Oh… for Christ’s sake!

Firstly, apologies if I offended anyone with the title… but I didn’t want to drop the ‘F’ bomb, so you got stuck with the “PG’ version… and now, on to the post!

Seriously… I just had a candidate tell me she… or he… didn’t need me to help her… or him… uncover their next opportunity… ahhhh Wrong!

In his… or her… own words… he… or she… said.

‘Craig, I’m not sure you know your market that well. I’ve been a recruiter for over 3 years and my network is very deep. In fact I probably know more people in my niche than you do. I think from here on in I’ll just explore opportunities on my own.’

Let me give a little context before I go on.

This non-gender specific candidate does in fact have 3 years local recruitment experience… well played sir… or madam.

Buuuuuut, in those 3 years they also happen to have had 5 different employers. The longest of which was a 12 month stint in internal. Beginning to slowly nod your head in sympathetic understanding yet?

This candidate may very well have a deep network, buuuuuut if that was the case why did they reach out to me in the first place?

Before we go any further let’s talk about one of those little recruitment secrets…

I know we’re not supposed to talk about it but we all have A, B or C candidates… and we all have A, B or C clients. You know the drill… you send your A candidates to your A clients… B to B… and so on… all the way down to C to… funnily enough C.

Oh… let me pause there while any of my clients or candidates reading this begin to ponder where they fit in… ummm… you should know… A’s the lot of you…

So anyway, given this candidate’s background and taking into consideration they did in fact recruit in a high demand niche I had him… or her… pegged as a B- to C+.

I managed to get him… or her… 2 interviews with suitable clients, but he… or she… didn’t cut it.

Too jumpy, unstable billing history and culture risk were the given reasons… which I dutifully feedback to the candidate. I even met him… or her… for a coffee to discuss these challenges in person and give my advice.

Surprisingly, the candidate didn’t really take the feedback on board and projected the blame back to my clients.

The funny thing was I had just discussed her… or him… with Luke and we had agreed that I should call them to tell them we probably weren’t the right people to represent him… or her… to market. Which was what I was going to do when they sacked me… It sucks not getting in first!

‘What is my point?’ you ask.

Fair question is my immediate answer, whilst I ponder a response, (after all, it was a question without fair warning).

Ummmmm… well… I guess my point is that if a recruiter, can’t see the point in working with a recruiter to source their next opportunity… especially a pretty ordinary recruiter… (the candidate… not me…), then you guys must really do it tough with some of your candidates…

I have written posts in the past about sacking clients who won’t work with you… you know what? The absolute same goes for candidates.

Your responsibility is to give accurate feedback, expert advice and match the candidate with relevant and realistic opportunities. If a candidate can’t recognise that you are the expert, and won’t work with you throughout the process… well… then I say sack him… or her.

Only… have the intuitiveness (is that even a word? Well… spell check let it through so must be…), and the guts to do it first… not like me.

Craig Watson

Recruiter Etiquette 101

I was booked on an early flight this morning. Trouble is, I live about an hour or so away from the airport… so that meant a 4:30am start for me. No biggie. I made it with time to spare… and was milling around the gate with other commuters…

It was about 30 minutes before boarding, and then came the dreaded voice over the PA.

‘This is an announcement for passengers on Flight VA809 to Brisbane…’

‘Uh oh.’ I thought.

‘There will be a slight delay in boarding the flight as we are waiting for the First Officer. Our new expected departure time is 7:15am.’

Not so bad… just a 15 minute delay, and hey everyone gets caught in traffic once in their life…

30 minutes later…

‘This is an announcement for passengers on Flight VA809 to Brisbane…’

‘Uh oh.’ I thought… again.

‘We are still waiting for our First Officer. Our new departure time will be 8am.’

‘You are effing kidding me!’ I thought.

‘You are effing kidding me?’ The lady sporting the Louis Vuitton carry-on next to me complained.

OK, so now we are an hour late. I quickly email my client in Brisbane that I may be a little late for our meeting. Update Twitter™ with my sorry tale and grab a newspaper…

‘This is an announcement for passengers on Flight VA809 to Brisbane…’

‘Uh oh.’ I thought. Are you seeing the pattern?

‘Due to a crew change we have a new expected departure time of 8:45am. Please stay close to the departure gate for further announcements…’

Riiiight… a crew change… Read old mate First Officer is so hung over he failed the pre-boarding breathalyser…

I hate to think what the lady sporting the Luis Vuitton carry-on was saying now… Wait a minute… I can hear her from over the other side of the departure lounge…

‘90 effing minute delay and not even an effing apology! Think they would’ve held up the effing plane if I was late?! This is an effing disgrace! I want to speak to someone in charge! NOW!!!’

Fair play to her I say. I mean, we all made the effort to get here ahead of time… we were prepared… we were patient about the first delay… even the second… to an extent… not so much the third. But the point is there was no apology whatsoever… and only 3 updates in 90 minutes.

I’m sorry, but that is shit customer service.

Which segues me beautifully into today’s post. I have read countless blogs on tardy candidates… hell I’ve written a couple, but let’s just for today hold up the mirror to our ourselves…

Put your hand up if you have never kept a candidate waiting in reception. Not you Luke… I know you’re perfect… and no… there’s no prize… But seriously, it’s just common decency isn’t it?

After all, we’re asking our candidates to come and meet us in an environment totally alien and intimidating to them. We expect a level of preparation, promptness, and an appropriate appearance. We are going to ask them uncomfortable questions about their work history, skills, personality and motivation. We are going to appraise them in a very short space of time on their suitability to what may very well be their dream job… it’s bloody scary… just like flying.

When was the last time you were a candidate? Remember the nervousness, the concern about your coffee breath, the sweaty palms – that no matter how many times you rubbed them on your pants – they got sweatier? (PS. my word of the week is sweatier… see how you can fashion it into a conversation with colleagues, bosses, strangers… go.).

You absolutely dreaded the interviewer coming, because you didn’t want to shake hands with sweaty palms that were only becoming sweatier (see I used it again…), and being judged. Not nice is it?

So, my very simple piece of advice to all recruiters is:

Don’t be an arse. Don’t keep your candidates waiting in reception… It’s not cool… it’s rude. Get the interview off to a great start. Help the candidate feel comfortable… not angry. And if for any reason you are held up, offer a sincere apology.

Unlike @VirginAustralia whoops… did I say that out loud?

Craig Watson

 

All recruiters are cockroaches…

Hey… don’t blame me… wasn’t my idea… seriously… you think I’d call my own industry a bunch of darkness dwelling, creepy crawly germ infested bugs? Again… not my description… you can thank Wikipedia for that!

So… back to cockroaches. I’m writing this post from one of the most beautiful places in the world (you can blame me for that quote!). Queenstown, New Zealand. I’m at the back end of the annual RCSA International Conference, and snuck out to write a post while some of the learnings are still fresh in my mind. It’s a barmy -1 degree Celsius (30 degrees Fahrenheit) but the view is magnificent… jealous? Should be.

Anyway, back to the conference. I’m not going to go through the speakers, and what they said… sufficed to say the overwhelming theme was that:

1. We – as an industry – are perceived literally as cockroaches…
2. We are actually cockroaches…

Let me explain a little further. One of the first speakers at the conference was Scott Wintrip. Scott has coached or educated more than 40,000 recruitment professionals and added more than $1.2 billion in positive economic impact for his clients… basically… he knows his shit. His presentation focused on Innovate Sensation. He told us that during his 8 days in Australia before the conference he asked over 100 strangers (not recruiters) to describe recruitment in 1 word. Unfortunately, the overriding theme of responses was not a positive one. Are you surprised? You shouldn’t be… Words like Liars, Thieves & Cheats were fairly prominent. He then went on to tell us that there was a high proportion of animal references in the mix… and not noble or wise animals like Lions, Owls or Tigers… and not beautiful animals like Butterflies, Birds of Paradise or Mandarin Fish. No… nothing like that… we copped animals like Snakes, Sharks and of all things Cockroaches. That’s right Cockroaches. Anyone reading this believe that to be a positive description? Anyone? Didn’t think so.

 

‘Cockroaches are among the biggest contributors to global warming, since they break wind every fifteen minutes. Furthermore, they continue to release methane gas for eighteen hours after they die.’

 

So… cockroaches we are then… There were a number of speakers through the remainder of the first day of the conference and into the beginning of the second day… almost all… without exception at least made reference to the negative perception of recruiters in the wider market.

Yes there are some bad recruiters out there. God… there a re bad Doctors, Teachers and Cops, but on the whole these professions are respected and IMO (wow, that’s the first time I’ve used IMO instead of in my opinion… it feels liberating… just imagine actually being able to shorten the use of three words to three letters… I guess I’ve kind of spoilt it by using 56 words to describe my efficiency of reducing 3 words to 3 letters… but I digress).

IMO I think I know why we – as an industry – are so universally hated. It all comes down to the fact that we deal in rejection… and people don’t like that. Think about it… let’s say you get 10 applications for 1 job. That means you have to reject 90% of those that have approached you. Of course there are different ways to demonstrate rejection… and sure… some of those may go into a database for future roles, but on the whole you are telling 90% of people they are not good enough for the role they have reached out to you for… think about that when you go back to them to shatter their dreams…

But I have digressed again… so unlike me… must be the surroundings…

On the morning of Day 2 Peter Williams digital innovation guru… and surprisingly… not a member of our highly esteemed recruitment fraternity had a wee chat with us.

Pete’s (hope he doesn’t mind me calling him Pete, but in the spirit of my new found skill of shortening things, perhaps he will allow me this one liberty)…

Pete’s presentation was on Digital Disruption, Social Media & Recruitment. It was insightful and very engaging… but he said something early on in his presentation that really… really resonated with me.

He reminded us of the prophecy of demise of our industry when job boards hit the market… and again with the advent of LinkedIn etc. He said that we were an industry of survivors… we are continually surprise with an ability to survive in challenging and detrimental environments…

I thought about this for quite a while… we are survivors you know… a species that is not always respected by others, with a nous for survival in uninviting terrain. An industry facing the prediction of obliteration with ever-moving technology taking over our role… but we have continually faced the apocalypse and survived… remind you of anything? Like… maybe… cockroaches?

I say be proud to be a cockroach… just be a nice one!

Craig Watson

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

Takin’ them to the edge…

You’ve been there before… it’s D-Day… (well actually it’s today, but let’s not split hairs)… after a painfully long process the offer has finally come through from the client. It’s a good offer… actually a great offer. You got the salary your candidate wanted & a clear career path. The client will invest in professional development and they have even pre-approved the holiday your candidate has booked next month (and only told you about two days ago). You feel a huge sense of relief. Your manager has been piling pressure on you to close this one for weeks. You can almost taste the celebratory beer… almost. You pick up the phone to your candidate… and this happens.

‘Hi Jimmy it’s Craig from Watson Collard here.’ I begin. ‘I’ve got some fantastic news for you! I just got off the phone with Bev from Aardvark Corp and they would like to formally offer you the role.’

I wait for his elation to smack me from the other side of the phone… the joy of acceptance pulsating out of him like an alien in… well… Alien™… but nothing…unless you count the sound of crickets as something… was that him just saying yes? I press the phone closer to my ear. No… still nothing.

‘Jimmy?’ I question. ‘We must have a bad line mate… I can’t hear you…’

‘No… I’m here.’ He replies.

I feel a little dread induced vomit begin to rise in my throat… I slip into panic mode…

‘Don’t worry about your employer counter-offering…’ I stammer. ‘We’ve had that conversation.’ We have had that conversation… haven’t we? ‘And resigning… I can help you through that…’ I frantically reach for my initial interview notes. ‘Remember the reasons you were… are… looking to leave. You wanted more money, a clear career path, training and a mentor… Aardvark is offering all that…’

‘It’s not that.’ He counters. ‘It’s just…’ Oh God he’s accepted another role hasn’t he?

‘You’ve accepted another role haven’t you?’ I accuse. ‘I’ve been speaking to you every day and there’s been no mention of other opportunities…’ I can hear the desperation in my voice… but I just can’t seem to stop it.

‘No…’ he says. ‘It’s just that I need to speak with my wife about it. I want to go through it with her over the weekend…’

Wife? Wife? He never mentioned a Wife before…

To cut a long story short, Jimmy did accept the role in the end. It took him another week though… there were questions around the employment contract…from his wife… and then we did have to go through the whole counter offer thing.

All of this could probably have been avoided though… or at least tackled earlier…

There is a point in every recruitment process when the candidate should have a feel for the client and know whether they would work for them (if the package and conditions were right). It is at this point when the recruiter should take them to the edge.

It’s scary… yes. It means you have to force the issue. It will affect your pipeline (maybe positively… maybe negatively), but it also means that you will know where to focus your time and energy.

It sort of goes a little like this… and happens after the first or second interview.

‘So Jimmy. You met with Aardvark today, and you’ve told me that you really like the business, the manager and the team. They have met you with the full knowledge that you are expecting a minimum of $80k plus super. You are looking for clear career progression, investment in professional development and a mentor.

So, my question to you is… If they come back to me with an offer covering all of that off… can I accept the role on your behalf?’ Then silence… that’s right don’t speak… wait them out…

There is going to be 1 of 2 responses only… ‘Yes’… or ‘No.’

If it’s ‘No’ ask why… Methodically go through the reasons with them. You will find out about the wife or any other barriers here and you can deal with them… or… if the barriers are too high… end the process and focus on something else.

Pretty easy hey? Ask the question. Take your candidate to the edge and start controlling the process…

That’s it… that’s all… try it and let me know how you go!!!

Craig Watson

 

Women are better recruiters than men… you were right Mr Savage…

Well what do you know? Back in December 2011 Greg Savage penned a blog post announcing that women were better recruiters than men. He waxed lyrical about how women are better listeners… more resilient… better billers…

I was up in arms… I mean how dare he sell out like that? I was a guy (still am…), he was a guy (still is…). And, yet here was an icon of the recruitment game, firmly pitching his tent in the other camp.
Don’t get me wrong, I am all for equality… I believe in equal pay for both sexes (except in Grand Slam Tennis… if you want to know why just ask me…), I believe there should be no barrier career-wise to either sex, (135 words in and I mention sex for the first time in a blog about sex… well not about sex per see, but sexes…). And I definitely believe that discrimination by gender should not be tolerated in any way. It sucks.

To place one sex above the other (no visual intended), doesn’t sit well with me, and I thought that’s what Greg was doing in his post. It was observational, rather than statistical. I felt it was just another example of the sexual revolution gone crazy… like female only gyms, mothers’ clubs and the like. So, in my outrage I left a pointed comment lambasting his outrageous observations. I said words to the effect of… well actually not to the effect of… this is my exact comment reprinted below.

‘Greg,
You must have been hard up for a topic this week – generally your posts are insightful, not today. This is utter tosh! I’m pretty sure if you went to any specialist in the Engineering or IT field their top billers would paint a different picture, just as if you focused on Office Support it would skew the other way. Be very careful with your ‘facts’ and I’d be very interested to know what the gender split in your business is overall???’

Which brings me, (in a kinda long-winded fashion) to my point today. He was actually right. So firstly… sorry Greg. I spent the better part of three years trying to disprove your theory, but the stats back up your observations…

We are just winding up our annual recruitment consultant census. It is the second year we have conducted it. Last year we had just over 1100 responses… and this year we have had a little over 800. But it is still open until the end of June, so if you haven’t already, please complete by clicking here
The results, benchmarks & trends to date have been interesting to say the least, but in terms of gender on gender results let me say that the girls have it in all of the key categories…

Longevity – a higher % of females have been in the recruitment industry for more than 3 years. (by 9.36%)

Tenure – a higher % of females have been with their current employer for more than 2 years. (by 2%)

Billings – on average more males bill less than $25k per month than females. (by 14.67%)

Salary – more females are paid a base salary of $60k (or less) than males. (by 7.99%)

There you have it. If you were a recruitment business owner or manager looking to grow your team what would you do?

Simple statistics tell me that guys… you need to lift your game… and girls… congratulations… well played!

We will be releasing some general statistics from our consultant survey, including trends based on last years’ results during July. If you are interested in a set of results specific to your sector/business let me know.

Oh… and a final unapologetic call to arms for recruiters to please complete the census, by clicking the link above… or here.

And… finally… finally, I need to make a stand for the weaker sex here and finish with something we can all enjoy…

‘How can you tell when a woman is going to say something intelligent?

She starts the conversation with… “A man once told me…”

Sorry… that was the cleanest one I could find…

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 Recruiter’s Biggest Nightmare…

So… I was working from home yesterday. Woke up. Had a shower. Breakfast. Brushed my teeth… Am I boring you yet? Sat down in front of my computer. Looked at emails. Responded to the important ones. Made a list of calls to make later. Then I jumped in the car to travel to the other side of town, for my only meeting of the day. The plan was to meet the client… then find myself a nice little café, and use my phone to make calls and send emails for the next few hours…

I guess alarm bells should have started to sound when I got in my car and the battery charger wasn’t working… well I thought the charger wasn’t working. Then maybe the penny should have dropped over the next 45 minutes on route to the client, when my phone didn’t ring… not once. Then definitely I should’ve known something was up when I couldn’t get my phone to turn on after I parked.

You know that feeling you get… right deep down in your guts when you know you have just walked smack bang into your own disaster movie? The turning in the pit of your stomach… helplessness… desperation… I felt like crying.

I told myself. ‘Don’t worry… it’s a minor glitch… give it a second… it will work…’ As I smashed every conceivable button until my finger hurt… I shook the phone… kept turning it around & around… I rubbed it soothingly… it still didn’t work… and no sign of a genie either. I even repeatedly pressed the apple symbol on the back cover, in the vain hope I was sending a secret message to Apple™ office, alerting them of my plight. Still… nothing.

Refusing to believe the phone was de… (I can’t even say the word), I fished through the glove-box of the car. I found a paper clip, and pressed the pointy end into the little hole in the top of my phone… too technical for you? Sorry. The back popped off & I took out the battery, the sim card, took a deep breath and blew in the back. C’mon… that’s fix your Iphone 101… I lovingly put the phone back together and again tried to power on… nothing.

I was starting to hyper-ventilate now. I looked at my watch… ‘Shit! No watch!’ I screamed maybe a little bit too loud… if you were to believe the looks I was getting from the people passing me in the street. ‘That’s right!’ I screamed silently this time. ‘The effing clock’s on the phone… The same effing phone that’s not working!’

I shoved my de… (still can’t say it), phone into my pocket, and hot footed it to my client’s office.

The meeting was a blur… I just kept thinking. ‘What am I going to do? WHAT am I going to do? WTF am I GOING TO DO?’

‘Pardon?’ Mr Client said.

Oh… nothing… Please continue.’ Memo to self… DO NOT move lips or make sounds when thinking thoughts!

I made it through the meeting… picked up 2 roles thank you very much! And returned to the car. I pulled out my phone and absently pressed a few buttons. Nothing.

It made me realise just how dependant we have become on our mobile phones. When you misplace it, or it breaks, it’s like losing a limb…

In our industry your phone is the most important tool of trade. You speak to people on it… you send and receive emails & texts with it… you look up vital information on it… you check the weather, traffic conditions, news… It wakes you up in the morning and you tell time with it… Hell… it’s magic!

Utterly resigned to the fact that I had no contact with the outside world… at all… I went through my options:

1. I could go to the Phone Store and have them tell me I need a new phone… and buy a new phone… and try to salvage the remnants of my Lost day.
2. I could go home… draw a face on my basketball and talk to it until my wife & kids got home.
3. I could write the day off and go to the gym, movies, pool…

What would you do?

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