Louise's UK Recruiter Blog

In these tough economic times...

I will be doing a proper write up on last week's technology event.  The way the event worked was, so I’d have a rough idea of how many people were going to come, recruiters paid a £20 deposit that is refunded to them after they attend the event.   These are two emails I got on Friday from event attendees.

"Many thanks for organising yesterday. Thoroughly worthwhile as well as being thoroughly enjoyable! No need to return my deposit. Please donate to your nominated charity."

"Thanks for organizing the event yesterday – it was good.  I would like the £20 refunded please, rather than giving it to one of your charities. When and how will it come back to me?"

Nothing wrong with wanting your money back but a little tight to actually spell it out!!

Quick link to blog posts from our technology experts for this Thursday's event (http://recnet24may.eventbrite.com)

From Alan Whitford: http://ukrec.eu/LjoOvo
From Lisa Jones: http://ukrec.eu/LjoRY8
From Keith Robinson: http://youtu.be/PbDHGlImZ2g !
From Hung Lee: http://ukrec.eu/JxBrVp

Come along on Thursday to meet these guys and take part in our speed-pitching sessions!

Things to consider before upgrading your CRM

Ahead of our recruitment technology event on Thursday Wayne Barclay of Barclay Jones (a Consultancy working with agency recruiters, corporate recruiters and B2Bs advising them on the most effective use of technology, web and social media) has written this for us.

Once you've decided that your current software for managing your data (CRM / ATS) is ready for a kick up the butt!  You may be wanting to upgrade your existing software, or migrate to a brand new system...  STOP: are you about to simply move into a new house with all of your old stuff?

If you've made the decision that enough is enough, and you're ready (and willing) to change the way you store (and manage) one of your most valuable assets, then you will also be thinking about the existing data you have (won't you?)

I was with a client recently who is ready to make the move and we were discussing his current database and it turns out that he actually has a dataDUMP.  It's a great system, although to be fair he's outgrown it and its but full of junk.

His recruiters don’t search it; they rarely add data to it, and if they do it's merely to ring fence it - they don't keep the data up to date. He spends a fortune on other databases and job sites to help with candidate sourcing; he has little visibility over what he has and what the business “owns” in terms of data; social media is not helping the situation by giving his staff even more “private” access to data that he has zero visibility over.

His database is therefore worth very little; in fact it is probably costing him money! We got chatting about what he wants to get out of the move to a new system...

Like many of our clients he has had the following experience:

• Invested well before recession
• Held on tight during recession
• Got a bit giddy post-recession and focused on bringing the money in (too right!)
• Now realises that strategy is key and he wants a safer, structured, visible environment for his data and his people
• The CRM that he has is not fit for purpose going forward - his business is very different to what it was when he bought the software and the software has not moved with the times.  Upgrading to the newer version would in effect mean a completely new process - so he may as well see what's out there! (Right decision!)

Thus, the decision to move systems has been made and he wants to know about how to deal with the legacy data.  Options:

Bin the old data and start again with a nice shiny new system! Trust me, the theory is great - in reality, your staff will hate you for this (even if they are the ones whinging about the rubbish they have to sift through to get what they need).
Migrate the lot! Some CRM / ATS software houses will happily take money for migrating your data (as a removal man will happily take your old junk to your new home...) - but you will be charged for this AND your staff will still have to wade through it.
Study what you have and see what you have to gain by migrating it - please think about what good looks like.  Think about the typical life-span of a client and candidate and search your datadump for data that you need going forward.

The key to this is to think long not short term; ask yourself:

• If your data was paper-based, filed away in a multitude of filing cabinets, would you pack it up and move it to a new office?
• Is one of your objectives for the new CRM/ATS a cleaner working environment?
• Do you have a policy / process which clarifies to your people when the data that they have goes on to your system?  You don’t want to be spending time and money getting a gorgeous clean house, only to invite a load of hoarders to stay, who nip out to every car boot going, and trawl eBay for stuff they may “need”.  Be clear about what goes onto the system and why.  And perhaps have a system that "archives" data that has not been touched in a while.

Investing in a new CRM / ATS is a great way of moving your business to a new work ethic, ensuring that your workforce has the best tools and that you can maximise the data that you have.  Make sure that you don't simply move your junk to a new system and in 6 months have the same complaints that led you to migrate / upgrade - otherwise it's just geography.

Are you planning on migrating / upgrading your CRM? If so, how much data have you got? what's your strategy?

You can follow Wayne on Twitter, his Facebook Business page, his Pinterest boards, read his blog and connect via LinkedIn.

 

SeeMore at Recruitment Technology Showcase Event

We’ve got our Technology Showcase event in less than a week on the 24th May; for recruiters to investigate different recruitment software providers..

In the run up to the event I'm blogging about some of the providers taking part, and why they think you should attend the event.

Provider name: Monster
Product name: SeeMore

Why should people come and learn more about SeeMore?

Talent Management continues to be ranked as a #1 priority on company’s management agendas. The business drivers for their actions are simple:

•    Demographic shifts worldwide will lead to a shrinking workforce and competition will heat up for certain skills.
•    Economic growth will resume and having the best talent is critical.
•    Almost every organisation today operates in a more complex and competitive environment.

Therefore, in order to grow business, and help ensure organisations retain and attract the best talent the way we look at current talent sourcing and retention methods has to evolve. 

Monster is here to help companies find people with bespoke solutions from the Web to mobile to social; we apply the most advanced technology to help you successfully match the right people to the right job. Our Business has evolved to work with you to solve your big data issues and allow you to understand the talent pool you have already built and be able to apply that knowledge to source the very best candidates quickly and cost effectively.

At the event we will be discussing specifically SeeMore™ our new Cloud based semantic search solution.


If you want to find out more about SeeMore before the event visit: SeeMore

Building your future in recruitment: things to consider when going it alone

This is a guest post written for us by Richard Prime, Founder of  Sonovate.com

Recruiters are by nature entrepreneurial. After their first year of recruiting and once they’ve established themselves in the industry, gained a certain level of experience and built up a network, most begin to ask themselves the question: “If I can do this for an employer, could I do it for myself?” For most the answer is yes. The trigger to search for a new opportunity can be something simple such as a difficult manager, or frustrations with the market that they are working in. This can be all that is needed to plant the seed of doubt, and encourage them to leave the safety of a permanent role for the excitement of their own company.

Before the internet age, setting up a recruitment business had its complexities. At a basic level it wasn’t difficult; all you needed was a phone. However, without online job boards and social media, it could be a struggle to acquire that constant source of candidates, required for any recruitment business to flourish.

Now, however, recruitment entrepreneurship is easier than ever before. Most experienced recruiters will have a strong, carefully built network and access to a range of CV databases offered by job boards and social networks.

Furthermore, as the industry matures it is becoming increasingly specialised, and small, boutique recruiters serving niche market needs are doing good business. I’ve worked with a number of recruitment entrepreneurs (and been one myself!) and I know that there are certain commonalities across all successful recruitment businesses.

Specialising

The first choice to make is which sector will be your specialism. Common sense says continue in the area you worked in before you were your own boss. You should have a good level of expertise and a strong network.

Landing those early clients

Then you’ll need some terms on the books. You will need to break down doors with hiring managers, and in most companies your previous employer will have set down a number of restrictions within your contract. I would never recommend breaking these, but for the majority, these restrictions are only relevant for a limited time period. And anyway, these shouldn’t put you off - if you’ve made it this far in the industry, then you no doubt know that winning business is always competitive. But you’ll also know how to win business, and how to service it. Your previous clients worked with you because of your knowledge and ability to deliver, not because of the company you worked for. Just keep doing what you’ve always done.

Setting up on your own, you have a real advantage over established recruiters. You have the control and flexibility to decide how you value your client’s business, and nearly every case will earn considerably more, simply because your expenditures are less when going it alone. It’s in these first few months that real perseverance will pay off.

Using online tools

Recruitment will always be anchored on human engagement, but it is becoming more of an e-business every year thanks to the rise of social media, online referrals, CV stores and job boards. You will of course exploit these tools in practice, but remember not to miss the boat yourself - let the trend work for you too. Thankfully, there is a host of excellent tools to help any start-up become an online recruiting machine. These include CRM systems (such as Bullhorn), timesheeting (e.g. ETZ) and job boards (e.g. Broadbean).

Establish your business across multiple online platforms to create a consistent brand and help win new business.

Keeping on top of the admin

This is the time when you want to concentrate all your resources on placing candidates and winning new business, but it will all be in vain if you don’t take care of those pesky back office considerations. The last quarter of 2011 saw cases of insolvency rise in recruitment businesses, often as a result of clients (who are themselves experiencing cashflow issues) holding back on payments. The last thing an embryonic business wants is to be stuck in a catch-22 scenario where it’s losing money because it’s wasting time chasing money. If you don’t have your house (and your books) in order then potential for growth will be frustrated.

And growth is the aim, whether that is achieved by billing more or hiring additional staff. While you may start out alone, in time you should be growing and recruiting members of your own team. Indeed, growth could even come quickly and you will have control over its pace, since you’re now the one making decisions and banking the lion’s share of the client fees.

While approximately 2000 recruiters set up their own companies every year, it may seem like the odds are stacked against recruiters going it alone – the factors that can make or break a young business are many. One of the key factors in a new recruitment business’s success is how much time they actually spend recruiting. It is the ability to sell that makes them good at their job, but often, their skill in this areas doesn’t match their ability to deal with operational and administrative tasks. Too often they spend their vital office hours dealing with time consuming admin – which will take even longer when the recruiter has no previous experience in, for example, invoicing, debt collection or VAT.

There are, however, services available that can help recruiters as they take their first tentative steps in the market. With the support of these services behind them, recruiters are freed up to concentrate on closing deals and developing their business. The trend is towards a new, entrepreneurial recruitment practice in which back office worries like online branding and invoice-chasing are delegated to the service-provider.

In the 2012 business environment, going it alone needn’t be such a daunting prospect. Increasing numbers of recruiters are taking control of their careers and exploiting this new model which gives them free rein to expand their own business by doing what they do best: recruiting.

This isn't an advertising post - but I'll give Sonovate their little pitch... Sonovate is a cloud-based platform that takes care of these peripheral stresses, meeting a growing demand for the tools recruiters need to set up their own businesses quickly and easily....