Louise's UK Recruiter Blog

Institute of Recruiters puts Launch on Hold

The Institute of Recruiters (IOR) is meant to be launching today.  Instead they are publishing a video on their site and working towards a slower launch in the next few weeks.

Looking from the outside you might think that a website not launching on time is hardly breaking news.  However, the IOR (and their LinkedIn group) has caused a lot of debate and discussion over the past couple of weeks.  If you’ve missed this can catch up on my earlier blog post, one from TheHRD and one from RecruitGal; as well as checking out what Steve Huxham at the Recruitment Society has to say on the subject within his own LinkedIn group.

I think, in a nutshell, what has happened is that the IOR thought they’d enter the market with a bang and that bang has rather backfired.  They wanted to create a lot of buzz and anticipation prior to their launch but definitely weren’t prepared for the cynicism and probing they’ve been subjected to. To create this buzz they have established a LinkedIn group with a not-insignificant 4000+ membership, they have been talking big around their qualifications (Harvard University has been named as a potential partner) and they’ve created an air of mystery with an unnamed, but well know, Chief Executive. I’ve also heard they have plans for recruitment-body-world domination; they’ve not said it to me but I know that individuals inside the IOR have spoken of the Institute blowing the REC and APSCO out of the water.

The backfiring?  Well, it’s hard to ignore the fact that the recruitment industry has many cynics as dodgy recruiters and that at the merest sniff of the later the former is on the hunt. 

A lack of straightforward clarity around the “institute” status has been a major issue.  The complexities of this particular issue are in my original blog post and comments.  However, having received (second hand I ought to add) advice from a barrister I understand that the IOR are legally able to use the term institute due to having a “US HQ”.  That’s not enough for many people who think that an institute with UK origins should have UK institute status.  So, legally the IOR are in the right, although I understand some people still debate this, but nevertheless it doesn’t feel quite as right as it should.

Then there is the LinkedIn group; which is currently their primary route to market.  Firstly, the case of fake administrator profiles which muddied the waters and generated quite a number of concerns. These were apparently set up by their PR company (who I understand are not working for/with them anymore).  Then they started to exclude from the group of a number of people who were apparently asking the wrong sort of questions. 

The IOR has perfectly reasonable responses to both of these issues (it’s not my job to defend them so if you want the full story contact them directly) and you can’t deny that it’s up to them who to let into their group.

Another fly in the ointment is that of recruitment to recruitment involvement.   Dave Barber has been seen as a major player within the IOR (it was him and Azmat who first came up with the idea of making a better industry body).  Dave is a R2R consultant.  I understand that other board members/Directors are also R2Rs.   If you ran a recruitment business would you want your staff joining an institute with R2Rs on the main board?  Azmat assures me that none of the board will have access to any additional details on members that other members will have.  But as the LinkedIn group isn’t a forum for asking these types of questions I doubt he’s been able to allay many other’s fears on the subject.

I ought to also mention the strange activity around blog post comments. On mine, TheHRDs and RecruitGal’s there have been a number of occasions when similar posts are made by differently named contributors.  They can’t be directly linked to the IOR but I strongly believe that someone within the organisation is attempting to defend them with these anonymous (and sometimes quite offensive) posts.

Where are we now?

On Friday The Executive Grapevine took down a press release about their association with the IOR (I understand they are considering their position).  The new Chief Executive of the IOR (who is meant to be anonymous for now) has been repeatedly contacted and quizzed about his involvement.  I’m not sure how his name was first leaked but he can’t be too surprised at the calls as his CV is one of the first results returned by Google – and it includes his home address and phone number !

As I said at the start, the IOR won’t be launching today.  They will be taking stock of the situation and hopefully thinking of a way to allow the industry to openly communicate with them.  It’s not enough for the founders to say “anyone can call me”; people want to comment on blogs, twitter and on LinkedIn – make yourselves available to talk where they are!

So what have we learnt?

A group of people don’t think that the REC has teeth and/or that ASPCO serves the needs of the whole industry
Not everyone thinks we need an alternative to the existing governing bodies/associations
Lots of people join LinkedIn groups to see what’s going
Some people care a great deal about honesty and integrity in this industry
Some recruiters are a bit shady
There are some powerful players in the social media world who are well connected the are listened to.
People don’t like spin
If there’s a bandwagon some people will jump on it

I could go on…. but the interesting thing is – do you really think we are seeing anything new in the situation here?  We have a probably genuine, but poorly executed, plan to improve the recruitment industry which leads to backlash and debate.  Recruitment is, without doubt, a tough industry to operate in!!

What’s next

I suspect The IOR will still launch.  If they can provide full clarity on the issues which are of concern then they have a chance of regaining some integrity.  They probably need to wise up on who the influencers are in the industry ands perhaps build some bridges with them.

My personal opinion is that we don’t actually need another governing body for the industry; I like what APSCO do and I would love for the REC to find a way to meet the needs of the industry.  In order to do that they’re going to have to confront some issues head on, wise up on every day recruitment issues and get a bit more ballsy!

If they don’t and if the IOR can sort out their “teething problems” then we could have a bit of healthy competition in the confederation/association/institute marketplace! 

What do Graduates want to do?

Following a recent graduate survey by Totaljobs.com (which compared both graduates and current undergraduates), nearly half of both groups were non-specific when asked which sector they would like to work in after university. Just under half of graduates, and just over half of undergraduates, were looking to enter the job market with an “open mind”.

According to the executive summary from TotalJobs.com public sector jobs have been seen by many to be more of a 'safe bet' than jobs in the private sector, especially during an economic downturn, but with the austerity measures and cuts proposed by the coalition government mean this is increasingly becoming a fallacy.

The survey asked these job seekers thought about the potential of working in the public sector.

When questioned specifically about work in the public sector and what would attract them the most, graduates and undergraduates differed in their leading answer. Most graduates were attracted to the public sector by the potential career prospects (again, possibly the result of a perception that the public sector is more stable than the private sector during a recession), whereas most undergraduates would be persuaded to enter the public sector due to the training opportunities available. These days graduates are aware that transferable skills are a must on a job seeker's CV, so the training in the public sector offer a distinct advantage.

While each group diverged when asked about their initial attraction to the public sector, when asked about which specific area of the public sector attracted them the most, a majority of both graduates and existing students came back with the same answer: 52% of graduates and 55% of undergraduates were interested by opportunities in education. This will no doubt come as music to the ears of Local Education Authorities amid news reports of a nationwide shortage of teachers and falling standards in schools across the UK.

But what about the private sector? As well as escaping the dreaded government cuts, private sector jobs often offer greater financial rewards and incentives, as well as a wider variety of roles in a wider variety of companies for prospective employees. When questioned about working in the private sector, the graduates and undergraduates in our survey both said that securing a graduate-specific role was at the forefront of their minds.

In summary they suggest that even with the current cuts, the public sector is seen as offering a varied and exciting range of graduate jobs  and soon-to-be graduates, and while the financial rewards are not always as enticing as those offered by the private sector, there are numerous perks, like flexible working hours, job stability, and fantastic training on offer, along with some of the safest pensions in the job market.

If you’d like a copy of this report just drop me a note and I’ll put you in touch with my contact at TotalJobs.

By the way I'm going to be writing something next week about the superb project Peter Gold and Bill Boorman are working on to match graduates up with recruitment mentors. 

A Unique Guide to LinkedIn

There are lots of training documents out there about how to use LinkedIn (in fact we have a rather good one on our own UK Recruiter Plus website!).  

However, I’ve never seen anything quite as unique as this one from Stephen Hart at Edenchanges; Sun Tzu and the Art of LinkedIn.

The guide offers strategic advice on how best to use LinkedIn inspired by two and a half thousand year old military advice.

The book is free of charge – so just pop over to their site and check it out. 

If you’ve seen anything else like this that you'd like to share can you add a comment here please!

Promoting a small business?

Recently I had a lovely email correspondence with a really nice chap called Anthony Mellor.  He is a Chartered Accountant and works with a select bunch of professionals. 

I honestly can't remember where the conversation started but we got onto how someone who only needs a small number of clients, is best to advertise for them. I think it struck a cord as I have the same problem around the psychometric testing I offer; I can't "service" more than a dozen clients without it having a detrimental effect on all involved.  Anyway, back to Anthony.  He actually wrote a blog post on the subject called "How to advertise myself".  I love his honesty and thoroughness of thought (I guess that's a skill which you'd want in an accountant!).

I would seriously recommend you take a quick look at it.  He talks about the pros and cons of being a one man band, he talks about pricing for a service such as his and he talks about how many accountants (and probably other professions) advertising on the basis of Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt.

I wouldn't normally post a blog like this; explicitly promoting one person/oganisation.  Anthony isn't paying me (honest) but I totally understand his challenge and even though we'll never probably work together, I like the idea of what he represents and how he feels about clients. 

He does provide free advice on his blog but if you are a looking for a new chartered account (he's especially interested in people working outside the UK as he is ex pat himself) he has all the infrastructure to support you in every practical way; banking, billing, legal, tax planning, residency and the like.  

Check him out at his accounting practice site is www.mellor.co.uk and via his blog www.mellor.co or give him a call on 0121 314 4750 (it diverts for free to his Swiss mobile), he does not keep a diary and is always happy to talk.

Would be interested in any comments on how other small businesses like this promote themselves?

What’s all this about the Institute of Recruiters?

In the past week there has been quite a lot of talk about The Institute of Recruiters (IOR).  They aren’t officially launching until the end of the month but have been creating interest with their LinkedIn group. 

I thought I’d see what I could find out and had a chat with two of the founders; Dave Barber and Azmat Mohammed.  These are the notes from my conversation with them.  What I would like to point out is that the purpose of this blog post is to state what Dave and Azmat have told me not to give my personal opinion on institutes or associations or on any of the rumours that are abundant at present.  All that can come later!!

Overview of membership

The Institute of Recruiters is an international member organisation - owned by the members; standing for the representation of recruitment agency and HR/inhouse recruiters.  The IOR recognises that in-house corporate recruiters have a separate set of needs to agency recruiters so they cater for both differently, and they see their acknowledgement of this as a USP. 

Membership levels geared around qualifications taken.  The entrance exams are being worked on now and will be sanctioned by one of the Universities they are partnered with (Harvard is one they are talking about working with too).  

Any recruiter will be able to join initially as an affiliate.  By taking the entrance exam and then other qualifications they can move up to a Member then a Fellow of IOR. 

The focus for the IOR is going to be on continued professional development (CPD).  So once you become a Fellow you will need to attend relevant training/educational events to show that you are continuing to invest in your learning (they are calling these “qualification hours” which work towards maintaining your fellowship basis).

However, the focus of the IOR is not just around individuals.  There are also offerings for companies to become corporate members.

Corporate or individual members will be expected to abide by certain “rules” and these operating guidelines/standards will be revealed on the launch date.

In case you are interested, the IOR is a not for profit organisation.  They have international institute status and are currently going through the process for institute status in the UK. 

Why the IOR was created

Dave had been a regional director for the REC for a number of years so has previous hands on experience of working with an institute.  Dave and Azmat’s paths crossed and they felt there was an opportunity for another organisation to raise the standards in a more exclusive way.  Specifically to help the recruiters at the actual “coal face”. 

They also state (and I do love this!) that they want to make recruiting a more professional service than that “estate agent in the 80s” imagine.  Can’t fault that!.

The IOR’s board is largely made up with individuals from a corporate and agency recruitment background. 

They’ve already got nearly 3000 members to their LinkedIn group in the eight weeks it’s been launched; growing at a rate of 250 members a day and is officially the largest and fastest growing online community of any recruiting body in the UK.  As long as you are involved in the recruitment industry is some capacity you can join the group.

Why would you care?

I asked what affiliate members get on joining the IOR, however, we’ll have to wait until the 28th to find out!

What they would tell me is that if you join there are real tangible benefits…. but, again, they can’t talk about that right now.  Interestingly they mentioned a “second phase” which is where we will see a technical offering that is “probably the most radical the industry will ever see.  It will make businesses more profitable and cut thousands off costs”.  Apparently it’s something that no one else in the industry is thinking of it and will make people join The IOR in flocks and make them stay for years. Now that’s what I want to know about!!

They also talked about the promotion of recruitment qualifications and standards – but again we’ll have to wait until launch to hear more about that.

Overlap

I did ask about “overlap” our existing member organisations.  They didn’t deny the overlap but say that the IOR is offering a very different approach.  They state their vision is far beyond what we are used to.

The key elements are that “they are a group linking like minded individuals.  Secondly it’s sharing best practice from the HR side of the industry with the recruiter side with strong representation from the agency recruiters.  Plus their offerings are beyond what any other body offers…. and it’s international”.

Finally, they will have a Chairman who is apparently a well known name within the industry… but who is a secret at the moment.   They know how to build interest and create a buzz, that’s for sure!

I'm very keen to hear your comments!

Compromise Agreements

In the current climate the compromise agreement is common practice between many employers and employees when employment disputes happen.  I’ve no idea how I got onto the subject but I’ve been doing a bit of research (aided in part by Thomas Mansfield who I mention later!).

In layman’s terms, the agreement is an effective and useful way of resolving a range of employment disputes; disputes that can too often become overblown and aggressive, timely and costly.  The agreement is a legally binding one, and is the follow-up to a termination of employment.

Employers are frequently happy to legally bind relationships with their employees in this fashion, so as to prevent any further issues or disagreements at a tribunal, particularly when it comes to making redundancies.  It serves companies to protect themselves; just as much as it serves the employee.

However, the key thing to consider as an employee is that in signing a compromise agreement you ensure that you cannot take any claim concerning your dismissal to an employment tribunal at any future date.

Seeking sound advice prevents jumping the gun in unemployment panic and running to the services of any law firm: don’t. The solicitor and firm who play your advisor, plays a hugely vital role.

Interestingly  the compromise agreement does not become binding until AFTER it has been talked over with a solicitor.  So you must seek independent advice from a solicitor.

So if you do find yourself in a situation when an employment agreement is on the table a) read up as much as you can about them and b) locate an appropriate solicitor. Thomas Mansfield are the ones I spoke to about compromise agreement for this blog but there are lots out there.  You should at the very least ensure you engage a firm who specilise in employment law.

Phone Sourcing Basics

I have read a superb blog post from Lori Barry on Phone Sourcing Basics.

She suggests that with the advent of the internet phone sourcing has become a lost art form and I have to say I agree with her.  I remember about 18 years ago going on a Daphne Silvester training course where we had to “live phone” a reception and try and get names.  Who actually does that anymore?!

No matter how successful a researcher you are please take just 10 minutes to read her blog.

 

#trulondon 3 and Recruiters Networking – February 17th

Bill Boorman’s #trulondon is back from 16th – 18th February with a great mix of track leaders and a new format. Day 1 is the #truMasterclass which sits half way between conference and unconference. All of the speakers will publish either a blog post or white-paper two weeks before the event. Attendees submit questions and the presenters will answer 3 questions in presentation format. It’s a different format to allow for more preparation and detailed answers, and will work well for those who prefer a more structured learning environment.

On the 17th and 18th February it’s pure unconference with 32 one hour tracks over 2 days!  I like the fact that Bill doesn’t refer to the track leaders as experts or gurus but instead says they “are chosen because they know what they are talking about”. Attendees for the unconference will be a mixture of recruiters (agency and inhouse), HR and recruitment industry suppliers.  The tracks range from branding, social recruiting, direct sourcing through to practical areas of business development and technology integration. You choose the tracks you want to attend and as they are all informal you can pop in and out as you wish. 

The attendance for each day is restricted to 100 and you can choose how many days you attend for – ticket info here

Now, if you are going along on the 17th you also need to get an evening pass and come along to our recruiters networking event in the evening.  Even if you aren’t attending during the day you are welcome to sign up for the networking.  It’ll be our usual mix of informal networking, a bit of speed networking (I have my own whistle) and our own expert speakers!  Hope to see you there.

Top 50 Up and Coming HR Blogs

I found out about this list when one of the co-founders of the Dr. HR, PhD blog contacted me to tell me this blog made the list!

As the title suggest it’s the Top 50 Up and Coming HR Blogs.  The description of the post states that most of them started after January 1 2010. However, mine has been around for way longer and so has the other UK blog, Sirona Says, which sits next to mine on the list.  Regardless, it’s a useful list for anyone wanting to add to their collection of HR blogs to peruse.

Can you do away with Terms of Business?

The REC sent out a press release to members around the recent amendments to the conduct of employment agencies and employment businesses regulations.  Basically the changes resulted in agencies that place permanent candidates being relieved of some of their statutory obligations in terms of obtaining a client's and candidate’s agreement to terms.

One of the key changes that came into force last October is:

The removal of the requirement to obtain a client’s agreement to terms of business.

Now, maybe I’m alone in this but what I didn't understand from this is what that actually meant….can an agency phone a client and say "have you got any vacancies?", take a few basic details and send over some candidates with a link to their terms of business on their website?  If one of them gets placed the client owes them a fee?  What about spec-ing in?  Is just sending your terms of business with the CV enough (if the client takes the candidate on)?  I thought client's could (and do sometimes!) just say they didn't agree to terms and then refuse to pay.  That’s the sort of thing we hear about on the forum on a pretty regular basis.

So, the REC very kindly got Lorraine Laryea (REC Solicitor and Commercial Advisor) to give me more clarification:

The Conduct Regulations previously imposed a STATUTORY requirement for agencies to agree certain specific terms IN WRITING with clients.  That statutory requirement has now been removed.

However it remains the case that in order for an agency to be able to recover a payment, contract law requires the agency to be able to demonstrate that there is a contract in place and an agreement for the client to pay a fee. However the contract could be a verbal contract (more difficult to prove, but still enforceable).

So, things have changed.  What does this mean?  Probably not a lot for the average recruiter – as I’m sure/know many have been operating for years on the basis that verbal agreement of fees “count”.  Any recruiter with an ounce of sense will STILL be requiring clients to sign terms of business before they send over any candidate details. 

In fact the REC will continue to require members to agree as a minimum the type of service it provides, its fees and how they are calculated, and where a refund/rebate is applicable - how that is calculated. I’m pretty sure that APSCo will be advising their members of the same.

Any thoughts on this?

Review of Enhance Media Online Recruitment Conference 2011

Even though I was actually at the event myself we had a roving reporter at Enhance Media's conference.  James Mayes is Founder/Director of Tweetjobs (and a veteran of the technology recruiting industry) - you can find him on Twitter or on his blog.  James did a superb job of tweeting on the day and has also written this review:

I'd previously heard much about the Enhance conference – after all, it's been running nine years now and is one of the biggest of it's kind (in terms of delegate numbers).  Initial impressions were certainly good – first class communication before the event, hashtag communicated to ensure all were on the same stream, plenty of staff to assist on arrival and great WiFi available for those wanting to stay online throughout.  Also presented with a cracking delegate book – hardback and bound, no bits of paper floating around.  Great start!

Everyone being seated, Giles Guest of Enhance quickly introduced the opening address – Lord Jim Knight, former Employment Minister.  He made a cracking start simply by using Prezi rather than PowerPoint.  It was clearly a revelation for some in the audience.  He also endeared himself to the crowd with the declaration that he hired a Special Adviser via Twitter a year ago!

Next, Paul Modley, Head of Recruitment for the London 2012 Olympics Games.  A few stats early on give an idea of the scale of his challenge – quite simply the biggest recruitment project in peacetime Britain. He moved swiftly to capitalise on the unique nature of the Olympics, showing a great video clip designed to raise passion in even the most reticent couch potato. In that one moment, the power of a brand to attract talent was made undeniably clear. 

Unfortunately, it then became clear that much of the delivery falls to Adecco, the strategic partner chosen by the London Organising Committee – and as a result, there was little detail on what was actually happening. Paul was also happy to suggest that Online Attraction was only a small part of the concerns for the project – bit of a problem when Online was very much the billed focus of the event.  A few interesting exchanges followed with the Q&A, but for many, one big question was left unresolved.  With Adecco as both a Sponsor and Supplier, how is conflict of interest managed?

Swiftly on to Adam Gilmore of Microsoft. A detailed presentation followed, very much focussed around process improvement lessons originally learnt by Toyota in manufacturing and subsequently adopted by many others.  Some of the slides would be worth studying in more detail if you're keen to ensure your processes are as efficient as possible – but in relation to Online Recruitment, many of the audience (myself included) found it somewhat away from the topics we were really hoping for. Also somewhat ironic on the day Toyota recalled another massive batch of cars for quality reasons...

After the coffee break, we resumed – the next two speakers being perfectly able to dig deep into the Online topic. First, John Salt, Total Jobs. John stepped up with a couple of quick gags and a promise not to pitch.  What followed certainly drew heavily on the Total Jobs product set (and took a few pops at competitors) – but was delivered in such an engaging style that he was largely forgiven.  Certainly offering stats to suggest a 50% drop in vacancies levels between April 2008 and October 2010 is enough to grab your interest. A slide on left brain/right brain thinking was also very well received – the need to appeal to a jobseeker on both rational and emotional levels. At this juncture, John is streets ahead as the delegate's favourite.

As John wrapped up, Giles returned to the stage with a bounce in his step and an obviously effervescent passion for data.  As the conference organiser, you might expect full use of the shop window opportunity.  Giles certainly did that, with some well-illustrated examples of what Enhance can do – but the methodolgy and data sources were declared to sufficient extent that delegates would be able to go out and apply a good chunk of the research themselves. A free offer of analysis to those in the room was also an obvious plug, but well received.  He gets away unscathed.

After a brief lunch interlude (for those interested: good food, small portions!) we resumed with a panel event.  Tara Quinn for Hays, Eamon Collins for Michael Page and Nicky Midwinter for Alexander Mann Solutions.  The panel was entitled The Future of Recruitment Consultancies – so a little odd to see AMS on stage, since most literature majors on the “pureplay RPO” focus of the firm. Some pre-set questions from Giles and a few from the floor followed.  As it turns out, the panel held largely similar views, with someone on Twitter suggesting it was becoming a bit of a love-in.  Things livened up briefly when a delegate attempted to put a question across but rather pitched all his commercial interests in one hit! Very well dispatched by Hays, to some amusement in the room and on Twitter.

Hays were also responsible for one of the better points to come out of the discussion – being that recruitment as an industry has a generational issue which is being ignored.  Many active recruiters are younger workers, active across multiple social media sites – using them for personal as well as business reasons. Senior managers who've often been with the firm many years longer struggle to understand, support and manage this activity effectively.

The panel gave it their best efforts, but in honestly, they all represented multinational professional recruitment firms – and as such, there wasn't sufficient difference of opinion as to cause stimulating debate.  Maybe next year, an in-house Head of Recruitment, a major agency representative and someone from the flat-fee market?

Now into a case study – Liz Dougall of Boots.  Hoping for a mixture of methods, data, lessons learnt and more.  Liz doesn't disappoint; quickly apparent we're going to get a bit of scene-setting, then a walk-through of the Boots recruitment reinvention over the past few years. Liz is at pains to labour the level of research they conduct to support decisions.  Whether it be data from NORAS or candidate interviews about the usability of the careers site, Boots make sure they do their homework.  We learn that Boots is pharmacy-lead. In layman's terms, it means if they don't have a pharmacist onsite, the shop is not permitted (under licence terms) to open.  That's a lot of lost retail revenue for the sake of one hire – hence recruitment has a more obvious bottom line impact than most businesses we hear from. As she wraps up, Liz gets some great feedback both in the room and on Twitter.  For many (me included) the highlight of the day.

The final session of the day was the Innovation Panel.  Many expected this would simply be one big product pitch from the four companies involved and chose to leave early.  It was set up as a speed-pitch but for many, paying for a ticket to subsequently get pitched by a sponsor just wasn't cricket! Ovia had a great case study on video tools in recruitment – and reacted on Twitter immediately afterwards to respond to the sales-pitch criticism. If nothing else, it was good to see them so tuned in to the audience.  If they're the same with customers, they should do well.  Dave Martin of All The Top Bananas did stand out though, for ignoring the pitch instructions.  There were a few bananas evident here and there in slides, but he focussed very much on the growing trend for jobseekers to use mobile platforms.  By educating his potential customers in an engaging fashion, he'll win good business with no need to pitch in that environment. A very well-judged effort.

So to the close – no organised networking event, just a swift departure. Writing this as I head home, I don't know whether I'll attend next year.  Certainly big in attendance numbers, but it feels somehow light on content and heavy on pitch.  One conclusion I can certainly draw is that corporate in-house recruiters are streets ahead of most agencies when it comes to innovative online solutions and social media. Whilst online changes don't spell the end of agencies, these moves will certainly add to current pressures.  If you find change hard, wait till you try irrelevance.

 Alan Whitford also live blogged from the event - so if you want to check out his posts pop over to RCEuro.