonished myself as the lift doors closed…

Point is… we are in an extremely competitive market. Your recruitment process will rarely be the differentiator… and if your fees are what makes you different more fool you… so what’s left is what value you can provide that your competitors can’t… And the best way to ad that value is to be an absolute expert in your market.

Become the expert and you automatically differentiate yourself from your competitors… simple… and remember… ‘Man who catch fly with chopstick is capable of anything…’

Craig Watson

Sometimes… it’s like a Death in the Family…

Bit morbid isn’t it? Sometimes… it’s like a Death in the Family… I mean it’s not really like a Death in the Family, unless there’s actually a Death in the Family… And… in this case… there’s been no actual Death in the Family…

You’ve probably all heard it – or even said it to your candidates – before.

‘It’s important to like the people you work with, because you spend more time with them than you do your own family or friends…’

Hell, I see the guys at the office more than I see my own kids. And, in the Melbourne office – where I spend most of my time – we have created a really nice culture. Everybody likes each other, everybody respects each other… but it was only recently that I realised just how much…

We had a girl working in our office for a little over a year. She was not just ‘a girl’, She was everything you could have wanted in a consultant. Bright, fun, hard working, intuitive, caring and – just to top it off – successful. She was like a doughnut with extra jam, a takeaway chinese order when they throw in the free bag of prawn crackers, or the resort holiday with the unexpected fruit platter and champagne waiting for you on arrival… I guess what I’m saying is we got what we paid for… and much… much… more.

Then, about 2 months ago at exactly 9.34pm we got the dreaded text…

‘I was hoping we could catch up in the morning. There’s something I want to discuss with you.’

You don’t have to be Dr Stephen Hawking (pre or post his cool robot voice) to work out that she was about to resign…

To cut a long story short – she did.

What? Too short? Ok… She wanted to travel to the UK and live abroad for a couple of years… there’s no real come back for that… is there? Can’t counter offer going overseas and fulfilling a lifelong dream…

What I did notice was that as soon as the decision was made public a little bit of spark, a little bit of fun and a little bit of culture disappeared from our office. She worked out her 2 week’s. We had a party. There were tears… and then… she was gone.

For a few weeks we kidded herself that she would arrive in London – hate the place and be back before I’d nicked her office chair – it’s the only one with both armrests still in tact. But that sadly, didn’t happen.  (On the positive though, I do have a new office chair).

And today, the weight of reality has forced me to accept the sad truth… she changed her Linked In profile to her new role… she ain’t coming back.

I may sound a little self-absorbed, but I don’t care… It’s not that I have invested in a resource that now someone else is benefitting from. It is not that I have lost a revenue producing machine, that’s left a big hole in my budget projections. And it’s not that now I am going to have to rely on Google™ to tell me what YOLO and LMAO and G1 means… It’s that we no longer have the pleasure of spending 8-10 hours a day with a really special person…

We have all lost someone from the work place that has made us sad, and it takes a bit of time to bounce back – as individuals and as a group.

If you are a business owner, take some time to empathise with your staff and take measures to protect the culture that has been created. If you are an employee, be aware that your boss has lost someone too…

My advice is that you remember what you admired about, learned from and enjoyed about that person. Reflect a little of that person in your own behaviour and your workplace culture will not only survive, but improve…

Oh, and Natalie if you do read this, please come home… I’ll give you your chair back, get you a new notebook and promise not to tell anyone that you secretly wish you were a member of S club 7… Whoops! Did I say that out loud?

Craig Watson

The Recruitment Holy Grail…

A recent conversation with a client went something like this…..

‘Craig, I need someone now! We’ve just picked up a major PSA client with volume roles.  At the moment I’m working the desk and it’s taking me away from what I need to do…’ Note the tone of desperation in this Manager’s voice…..

‘Sure, John, we’ll get on it straight away.  It may take a while to find the right person.  Would you consider a Contractor to help you out in the meantime?’ There I said it… the dreaded ‘c’ word….

‘Um…. No…. We don’t really do Contractors Craig.  I’ll muddle through until we find someone permanently.’

‘Are you sure John? I’ve got someone who can start on Monday and will be able to give you six months?  They have 18 months experience, but he’s committed to going to university in September…’

‘No….No… We really want someone permanently. Contractors leave whenever something better comes along, they will probably take our database with them, and it’s just not worth the effort…’  We ‘to and fro’ for a few more minutes,  I won’t bore you with the details – bottom line is the Recruitment Industry is……. Contractorist!

That’s right ‘Contractorist’ (Contractorist – adj. Describing a person or institution who discriminates against Contractors.) – OK, I made that word up, but you get the general idea….

Let’s look at the main arguments against contracting in agency recruitment:

1. Continuity and Tenure – Most contracts are 3-6 months. This doesn’t allow effective relationship building within accounts
2. IP – The recruitment industry is a Sales industry where client and candidate data is the most important asset of any business.  Contractors may take this information to their next employer.
3. Training Time – Teaching process, database etc. would take too long

Now…… Let’s look at the facts….

Fact 1 – The average tenure of a Consultant in an agency recruitment in Melbourne is……… wait for it…….. 13 months!!!!  That’s right 13 months.  I know many recruitment owners/managers may say their retention rates are much higher, but you can’t argue with the stats.  We randomly selected 82 resumes from our recruitment consultant database to put that data together.

Fact 2 – 17% of Contractors in the IT industry ‘go perm’ after accepting a 6 month contract. And a further 62% have their contracts extended for (at least) another 6 months. (IPro data 2011). Yes, I understand the IT Industry has little in common with agency recruitment, but this stat shows that at least 79% of all contractors within the IT industry remain with their employer for longer than 12 months… So, if we accept the premise that 79% of all contractors remain with their employer for over 12 months, and the average tenure of a full time ‘permanent’ Agency Recruitment Consultant in Melbourne is 13 months we begin to see the arguments against using contractors beginning to lose their allure…
Fact 3 – I don’t care who you are, or what you say – it can not be productive, efficient or cost effective to have a Manager sitting on a desk to the detriment of their other duties, (which may include running their own desk).
Fact 4 – Permanent Employees pose as great a risk to your IP as Contractors. They have the same access to sensitive data – and, as shown they will probably stay in your business for a similar length of time….

Contractors do have a place in Agency Recruitment. Whether they be on a project basis, or as a stop gap whilst you make your next strategic hire.
It really is time to practice what we preach to our own clients, and open up this important pool of talent to our industry.

And, just to leave you with my thought of the day…. The more I think about it, the more my twitter has become like my fridge… I know there’s nothing new in there… but I keep on checking it every 10 minutes just to make sure…

Craig Watson

Recruiters are the modern day Slave Traders…

So anyway… I was at a party recently. I found myself talking to an Accountant… I’m not going to prejudice this blog by applying sweeping generalisations like… ummm… Accountants aren’t boring people… they just get excited about boring things.

Let’s just say the conversation was about as interesting as a sightseeing bus on the Nullabor. So interesting in fact, my wife had flitted away from us very very early on..

‘I’ll go and get you another drink and find us something to nibble on.’ She smiled. But her eyes were saying something very different. ‘You’re on your own  – sucker!’

The Accountant and I – let’s call him… ummm… Eugene… continued to make small talk for the next few minutes… weather… he didn’t care much for the sun… sport… he didn’t care much for sport… wine… he didn’t care much for alcohol… a few prolonged moments of silence ensued… then…

‘So Craig,’ he pontificated. ‘What do you do for a living?’

‘Oh, I’m in recruitment.’ I replied. My eyes scanning the party for my wife, hoping – no praying – I was going to be saved… or at least she had secured a plate of arancini balls and a fresh beer for me…

‘Ohhhh recruitment, I see.’ Do you? Do you really see? I doubt it very much – oh, and here comes the, confirmation. ‘It is a disgusting industry. Recruiters are the modern day Slave Traders.’

Excuse me? I thought. ‘Excuse me?’ I said… with maybe a slight hint of confusion – or unbridled anger – in my voice.

‘Don’t get me wrong,’ he preached. Don’t worry buddy,I won’t get you wrong. I’m not even going to get you a beer, or an arancini ball. By the way – where’s my wife?

‘I just don’t see the difference.’ He continued. Dismissively waving his hands in the air.

‘Well Eugene,’ I countered… in a very measured tone. ‘I’m not sure who you speak with when you are looking for a new role, but I’ve been in the industry for 20 years now, and I’m fairly sure I have a pretty good grasp of how it works. In my experience I’ve never come across any recruitment consultant who travels to a far away country to kidnap a bunch of candidates, then sails to the new world (or if there’s no wind has his new candidates whip out the oars and row), and then auctions off these candidates to the highest bidder with no regard for their welfare. So to be quite honest Eugene… and don’t get me wrong… I’m pretty, bloody offended by what you just said!’

And with that I dramatically turned on my heel and strode away… over to my wife, who – by the way – had found that plate of aracini balls and assured me she was just making her way back with my beer.

Point is this. It is easy, very easy to make generalisations about industries, people and situations. Eugene clearly had had a bad experience with a recruitment consultant – maybe more than one bad experience. And now he has formed an opinion – a very negative one – based on his experience. It’s dangerous, and it’s wrong.

In the recruitment game we have all had a bad experience with a candidate who’s let us down, or a client who has stuffed us around. It has happened and it will continue to happen. We are dealing with humans and everyone is different…

My advice though is don’t make generalisations, don’t expect every candidate to be dodgy, or every client to be dishonest… most aren’t.

You will enjoy your time in the recruitment industry much more if you are positive in your relationships, believe what you are being told and work with a strong code of ethics. Sure you will be disappointed from time to time – even surprised with some behaviour. But the unpredictability of what we do is a major part of its charm…

And, if you want an uneventful, predictable… dare I say it… boring career… go work in a library… or… maybe… as an Accountant.

Craig Watson

Does the average Recruitment Consultant have 2 heads?

Funny isn’t it? We sit next to, drink with and bitch about those we work with on a daily basis…

Most of us even ‘dip the toe in the water’ from time to time to see what might be out there for us at other recruitment agencies. Most of the time decisions to stay or go are made via a combination of culture fit and what the hell they will pay us…

And this got me thinking… what does the average recruitment consultant in Australia look like? Not necessarily our physical features – there has already been countless studies attesting to what we already know. In short we are the best looking and smartest of all professions… but that aside no-one has ever really asked consultants about themselves.

Sure, there are quarterly surveys completed by business owners for their viewpoint on the industry, but what about the grass roots? The coalface? The frontline? Blah, blah, blah.

So I thought… what about a very short census for the recruitment consultant? We could really find out a thing ,or two about ourselves, the industry, and what actually works…

So, without further ado, I am going to ask you all a huge favour…

Please click on the link below and complete the Recruitment Consultant Survey.

It is completely anonymous, it will take you less than 3 minutes and I will be publishing details (where relevant) across future blogs…

Two things though are extremely important

1. You must be a current Recruitment Consultant (doesn’t matter what level), Resourcer, Team Leader or Manager to complete the survey.
2. Please be honest. I really want the data to be clean – and a truthful representation of our industry.

I would love to bribe you with a reward, or prize – but I can’t… It’s anonymous remember?

So, if you care about the recruitment industry… no, if you care about me… forget that, if you care about your mother – you WILL complete the survey by clicking below… please.

Enter Recruitment Consultant Census

Craig Watson

Recruiters… Ever had a Client backdoor you?

I’ve been sitting on this one for a while… just a little too nervous to let fly.

After all, some of my clients have admitted to reading this blog… and… to be quite honest… upsetting my clients = no business.

Anyway, imagine this if you will…

I make contact with a candidate who fits my client’s requirements to the letter – could not be more perfect!

So, I complete a thorough (but fair) interview. During the interview the candidate tells me that he interviewed with the hiring manager about a year ago – when the hiring manager was recruiting for a different role, at a different company… remember that… at a different company.

I call the HR Manager and tell him that I have this amazeballs candidate. I tell him that this candidate covers off every competency, skill, personality trait and experience level that they have been looking for. I tell the HR Manager the candidate’s name and ask them if they have interviewed, or received a direct application from my candidate… I’ve used the word candidate far too many times already… let’s start calling him Duane… So, the HR Manager tells me that he’s never heard of Duane. In turn, I tell the HR Manager that Duane met with the hiring manager… let’s call her Mata Hari… when she was working for her previous employer and would that be a problem? I received an emphatic… ‘No!’

I emailed the profile over immediately. I followed up twice over the next 24 hours, and again the following day. Finally, the HR Manager returned my call. (Let’s give him a name too… how about Louis Tully?).

‘Hi Craig. Louis Tully here, sorry I keep missing your call.’

‘Not a problem Louis. I just wanted to tee up an interview for Duane – with yourself and Mata – as soon as possible.’ I began confidently enough.

‘Ahhh… yes… about that…’ Here we go… ‘I spoke with Mata, and she said that she’s not prepared to accept an introduction from you in relation to Duane as he is already in her network…’

What!? I thought. ‘What?’ I said.

‘Yes, Mata tells me that she is already connected to Duane on Linked In, and if she had have known that Duane was interested in the role she would have contacted him directly.’

But, she didn’t… I thought. ‘But, she didn’t.’ I said, or implored, or screeched. Whatever it was, it was definitely an octave higher than my previous utterance.

‘Be that as it may,’ Be that as it may? Who says that? ‘Mata won’t accept the referral. Mata also said that Duane is probably not quite right for the role anyway, and won’t fit our culture…’

I don’t really remember much more of the conversation. Let’s just say that the culture must have changed, because 2 weeks later Duane was employed by Mata for the exact role I had represented him for…

So, what are my options? I could say that by accepting the profile binds you to our terms of business, which are clearly laid out in sub-section blah, blah, blah of our commercial arrangement. I could sack them as a client, and headhunt the hell out of them, or I could look at what this business spent with me over the past couple of years and let this one slide…

I’m not going to tell you what I did, I want you to tell me what you’d do… comments below please!

Craig Watson