Louise's UK Recruiter Blog

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Recruitment to Recruitment

We recently ran a survey with Voyager covering a number of different aspects of the recruitment industry.  I'll share all the results here over the next couple of weeks.  However, here are the results from the first two questions we asked:

If you were looking for a new job in recruitment, would you go via a rec to rec?  
Yes: 22%
No:  46%
Maybe: 32%
 
If you were looking for a new job in recruitment, would you contact recruitment firms direct?  
Yes: 76%
No: 14%
Maybe: 11%

I suppose it should be no surprise that so many recruiters (76%) would go directly to a recruitment firm.  However, I am a little surprised that so few (22%) would work with a recruitment to recruitment firm.  Is this because you feel you can do a better job of "placing yourself" or in any part due to the disappointing reputation of the recruitment to recruitment sector?
 

SelllingSuccess.tv

Colin Minto sent this over to me recently and I said I'd happily give it a mention.  One of the job boards that Brainhunter run is from the Institute of Sales and Marketing Management.  They also run SellingSuccess.tv which is a portal of sales training videos.
 
They are split up into categories such as networking, motivation and presentation skills.  Videos are provided by a large number of different "trainers".  You can view Colin's video here.
 
You do need to register to see the full videos but there is some good stuff on there.
 

 

Share scheme information guide

I recently came across a in-depth glossary section on the RM2 site that can be accessed free of charge by employees wanting to learn more about how a company share scheme works.

 

This might be of interested to anyone considering moving jobs where a share scheme is part of the package and you are trying to find out more about it.

 

 

Talent Attraction During an Economic Downturn

Emma at Sky recently shared some highlights from a presentation she made called "Talent Attraction During an Economic Downturn"

This was part of web learning series run within the News Corporation network (including Fox, News International etc) to share ideas and best practice. Emma talked about how the current economic situation is affecting them all and what the recruitment challenges are; getting a balance between proactive and reactive strategies, working with reduced budgets, having a larger talent pool and the emphasis on engagement.  It was presented as a webinar and here are the main elements of Sky's response to these challenges:

1) Maximising Brand
Sorting out the website.
Focussed targeting (developing microsites for specific audience), seo and ppc activity
Branding on key job boards.
change advertising to link in with consumer advertising.
Reporting - being able to identify cost of hire, time of hire, source of hire, etc.  Renegotiate supplier agreements on the basis of this.

2) Exploit All Talent Pools
Focussing on age - looking at the over 55s.  Making sure their reach is as wide as possible.
Getting internal feedback from focus groups to see what is working with these focus age groups.

3) Internal Focus
Nurturing internal talent.
Creation of a "development studio" where people can download courses and take control of your own development.
Innovative ideas around encouraging high performance (eg, internal award schemes).

4) External Orientation 
Relationship building.
Networking .
Encouraging personnel to build strong relationships with suppliers (especially now things are a little more quiet and they have more time).
Linking with outplacement organisations.
Creating relationships with competitors making redundancies.
Being at conferences, etc and having speakers at events, etc.

Recruitment But Not As You Know It - MLL event

"My Long Lunch" - a phrase not being used that much nowadays you might think?  Well... you might be surprised to know this type of long lunch is going down like chilled Bollinger on bonus night!!

MLL has been running events for the last 10 months and is becoming the fast and popular way of bringing both media sales & professional agencies together in a "speed dating" type of scenario.

How does it work? Well, in a nut shell, 15 selected media representatives pay for the privilege to pitch their relevant sites and services to suitable agency personnel relevant to the theme of that particular event.  Each meet lasts 10 minutes and can involve a brief presentation and a little time to chat.  You then simply change around whilst perhaps grabbing a swift drink and a sausage roll on the way! 

It would definitely suit those who hold an advertising budget and are decision makers in their business perhaps looking to review current suppliers, advertising spend or basically looking for some fresh new ideas.  I like it as it's targeted accurately, quick, well organised and specific.  All the matching is done for you beforehand but the event still maintains a relaxed social networking feel.

It's all done in a positive informal environment with food and drink supplied and is completely free to the Recruiters!!  We all need to advertise a lot in our profession of course so what a great chance to get out of the office and meet the Media guys in person and more importantly cut back on the countless and irrelevant sales pitches over the phone which ultimately cost us time and money.  The feedback from previous events is superb - check this out for more information 

As you know we are big on this type of event as it works!  We are therefore working with the guys at MLL on some recruitment specific events this year.  There will be regional events planned over the next few months so keep an eye out for more news posted here.  

Our first joint event is being held on the 11th March from 3pm at The Gate in Farringdon, London.  It's entitled "Recruitment but not as you know it".  With the popularity of this event and due to the limited availability we suggest you register as soon as possible via this link. What are you waiting for? 

BBC UK jobs tracker

Here is the BBC jobs tracker showing number of jobs lost and created in the UK.  Useful for anyone who wants to be up to date (their source is the UK Labour Force/ONS) on the employment situation.

Enhance Media conference - very late roundup

I meant to blog about this the day after I attended.  Here we are over two week's later!

Anyway, at the end of January I attended the Enhance Media "Online Recruitment the year ahead" conference.  It was a superb event with great speakers and an audience of nearly 300 attendees.

My plan was to write about some of the great presentations.  However, having left it so long I have been lucky to find that a number of other attending bloggers have been less tardy than me and have already posted. 

So, here is "my" summary of the event:

Tim Elkington - event organiser

William Fischer - Workhound: very good roundup

Online Recruitment - HR Connexions - comprehensive roundup

Ri5

The key things, apart from the presentations, I would have mentioned if I were writing a proper blog would have been the lunch (very nice noodles), the freebies (only some chocolate from Times Online - mind you it was LOVELY chocolate) and a three word roundup... "well worth attending"!

 

Monster update....

Earlier this week I spoke with Derek Jenkins who is Sales Director at Monster.
 
We talked about the post on the forum (where one of their sales people pretended to be a satisfied customer) and the blog I wrote about another salespeson selling against agencies. 
 
The bottom line in both cases is that the actions were unauthorised, totally against Monster policy, unacceptable (to Monster) and that the individuals involved are "being dealt with".
 
Derek said that, with regard to the forum, he agreed that there is "nothing more frustrating and cringeworthy than seeing people plainly and obviously trying to punt their services".
 
He assures me that Monster are more than aware how the staffing industry has contributed to building the business into what it is today - and to creating a stronger future.  He said it is not the case that they would want to turn their back on staffing sector and would like to see more collaboration between staffing companies and themselves. 
 
Going forward he says it is very much a one off (or two off to be more accurate) and they he has instructed the training department to put formal guidelines in place around what can and should be sent by email; ensuring that individuals are sending the right emails at the right time with the right messages!

 

 

LinkedIn Tip - Saving Searches

I've previously mentioned one of Shally's sourcing tips here. 

Last week I got another one that I wanted to share.  This one is how you can save a search you regularly run on LinkedIn and have the results emailed to you.

Do you keep searching LinkedIn for the same kinds of candidates?  Take advantage of a new feature that emails you only when new people enter your 3-degree LinkedIn network who meet your search criteria (or after they edit their profiles and match).  Just run your www.linkedin.com/search as normal, then click the  link atop the results page.  You can save up to 3 free searches (more with paid LinkedIn accounts) to alert you weekly or monthly. Edit or cancel them anytime at www.linkedin.com/search?savedSearchListing

For more details, visit the LinkedIn Learning Centre.

If you want more tips like this you ought to sign up to Shallys newsletter.

Basic Recruiting Lessons - Terms and Conditions

There has been some activity on our discussion board recently around a recruiter who has basically failed to get signed T&Cs and is now in "discussion" with a client regarding a rebate period.

Some of the responses do make interesting reading.

Of course the most obvious question has to be Why don’t all recruiters add Terms and conditions WITHIN the CV. 

 

LinkedIn for Contract Recruiters

One of my contacts sent me this question and I posted it on LinkedIn:

I'd be interested to know your thoughts on the benefits for 'external' / agency recruiters working a contract market for linked in within this environment? My colleagues working a perm market use linked in for finding good candidates mostly and I have used it to vouch for people’s ability via recommendations.

So I thought it might be useful to share the responses:

I also know that a good many head hunters use linkedin to source candidates for perm assignments. As one working as a career consultant (ie assisting the candidate), I would be delighted to know that they were getting some profile publicity from recruiters for contract or interim work.
Anthony

I've used LinkedIn to attract candidates for both Contract and Perm roles.  Personally, I think that the benefit of LinkedIn is being able to tap into passive candidates easily and quickly - most of which are employed on a permanent basis and I think would be reluctant to accept a contract role unless it was going to be highly beneficial in the long term.

I’ve had success from using LinkedIn to fill perm roles however, no success with the contracts. Although I know a contact of mine did manage to find the perfect candidate for an IT Contract role via LinkedIn, I guess that once again, it all comes down to the sector and level that you’re recruiting at.
Sean

The Professional Contractors Group ( PCG ) has a group on Linked In with 1200 members, just less than 10% of its membership.

We have Professional Contractor and Freelance clients using Linked In, but its certainly not the "standard" which we find strange as in my opinion it seems like a great platform on which to build a profile for recruiters to see.
Phil

My question is still "open" so any additional feedback either there or here on the blog would be appreciated.

Free personality questionnaire

There are absolutely tons of free "personality questionnaires" available on the web.  However, sometimes the "results" aren't free to view (ie, free to complete but you have to pay to access the results) and in many cases the products aren't properly validated.

However, recently I came across a sample online questionnaire from SHL (who are highly respected test providers).  If you have candidates completing these type of questionnaires for a client and want to help them understand what the process is its' well worth pointing them to this.

 

Here Comes the Boss Blog

A couple of people have recently pointed me to posts on this blog site. 

One was about how "People change their accents in order to get a job" (sent to me by someone who describes themselves as multilingual as they speak both the "Queens" and "BBC" English!).  The other was pointed out by Dave Leydon and is about how "Nepotism and no-pay stops some grads getting dream jobs".  Both posts are unkind (but funny) analysis of other articles/blog posts.  As Dave points out it "made me laugh and thought it was quite apt with all the recent credit crunch, redundancy and recession panic". 

The Here Comes The Boss blog is actually worth a quick peek as some of the stories are ones I'd missed elsewhere.  I try hard (you may not have noticed!) with the images I use next to blog posts - but these guys have some really superb ones.

Agencies 'happy to discriminate'

I'm not easily shocked by recruiting antics, but even I was appalled at the findings from this particular piece of research.

Out of 30 temping agencies contacted by an Inside Out West researcher, 25 agreed to a request for a receptionist job to be offered only to white workers.

The article quotes Professor Tariq Modood, of the Centre for the Study of Ethnicity and Citizenship "Past surveys have tended to suggest maybe a third of people will discriminate and you have found that it is greater than that."

Maybe he was "under-quoted" but Tom Hadley, of the REC, saying "We would expect agencies within the REC membership to challenge that kind of discriminatory instruction and to walk away from the business if they had to - because that is how seriously we take this particular issue" sounds rather weak. 

I know right now that there are very few recruitment agencies who would want to turn down any business but even so, to find that such a high percentage are prepared to go along with such blatant discrimination unfortunately puts the recruitment industry in a bad light once again. 

 

BraveNewTalent.com

One of my favourite PR people (have to be very careful not to be seen to have A favourite here!) is working with BraveNewTalent.com and sent me over some information.  Now, as I may have previously mentioned, Holly isn't someone I like to say no to so I am happy to give her new client a bit of free PR.  Of course it does rather help that it's an interesting concept too!

 

So... 

 

BraveNewTalent.com is the revolution in graduate recruitment. The initial roll-out enables individuals and employers to register, build profiles and start to seek out contacts and connections that support their future aims. A free trial offer will enable companies to fully assess the offering while BraveNewTalent.com’s involvement in the One Young World initiative is set to deliver a mass audience of graduates as the company searches for 1,500 potential global leaders of tomorrow from 192 countries.

 

Basically the site is like a social network but instead of connecting to friends "prospective talent" (jobseekers!) connect to their future desired employers.  By knowing about these potential employees (talent pools) the employers can develop a talent pipeline.  They also use the words "Talent Radar" which they appear to have trademarked!

 

The Founder and CEO is Lucian Tarnowski who was listed as "Future Talent - Budding Entrepreneurs on the Horizon" in a list of the ‘Future 100’.

 

So, it could be worth a look if graduate recruitment forms part of your recruiting portfolio.