Yesterday afternoon I caught up with Cheryl Morgan who is Communications Executive at Jobsite
The background to this conversation is that over the last few months I've had a number of emails and calls from recruiters who were concerned about the RecruitRank system and what it might mean for their business.
How it works
Last week Jobsite launched a website specifically explaining about RecruitRank www.recruitrank.co.uk and their newly announced awards. You can read a full explanation there. However, basically RecruitRank only ranks agencies (not corporate recruiters). The process is that a candidate makes a job application via Jobsite through a recruitment agency. Several weeks after this they get an email asking them if they want to leave confidential feedback via a link. They have to rank the agency on a scale of 1 to 5 for four questions. These are Overall impression of the agency, Maintaining contact and updating you on progress, Understanding your needs and Knowledge of your industry sector. The answer to the first question (Overall impression of the agency) is the one which is used to calculate the RecruitRank rank. The other three questions are used to give feedback to the agency.
They have had around 100,000 pieces of feedback since last November.
The results
A league table of the top 10 is produced daily and featured on the home page of Jobsite (www.jobsite.co.uk). Additionally a confidential report giving feedback on all four questions is sent to the specific agency for which the feedback has been given each month (it can be also be checked online by that agency).
The Awards Ceremony
There is going to be an awards ceremony in November. The full story about who has been nominated and when the awards will take place will be revealed in September on the RecruitRank website and via The Recruitment Consultant magazine (who are their media partners). There are a number of categories and all but one are restricted to Jobsite advertisers.
Upgrades
Cheryl commented that they are really keen to get feedback from users. If you are one of the people who has emailed or phoned me with feedback then please also call Jobsite (speak to your Account Manager if you advertise with them).
One of the issues with the system is that the agency has no right of reply and no way of knowing how or why the candidate felt inclined to rate the agency in a particular way. Jobsite are looking at a way that agencies can make contact with candidates who have left feedback without the candidate losing their confidentiality.
She also mentioned that they may implement an "upgrade" to show top 10 tables by "large recruitment agency", "small recruitment agency" and by industry sector.
So, what's the problem
The biggest issue I have with RecruitRank isn't about the data they are collecting, it's about the fact that the publish a league table.
Don't get me wrong I really like the idea of raising standards in the industry (obviously!) and I think that for many agencies getting a monthly feedback report could help them improve the way they conduct their business (assuming the data is accurate). Jobsite are actually offering a great free ad-on in respect of these reports. However, to my mind the publishing of the table really only benefits those in the 10 top and is a promotional opportunity for Jobsite. I'm sure it does benefit candidates to a certain extent in that they can see 10 agencies that have been ranked as giving a "good overall impression" to other candidates. However, it doesn't mean that any of these agencies can help that particular candidate find a job. The way that the league table would really work is if they published the rankings of every single agency. This would seriously encourage agencies to clean up their act! However, I can't see Jobsite doing this due to the backlash from clients (and it's not a serious suggestion on my part - before you all start emailing me abuse!).
Also, if they are going to publish league tables they should also publish precisely how the results are calculated. They should show how many people gave feedback and what timeframe it was over. They need to clear up the anomaly that when more than one agency gets the same "score" they are still shown as being 2nd, 3rd and 4th, etc, rather than all joint 2nd - which is more accurate. Also, I think it could be clearer to jobseekers that the ranking only applies to Jobsite agencies (I'm sure that they'd argue the context makes it clear).
There are other limitations to the system - such as candidates being more likely to respond if they have negative feedback to give rather than positive and the fact that we mustn't forget this isn't representative of the whole industry - just of Jobsite's candidates and clients.
In my opinion, if they aren't going to "name and shame" they could have just a big an impact on standards in the industry by getting candidate feedback and passing it on to agencies in private.
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