The stereotypical image of a recruitment consultant is not good. When you conjure up an image of a recruiter most people picture a pushy, arrogant, hard nosed sales person who doesn't listen.
In fact most are quite good – but nearly all are hindered by the burden of mistrust because of the job title. Trust is the biggest hurdle that recruiters need to overcome in order to provide a high value service to their clients. And trust isn't the first word that springs to mind when you think of a recruitment consultant. But without trust it is very difficult to provide a consultancy type service, which brings me onto my next point.
'Consultancy' or a 'Source and send a CV service'?
What do you really want - 'Consultancy' or a 'Source and send a CV service'? There are many who believe that the craft of recruiting is a dying art. There are many recruiters who call themselves consultants, but they do not consult – what they do is keyword search and push CVs into portals or email boxes.
Set up their recruiters to become a trusted advisor
Some clients can make it very difficult for recruiters to provide their expertise and consultancy skills – they are too busy to discuss their recruitment needs. They have little or no time to put into the relationship and set up their recruiters to become a trusted advisor and importantly set them up for success. Of course this will continue to be the case if client companies elect to have too many suppliers for too little business opportunity.
Clients get the service they deserve!
Clients have a huge say in the type of service that they get from recruiters. If they chuck out a vacancy that their in-house recruiters are already working on, to a Preferred Supplier List (PSL) where there are a dozen plus recruitment companies all fishing in the same pond, then it is little wonder that those recruiters invest little time and effort into those types of arrangement.
This will lead to many recruiters opting not to send any CVs or making a token gesture quick and easy response back to the client. What you can be rest assured of is a consultant can ill afford to spend a lot of time and effort on low commitment long shots – and the best recruiters will be busy marketing scarce skills into companies where they have a better chance of success. And this isn't by choice, they simply can't afford to – as recruiters they risk losing their job if they keep working vacancies that never lead to a successful placement.
Working with recruiters with a better success
Recruitment is one of the few industries which tolerate such high failure rates.
There are a number of key players in any recruitment process – the key ones are the recruiter, HR and the line manager. Many companies do not allow access to the line manager, yet this is the most important person that a recruiter needs to consult with in order to deliver the best candidates. I know that part of the mistrust is because recruiters have abused the privilege in the past and line managers have opted out of process – however the recruiter, HR and the line manager all have to recognise that they are all key to the process and that there needs to be collaboration and communication between all three.
The key ingredient to any recruiter relationship is trust
Recruiters, to avoid having the service they provide commoditised and the risk of being replaced by technology or cheaper outsource options, need to become experts in a specialist field. A specialist field that isn't readily available to a client internally or externally. This way they will provide value through advising and consulting in their area of expertise. With skill and talent shortages prevalent, even during the worldwide recession of the last five years, there are plenty of opportunities for recruiters to do this. Clients should have a rigorous selection process and do their due diligence in order to appoint the right recruitment organisations as 'trusted advisors', and then the relationship should be built on the basis of how to optimise success.
Exclusively filling 100% of 20 vacancies per annum for a client
It is an obvious thing to state, but a recruitment supplier will be far more committed to exclusively filling 100% of 20 vacancies per annum for a client, as opposed to filling 20% of 100 vacancies that they have to work. Would a company with 100 vacancies per year get a much greater engagement, commitment and service effort appointing five companies on their PSL who all have the total responsibility of filling their 20, than five companies who get all 100 vacancies where it becomes a big bundle to fill just one in five? The immediate thing that springs to mind is 'But what if they don't fill every position?' Back to that word trust again. Can you trust yourself to find a reliable provider of what you need, and then can you trust them to deliver what you need?
I pay my consultants whether they make a placement or not
Traditional recruitment (contingent recruitment) is a very inefficient process. As the founder of Resourcing Solutions, I am amazed at how hard a recruiter has to work in order to make a few dozen placements each year. When we translate the efficiencies (or inefficiencies) it just doesn't make sense for us, our clients or our candidates to keep operating with such an inefficient model – which ultimately the client pays for in money, the candidate pays for in wasted time (80% of the jobs candidates are put forward to, do not lead to a placement). And as a recruitment company it costs us both time and money.
Clients who have engaged in this service with us over the last year are delighted with the results – our recruitment consultants have had to rediscover the craft of recruitment and they are now back consulting (which is far more interesting and rewarding than just performing keyword searches and pressing the send button on email); candidates are far more confident in committing to a recruitment process where they do not have so much of their valuable time wasted; and clients are getting the benefit of between 500% - 900% more time and effort, at less cost, as well as receiving much better candidates in the process. It is a win: win: win scenario.
Trust me – it's an absolute no brainer.
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