Louise's UK Recruiter Blog

Launch of Social-Hire.com

I've been taking a look at the newly launched Social-Hire site.  It's a platform created by Tony Restell (who established Top- Consultant.com as the leading niche careers site for the management consultancy sector) which is focused on aiding "career discussions" between candidates and recruiters.

The bottom line is that it's a kind of cross between a CV database/LinkedIn and a social network/discussion forum site. 

In order to get the best from the site recruiters need to building a good reputation on the site (this staying with them irrespective of who they work for).  Recruiters get this profile by the way in which they engage with other users, answer questions, start discussions, post articles and through the quality of their job adverts.  As a recruiter becomes established on Social-Hire they build up a following of candidates who will see any vacancies that recruiter posts.  

Tony has sent me a little sales pitch document which I do think rather nicely explains how the site works:

7 reasons you're going to love Social-Hire.com

1. The core services on Social-Hire are 100% free for recruiters to use.

2. Social-Hire turns online recruitment on its head. Most platforms promote and demote a recruiter's presence according to how much money each is prepared to spend. At Social-Hire we believe that candidates should be exposed to the content of recruiters who are most able to help them - that's to say those who have demonstrated the most professionalism, are most able to help each individual candidate and who are working on the most appealing roles for that candidate.

3. With most online platforms, the day you stop spending money with that platform is the day you cease to get much (if any) candidate response. With Social-Hire, every day you are active on the site you are building up a candidate following that will remain with you for as long as your content, advice and interactions remain engaging.

4. Candidate dialogue and connections are actively encouraged throughout the site. You don't need to know a candidate to be able to interact with them and you don't need to be a paying subscriber to be able to engage with the full network of candidates. As we don't have job adverts or CV database access to sell, we've no reason to want to stand in the way of you helping candidates any way you can.

5. You can post content to engage with candidates - traditional job postings or video content, market updates or interview advice. Anything you care to submit that you feel will enhance your standing with relevant candidates and start fruitful conversations. You can answer candidates' questions on the many forums. Interact live with them (if you so choose) through instant messaging and video conferencing. All from within the site - and all without incurring any charge.

6. Being a social recruiting platform, we do of course encourage interaction with your other social media profiles. Want to provide links to your LinkedIn, Twitter or Facebook accounts in your Recruiter Profile? No problem (that's free). Want any content you add here on Social-Hire to be flagged to your followers on other social media? No problem (that's free too).

7. Last but not least, we encourage mass-adoption by both active and more passive candidates by allowing them to have anonymous candidate profiles on our site. At the point where things are turning serious, they can share their contact details and CV/Resume with individual recruiters. But up until the point that they're ready to do this, there's nothing stopping any candidate from putting feelers out in the market - thereby massively expanding your reach into the passive candidate market. And of course the anonymous profiles that candidates publish here will still contain the information you need to determine who are the stars you're most likely to be able to help, so that you can invest your time most effectively.

I know there are lots of calls on the Recruiter's time nowadays but I'd suggest it's worth the effort to register a quick profile – it takes only minutes and links straight to your other social media profiles. Once registered you can directly contact any candidate on the site – no cost involved and no need to spend time first building up a network.  I think it's a really interesting idea and would be interested to hear your feedback over the coming weeks once you’ve had the chance to try it out.

Spring Clean Your Clients

Is it the teeny tiny bit of sunshine making me think about spring cleaning, or maybe the dust balls collecting around my desk? Actually it’s a question someone raised on our discussion forum earlier in the week; about ditching a client. 

Maybe last year, when times were really tough you would never have considered saying no to even the most awful client.  However, now is the time to think about who you are working with and how it is working for you.

This isn’t about dropping anyone who won’t pay top rates; it’s about working with the companies who actually bring you pleasure rather than pain. 

Why not (nicely) get rid of clients who:
Harass you for CVs then never come back to say who they want to interview
Refuse to give feedback after interviews
Mess about candidates at offer stage
Won’t pay a realistic fee
Pay terrible salaries but expect top class candidates
Always pay six months late – after much chasing (all costing you extra time/money)
Make it obviously they hate recruiters and they are dealing with you even though they don’t want to (perhaps ditching those clients is a little unrealistic!)


Make sure you keep clients who:
Treat your candidates right
Pay on time
Understand your value


Maybe this a little tongue in cheek but there would be nothing more perfect than only having clients who make you smile when you pick up the phone to them!

Lazy Recruitment Job Advert Writing

I realise this is probably a pretty pointless rant but I actually couldn't believe this job "description" that I found earlier:

 

When your R2R can only write two sentences to describe your organisation, the role, the type of individual required.... well it wouldn't give me much hope for their ability to successfully place someone!

Opinion Piece on Reed VAT Ruling

Today we have a guest post from Nick Woodward, MD at Etz Timesheet solutions talking about the implications of the VAT/Reed ruling and how cloud-computing can help agencies take advantage of this.

The failure of business to respond to a recent raft of legal decisions and last-minute regulatory changes indicates employers and recruiters are increasingly floundering in the face of ongoing seismic shifts in the legal landscape.

When the AWR changes were introduced in October, research demonstrated over a third of hiring firms had not yet factored in pension liabilities included in the new laws, leaving them and their supplier agencies at risk. Just a month earlier, recruitment agencies were reportedly furious after rumours spread that Ministers were planning to “water down” the new law, which recruiters had spent millions preparing for. Although the planned changes never materialised, the implication was clear; the cost of compliance with new laws is leaving recruitment agencies and businesses financially-exposed in the face of last-minute changes.

The inefficiency of many corporate payroll systems means that beneficial changes, such as cuts to regulations or taxes, can be just as costly to implement as new regulations or tax rises. With changes to the tax rule-book alone costing business £5.1 billion a year to incorporate, any additional changes lumber business with yet more red tape.

This creates a terrible paradox; businesses want less red tape and less tax, yet current admin processes are so inefficient that if a burdensome law is scrapped, then large amounts of time and money have been spent in vain.

Because they lack the necessary flexibility to adapt to a rapidly-fluctuating legal environment, many businesses are both exposing themselves to unnecessary legal and financial costs, and missing out on potential benefits. The Better Regulation Executive pointed out that the sheer complexity of the tax system and employment law, puts many businesses off hiring and expanding.

The 236,000 legal claims by disgruntled employees last year, at an average cost of £8,500 each, starkly illustrates the financial cost of failure to read the small print. Businesses and recruiters can be certain that hawk-eyed lawyers representing aggrieved employees will swiftly spot anything they have missed.

Yet we know that many businesses simply lack the time or the resources to keep up with the EC‘s hyperactive legislative chamber; the Forum of Small Businesses estimates that anticipation and implementation of tax and regulatory changes is five times more expensive for SME’s than for larger companies.

VAT: A Case In Point

A “test case“ on VAT, with potentially far-reaching implications, highlights the potential rewards for recruitment agencies with highly-flexible payroll systems, which can instantly respond whenever threats and opportunities appear on the legal horizon.

The Tier One court ruling that Reed recruitment agency were only liable for VAT charges on the margin portion of their charge to hiring firms-rather than the entire agency fee-contains a potential bombshell which could save businesses and recruiters hundreds of millions and allow them to claim back past taxes.

Although HMRC want to confine the Reed ruling to that specific case, pressure is growing from client companies, particularly within the health and financial sectors, to build the new tax rate into their invoices.

If it was easier to adapt payroll systems, many updates to existing laws and tax codes, in response to new guidelines or court cases, could be incorporated instantly through automated systems, while avoiding any extra admin burden or the risk of oversights.

Taking Recruitment Into The Cloud

One of the little-publicised benefits of the cloud-computing revolution is the speed and ease with which new regulations can be incorporated, from any location, into any type of existing payroll system.

New software allows business to offload the number-crunching and timesheet-processing into the cloud, slashing admin costs by 70%, and helping business instantly seize opportunities or avert risks from upcoming tax and regulatory changes, without additional admin work, by offering “out of the box” updates. This means that if the change does not materialise, the business has lost no time or money preparing for it.

The latest models can turn a timesheet into a client invoice in sixty seconds, electronically “sign” documents automatically fax and index timesheets and automate all payroll calculations.

Crucially, with cloud systems, payroll systems can be updated from any location and employee data is not stored on paper, software or hardware, with its associated costs and data-loss risks.
Gareth Broberg, MD at Fresh Medical Recruitment, a leading UK agency which supplies doctors to the NHS, private health, the police and the MOD, says: “Cloud-based payroll systems tailored to recruiters reduce our admin costs, because the employee data is not hosted on in-house software or hardware, and all the payroll information is accessible and updatable from anywhere.

Crucially, recruitment-specific software makes the task of rapidly incorporating tax changes in recruitment invoices, which differ from business invoices, far easier: because they are intuitive, you don't have to add in multiple line items, you simply tick a box and all the invoices are updated.”

Nick Woodward is founder and MD at recruitment-dedicated cloud-computing timesheet-processing vendor Etz Timesheet Solutions.

Why Senior Execs Fail in Interview; arrogance

InterExec have done an interesting survey into the area's where senior executives are most likely to fall down in interview.

The leading trait to lead to failure is arrogance and over-confidence, followed closely by poor communication skills (or the inability to listen) with inadequate prepation in third place.  Other factors included a failure to demonstrate sector knowledge, demanding too high a salary package, being too controlling, not being focussed enough, poor personal presentation, getting caught lying (with 5% of the votes!) and being too laid back.

Whilst interview prepaartion ought to be given to every candidate it's not always easy as a recruiter to give feedback to a senior candidate that they come across as arrogant.  However, with over 20% of candidates, in this survey, having this as their major failing perhaps it's a message some of us need to learn to give.

I'm no expert but why not try something like "you're really confident and know your own opinion, which is something that I admire about you.  But I think you might overdo it sometimes and come across as a little arrogant, and it's something I know interviewers just don't like"

If you've got a better suggestion on how to give this type of feedback or just prepare a candidate better for interview please share it!

Decline in Number of Science & Technology Graduates is Bad News for the Media Industry

Jamie Gavin, MD Of  inPress Online has produced this guest article for the blog:

There is an interesting skills gap developing in the UK jobs market right now. We are hearing a lot about a lack of competent science and technology graduates and as a recent study by Zurich has highlighted, many tech SMEs are concerned about a lack of IT and tech skills in the current marketplace.

In the media sector however we seem to be faced with an altogether different set of problems: Primarily the decline of traditional media outlets and a lack of jobs for both media graduates and experienced media professionals alike.

A quick look at the data publically available on the totaljobs.com website provides some quantitative evidence of this trend. Of the 140,000 jobs listed on the TotalJobs home page (some of which are listed in multiple categories and by multiple agencies) IT and Internet roles accounted for almost 12,000 of the total number of jobs listed, which is a significant 8.5 per cent.

This category ranked third overall out of the 32 jobs sectors listed on the site, behind only sales (12.2 per cent) and another technology-driven category, ‘Engineering, Manufacturing, & Utilities’ with 10.9 per cent of totaljobs. The category also derived 25.8 per cent of all positions from the £50,000+ per annum salary bracket, placing more than one quarter of total available jobs in the sector in the higher earners category.

The media sector however tells a very different story, with ‘Marketing, Advertising and PR’ jobs accounting for just 4 per cent of the total listed and ‘Media, New Media, and Creative’ jobs accounting for a significantly lower 2.1 per cent. Between them therefore these two arts-degree based categories add up to only 6.1 per cent of total jobs, or a total of 8,538.

In many ways this discrepancy is unsurprising. Media and to a lesser extent PR and marketing roles have traditionally been thought of as more appealing than their more geeky, science and technology based relatives, and that trend would appear to be continuing today.

Where the problem lies however, is in the changing nature of the media and communications industries themselves.

As an online PR agency, inPress Online understands the need for PR and communications professional – as well as journalists themselves – to become more technologically minded. Now of course, there is a distinction to be made between having a working knowledge of social media and working as an ICT manager for a cloud computing company, but there is undoubtedly a wider shift going on within the media from art towards science.

Take for example the role of a journalist. In days gone by their role would have been solely to submit a written article on a relevant subject, from where it would be edited and submitted to the printers for inclusion in the finished publication. Now however, a journalists role has expanded to become extremely IT savvy, incorporating social media publications, SEO, link sharing, multimedia file gathering, etc. So as a general rule of thumb the creative industries themselves are becoming more technically demanding.

As these figures show, and as the current trends indicate, there is a significant lack of graduates and undergraduates who are interested in the more scientific and technology elements of today’s economy, and that could well produce a skills gap for the media and communications industries themselves going forward.

HR Demanding Proof of Current Salary

So, here is an interesting real life situation I've just been hearing about....
 
A recruiter has an offer on Bob (not his real name!) BUT HR at Company B want to see his most recent payslip as proof of income. 
 
Bob has offered a recent (8 weeks old) letter from his employer (Company A) confirming his salary and his P60. 
 
Company B are holding out for his payslip.
 
A few other facts....
 
Company B is a direct competitor of Company A
The candidate is earnig a good 10% more than Company B wanted to pay (and they've known this from the start of the process)
 
 So, what do you think?  Is something more than meets the eye going on?  Should Bob have said NO at the start?  Should the recruiter put their foot down?!
 
As an aside you might be interested in a couple of other recent blogs on this topic....Nick Corcodilos of "Ask The Headhunter" thinks you should always Keep Your Salary Under Wraps anyway and Gary Franklin recently questioned, on his blog, Do You Really Need to Ask About Salary?
 
 
 

 

Managing Metrics within Recruitment

Ahead of our recruitment software event next Thursday I thought I'd share something from one of our presenters, Jeff Brooks. 
 
I have been astonished by the lack of analysis of the information available in small- to medium-sized agencies — the term would probably be key performance indicators (KPIs) in today’s parlance. Too many owners run their businesses based on their gut instincts. Ask them how many qualified requirements they received last month and how that compared with the previous period and they’ll struggle to tell you. Nor will they know how many CVs were dispatched or interviews arranged. You might see the odd interview board but it will nearly always be out of date. Very few will have good data on individual recruiter performance. They’ll usually know how many placements they made last month (not always, in my experience) but that’s not business management — that’s simply writing the score down.
 
The companies that will thrive as we return to growth will be those that have an eye for detail and can use the KPIs available to them to inform their decisions and anticipate issues that will arise and ready themselves accordingly.
 
Here are some examples:
You are busy and think you ought to be hiring. Ask yourself — how long has it been like this? How many requirements are you now handling against the same period last month and the month before? Has a trend emerged that you can rely on?
 
Ask your customers about their hiring plans. Are they changing markedly and will any growth in their needs be sustained? If they plan to increase their headcounts by 10%, then you have some measure of how you need to grow your delivery capability
 
Is it getting harder to find good candidates and compare that month-on-month. That will soon show a sustained upturn is happening — or not! How many people are registering with you for work? Has that grown or shrunk?
 
Will you keep controls in place regarding your expenditure — forced upon you during the recession? How will you ensure this actually happens?
 
How will you keep your best recruiters as they get more confident about the market and wonder if they should look around? They’ve helped you through the downturn – how will you secure their future with your firm in the upturn?
 
The market will have shrunk by at least 10% — in fact even with an upturn there will still be firms that fail over the next 12 months — so you have less competition. But new agencies are starting out and will appear fresh and hungry. Is your proposition distinct and attractive? The world has changed — has your service changed with it?
 
Your margins and fees may have been eroded during the recession. What value can you add to help build these back as growth returns — or will you become mired in a world of low gross profits and low returns?
 
Do you have the right blend between servicing your long-term customers — who have stuck by you — and new client development? We can all fall into the trap of being excited by the chance of winning a new client and neglect the ‘old faithfuls’ in the process. How will you measure that?
 
 
As a sector we’ve had a tough time and it is only now just beginning to abate. But confidence is growing and opportunities will emerge. Will you simply respond to them as they do or will you plan your way to growth by knowing what to do and when to do it? The answers lie within the data and the events that are happening in your business every day — they are there if you look for them. I wish you great things as confidence returns — listen to what your business is telling you and you’ll make better decisions and get ahead of the curve!
 
So, do you measure these things (or have the systems in place to do so)?  Jeff Brooks has 40 years’ experience in industry, with the last 25 in the recruitment sector. He is a non-executive director of three agencies and a council member at the REC. He provides advice and guidance throughout the sector and this topic of metrics is something Jeff will be talking about more next Thursday.

Searchable Totaljobs Barometer

I've found a nice little tool on the Totaljobs website.  They produce quarterly figures on the status of the UK online recruitment market (you can sign up to get them free of charge) but what they also do is allow you to search these figures via the site.

So, if you have a client who has Engineering Jobs or recruiters mostly for Jobs in Leeds you can search the totaljobsbarometer and give them some up to date stats on how the market is looking.

For example the market for Engineering, Manufacturing and Utilities in East Midlands shows a pretty static amount of jobs posted in the last quarter of 2010, a dip at Christmas and then an increased (but again pretty static) number in the first quarter of this year.  However, jobs posted, job views and job applications have all dropped in April. 

You might want to remember that they ask you source 'Totaljobs Barometer' whenever you use the data! 

Online Video Interviews – How It Can Really Work

I’m not big into putting case studies on my blog but I thought this was a nice example of how technology really can aid and improve the recruitment process…

Specialist Westcountry holiday lettings company Classic Cottages has revealed it used cutting-edge video interviewing technology in the process of recruiting its new Managing Director.

The company, based in Helston, Cornwall received more than 300 applications for the role when it was first advertised in September 2010. The quality of the candidates was so high that they ended up with a list of 100 applicants they wanted to interview.

They worked with Ovia (an online video interviewing company); allowing them to record and upload three questions.  The candidates then recorded their answers on their webcams and uploaded them to the Ovia website for the Classic Cottages’ selection team to review in their own time.

They said that if they had relied on the traditional, CV only technique to get the ‘shortlist’ down from 100 to 20 people they “would have missed some excellent candidates and probably interviewed some people who looked good on paper, but were not really the most suitable for the job. Using the video process meant that the people who arrived for interview were the right candidates and I’m convinced we had a much better final 20 than we would have had without the use of video.”

I understand they got about a 90% take up rate from applicants in terms of recording their interview answers.  I think in part this will be due to it being such a unique experience. 

To go with the case study they’ve got a youtube video that if you are interested in video interview technology it’s worth taking a look at.

TruGrads - Mentors wanted

One of the things that came out of the TruLondon event was that Peter Gold and Bill Boorman have created a mentoring scheme for graduates.
 
Peter explains the background on his blog post and Bill give a little more detail on his.
 
I think this is a great idea.  They've already got about 20 mentors and 30 students involved.  I know they are on the look out for more mentors though.  If you are a recruiter who is prepared to do a small amount of pro-bono work then please get in touch with Bill.

PS, I borrowed the cute picture from Bill too!  
 
 
 

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?

A bit of Advice from James Caan

James Caan has spoken at our last couple of Director only recruitment events (this awful photo is one I took on my phone at the first event).  He’s going to be at our next one on the 3rd February.  But if you can’t make it along – or want some advice RIGHT NOW then here one of the questions that he answered at our last event that I thought was probably useful to share:

What do you think agencies should do to grow relations with customers?

Sadly I am finding that more and more consultants in the industry are developing poorer and poorer communication skills.  This has been exacerbated by technology as it’s too easy for consultants to hide behind e-mails, brochures and CVs – they’ll do anything rather than actually go to see the client. Picking up the phone and arranging to visit your clients should be a given – but it’s not always the case unfortunately – it’s about getting back to basics. As a business one of the KPI’s you should be adopting is tracking to see how close your relationships with your clients are.  Go back and look at your client list - and see when the last time that client was visited!

And finally....

In my view, the recruitment market it hasn’t really changed in the last 25 years. If you are looking for a reason to fail you can find hundreds of them. If you want to succeed then you have to work harder than you have ever worked before, be far more proactive and above all be flexible.

HBRIDA are publishing all of the Q&As over the next few weeks so you ought to check out their blog too!

Graduate Outlook in the UK

I mentioned the Total Jobs Graduate Survey a while back.  They've now released an "infographic" to show the outlook, ambitions and expectation of UK graduates.

Total Jobs have taken the data from their graduate user base and I think it contains some interesting data for current and future graduates as well as potential employers and recruiters. 

Here are some key insights taken from the report:

The graduate business ethic appears to remain strong with Richard Branson ranking number one in the top ten most admired people, although none of his companies appear in the top ten most desirable employers.

Even in the light of recent government cutbacks, graduates have not rejected the public sector as a career opportunity with 5.7% exclusively looking to the public sector during their Job Search and over 50% considering public sector jobs equally with the private sector.

This pragmatic and flexible approach can be seen elsewhere, with 22.8% of graduates prepared to go anywhere in the world to get a job. However, 38.4% see London as the next step in their employment in recognition that the City offers the greatest number of Graduate Jobs

The survey also found that marketing jobs are the most sought after in the private sector, closely followed by media, new media and creative positions. In the public sector, university leavers are most likely to turn their hands to administration or public relations work.

It's a very funky infographic with some interesting stats... and you can download it for free!

blah blah the CV is dead

Honestly everywhere I look (or listen) someone is going on about how the CV is dead; how we need to look beyond mere profile + responsibilities & achievements = candidate. 

Yep, I get all that. You want to "experience" the candidate through the media of the internet (blogs, twitter feed, social media contribution, etc).  Yes the majority of CVs are boring, and yes I am aware that you can't expect a headhunt candidate to have an up to date CV.  Obviously I do also get that many (maybe even most) recruiters google candidates, check them out on LinkedIn, etc.

BUT (and I know I shouldn't start a sentence with but) I'd like to see your average recruitment professional screen 70 applicants for a Store Manger role or a Distribution Manger job without CVs. Recruiters would soon be complaining if for every candidate you interviewed you had to spend the first 20 minutes getting them to talk you through their career history because they had no CV.  And let's not ignore the fact that for most of you your client (or hiring manager) DOES like to see a CV at shortlist stage.  What are you going to present instead?  A print off from LinkedIn?  A few pages from their blog?  Their Twitter feed on your iPhone?!!

So, stop saying the flippin CV is dead! 

UK Jobs – Mixed News for Jobseekers Considering Public Sector Job Losses (guest post)

I’m going to start a regular feature of monthly content provided by TotalJobs.com.  Here is the first article from them:

UK Jobs – Mixed News for Jobseekers Considering Public Sector Job Losses

 

Totaljobs.com has reported an increase in job vacancies posted, however in some sectors competition is fierce with up to 26 applications per job.

  

Totaljobs.com have released their first Totaljobs Barometer report since the General Election and it makes for some interesting reading.  Since the Coalition came to power there has been a 6.5% increase in the number of jobs posted between the 1^st and 2^nd Quarter of 2010.

 

This indicates that employers have a more positive outlook, and the private sector is set for growth, which is very encouraging for the economy. However, with each job vacancy receiving an average of over 11 applications, jobseekers are facing some tough times ahead as unemployment is set to increase through the year due to public sector cuts.

 

The BCC recently announced that the rate of unemployment has actually fallen and although unemployment will rise from 2.51 million to a peak of 2.65 million (8.4% of the workforce) in the first quarter of 2011, many areas in the private sector still look buoyant.

 

Jobseekers who can transfer their skills to a new sector or who can easily relocate will have a better chance of obtaining the job they want. Sectors that have seen a significant increase in job vacancies include catering and hospitality (+11.8%) and customer services (+15.0%). In contrast, sectors to have suffered between quarters include social services (-10.7%) and health/nursing (-22.5%). However the Coalition Government has indicated that they will be focusing on developing Britain’s manufacturing industry and it is hoped that this will result in opportunities opening up in sciences and engineering.

 

Regional jobs figures from the Totaljobs Barometer also show some interesting trends in job supply and demand. The West Midlands, for example, has seen an 8.5% increase in regional jobs posted, but the number of applications remains at 9 per job. This is also reflected in competition for jobs in London which remains at an all time high of 32 applications per job.

 

The North East and North West jobs market also show they have more to offer then just public sector jobs. Finally, bouncing back after a 16% fall in posted jobs in Q4 2009, the job market in Scotland is showing the first signs of improvement, with 7 applications per job, down from 8 applications per job in Q1 2010.

 

About Totaljobs.com

http://www.totaljobs.com is one of the UK's leading jobs & recruitment websites, attracting over 2.8 million jobseekers every month on the hunt for one of 90,000 live vacancies the site carries at any one time. All of this activity generates over 1.5 million applications a month, cementing totaljobs.com’s strong reputation among recruiters and jobseekers alike. Thousands of recruiters from multinationals to smaller regionally based businesses, recruitment consultants and advertising agencies recruit through totaljobs.com.  More data from the Barometer is available at http://www.totaljobsbarometer.co.uk/

Motivating your Recruiters - using technology

A couple of weeks ago I mentioned the "Placement Dance" as per the DVD series from Recruitment Juice.  I guess the idea of something the celebrates a placement is that it's self congratulationary, personally motivational and also motivates the team to work as hard (or harder) than you.

I think I said that the company where I used to work had a bell which was rang when a placement was made.  What I didn't mention was that year's later, in a particularly lean period, a colleague created "the motivator" (to be said in the style of a voiceover man!). It was based on The Totaliser (originally created by Blue Peter - check out this image).    He spent the weekend on it; sawing wood to create a corporate colours box, cutting the holes for the targets to be displayed in, printing figures onto OHP paper and then wiring a lightbuld into the base.  It looked great (honestly!) and it was with great pride that we slowly lifted the panel to reveal lit up figures as we hit the various targets on the way to the BIG ONE!

Again, enough reminiscing - it was motivational.

I think nowadays that type of thing would be seen as naff, possibly insulting to the team and definitely cheesy.

But, in your face things like this can work as motivational tools.

For example... I recently had coffee with Tony Dandridge who runs SABER.  They are a company who has created an analytical based system for recruitment companies for "powering of profitable performance".  The basic idea is that the management get accurate, relevant and real-time performance information and through various graphical representations the recruitment salesforce know how they are doing in relation to their peers; teams know how they stand against each other (and/or against comparative branches).

As business activities become "transparent" performance achievements can be shared and the success celebrated.

The system can include long term motivational schemes, short term competitions, really whatever you find motivates your team best. .

I think it sounds great.  It's only going to work for sales driven recruitment teams - where you need to know the figures for individuals or teams and can motivate them against targets and each other, and whilst Tony spoke of around 70 clients who are using Saber to generate internal competition, I know of at least one executive search firm who use Saber to provides a global motivational link for the company.

As well as the whole package   they are offering the most motivational and inspirational part of the solution as a kind of taster.  This is the live KPI management bit – screens on walls, manager tools to ensure live that KPI’s are being achieved, consultant’s personal KPI dashboard etc).  The cost of this is £7000 (which for many companies will be less than the fees of a single placement).

Tony gave me some great figures when we met - including  a number of clients who have increased sales performance in excess of  40%!
 
If you want more information just give Tony a call on 07912 881467 or email him at tony.dandridge@saberanalytics.com, Feel free to tell him I sent you!  (Alternatively, Saber’s new website will be available in a few days at www.saberanalytics.com, the old website is available and does contain a wealth of information)

Celebrate like Wayne Kerr

 If you've not spotted the Wayne Kerr character fromRecruitment Juice's DVD series then you HAVE to check him out.  Come on, we've all worked with a recruiter just like Wayne in the past or maybe you're sat next to one right now!

Recruitment Juice have a nice little competition they are running at the moment (with Vine Resources) ... "The Beat Wayne competition is challenging recruiters to send in fun, inspirational videos of their placement celebrations, with prizes on offer for the three best entries."

To enter you just need to make a video of your placement celebration and submit it by 13th August.  Winners will be announced at www.beatwayne.com on 1st September.    The first prize is £500 and a cameo appearance in the next Recruitment Juice series, plus a full suite of the award-winning Recruitment Juice DVD training programmes worth more than £1,800 (second prize is dinner for two at a top restaurant in the winner’s local city and the third prize is a copy of the Recruitment Juice Live DVD worth £199).

Back in the 90s when I worked for a recruitment company we used to have a bell which was in the main office - when someone got a placement they got up and rang the bell.  Sadly after a couple of years it was deemed too cheesy and there wasn't a "proper" celebration mechanism (although standing up and shouting YES whilst punching the air seemed to be pretty standard).  I love the idea that people celebrate placements or retainers (or in some dodgy firms - even a candidate turning up for interview).  So, I'm very much looking forward to seeing the winning video.

Splitting fees - is it as easy as it sounds?

I recently got this question from someone in my network:
 
I am part of a small boutique Retail Recruitment Consultancy. Much of the work I pick up is through referrals and I sometimes find that some of the roles I am asked to support my clients with are either too junior for me to spend my time on or are HO based roles that quite frankly I can't respond to fast enough as I am at the early stages of building up my network in many HO functions.  What I want to do is be able to foster honest relationships with a couple of other like minded recruiters who could support me by supplying some candidates on those occasions when I am struggling to deliver for my clients particularly on Exclusive Assignments ( 50/50 split fee's). Also likewise, that my contacts can use me to support them on the odd assignments they may struggle with too.
 
So what's the answer?    Build relationships from scratch or use a "split fee" service to facilitate these types of arrangments.
 
To build relationships from scratch she'd have to do a Google search or check out www.agencycentral.co.uk and find a shortlist of agencies in her area ("the North" is quite a large area) and get in touch with each of them to start building a relationship.  This is obviously hugely time-consuming.  She could attend some local recruitment orientated events and see who she meets up with.  Or she could contact the "association bodies" (REC, APSCO, TEAM, etc) and see if they can suggest any members who match her profile.
 
OR she could very easily log onto sites such as http://www.splitfeejobs.com/ and http://www.permsconnect.com/ (and even the LinkedIN group: http://www.linkedin.com/groups?home=&gid=919397) to post and respond to postings of vacancies.
 
So, as a fellow recruiter what would you suggest?
 
PS, my (obvious) suggestion to her was that I'd post the question here and see what came of it!
 

Recruiter Clinic - James Whitelock

This is part of our "Recruiter Clinic" mini series where I ask various people "What is the question you are asked the most often?  What is the answer you give?"

This is the responses from James Whitelock.

I know Social Media is important, but where do I start?

You and your team probably know more than you think. It is almost guaranteed that someone in your team is using LinkedIn and that even more are using twitter and Facebook in their spare time or even for work. So first tap into this resource.

Trying running a survey of who is using which sites and for what…try to be opened minded and make sure everyone is aware that the purpose is not for recrimination but simply to find where your expertise lay.

Once you have identified your key social media users…make sure you share and replicate their success with the rest of your team.

Either run the survey every few months or define a mechanism for sharing new social media tools/sites across your team, like a weekly update on your intranet. This will keep you fresh and up-to-date.

James Whitelock has over 6 years experience with recruitment technologies, working for agencies like Select Appointments and Randstad.  James now works for Empresaria Group plc as Digital Strategy Manager, where his focus is to create a digital strategy for Empresaria Group plc and raise awareness of digital tools across the Empresaria Group.  You can contact James via email at whitelockJ@empresaria.com, via http://uk.linkedin.com/in/jameswhitelock or on Twitter at @ThinkinCircles

If you want to take part in this series just drop me a note at Louise@ukrecruiter.co.uk

 

Why recruiters should nurture their candidates

Simon Lewis recently wrote an interesting blog post called "Recruiters: treat your candidates like a good neighbour, or die".  Obviusly we're not taking the title at face value - it was actually about how recruiters should nurture their "talent pools" to ensure they "thrive in the new recruiting dawn".

You can read the whole thing on his blog but he has given me permission to pick out this section of questions you should ask yourself to see if you are treating your candidates right in order to keep them on side:

When was the last time you contacted your community? This needn’t be a phone call (although this is best) because these days there’s social networking to get messages out, which would, of course, be great if you can answer this in the affirmative.

When was the last time you hung out with your jobseekers on Facebook; or what did your last Twitter message say to encourage your marketing folk to keep following you; or how many relevant connections do you have on LinkedIn and do you send them regular, relevant, status updates?

Clearly you cannot meet all your prospects but how many social events do you attend, from which you can a) meet candidates you’ve placed and b) engage with new candidates – possibly your next placement? Sharing a drink goes a long way.

Do you contact applicants who may not be relevant for the role they’ve applied for but are possibly suited for something in the future? Given the recent rise in job applications (relevant and irrelevant) it’s not expected that you contact everyone but courtesy is a virtue.

Do you offer referral rewards to your community? If someone you know recommends someone you didn’t and they fill your vacancy, do you offer anything to the referrer? It needn’t be much but a bottle of champagne, for example, will be remembered.

When was the last time you sent a candidate a piece of advice or an article you thought they might find interesting – for no immediate gain?

Recruitment is about lots of things, ability to sell, understanding how to "read" people, empathy, negotiation skills, etc.  But it's basically about relationships and if you don't have a good one with your candidates then you have half the placement puzzle missing!

Recruiter Clinic - Jes Ladva

This is the first in a mini series I'm starting on my blog.  I've asked various people "What is the question you are asked the most often?  What is the answer you give?"

These are the responses from Jes Ladva.

How can I get more clients?

Be creative, aim to add value, be persistent and keep grafting!

How can I move into a new niche?

Cliched but do your homework in terms of your SWOT analysis. Check how new entrants have fared, who are the key players, why are they the key players, is there a market for new niches? Don’t expect instant results, sometimes you have to educate the market to what is available … hold your nerve and keep persevering. If things do not happen then the chances are your homework has been lacking.

What do you think the future of agencies is?

 In the same way that Legal, Accountancy and HR services are established … Recruitment Agency services need to be established in their own right. The work and aims of the REC have taken huge strides in making this happen. However, this cannot happen if recruitment agencies lose sight of best practice and the need to continuously add value. Agencies are resilient and adaptable by nature which should stand them in good stead in this period of austerity. The Agency Workers Directive will need to be carefully considered by Government, Clients and Agencies alike in terms of ensuring it serves it’s purpose but not at the expense of stifling economic growth. The Recruitment Industry is a huge part of the Economy and a well placed Industry in terms of being one of the first to come out of any recession therefore the future presents challenges but challenges we can collectively rise to.

What's the best way to deal with a counter offer?

By understanding candidates and client’s needs then making suitable matches, by building long term relationships and by acting with integrity you can best advise candidates in terms of job choice. Therefore assuming this process had been followed consistently, counter offers can be resisted through agencies acting with repute in the interests of candidate and client alike.

Jes has over 12 years Recruitment Solutions experience particularly in the public sector. His earlier career was as Team Leader within Local Authority, Social Services. Jes has been with the Synarbor Group for approaching 8 years and currently leads on strategic business development within the Group involving the provision of recruitment and workforce development solutions built to meet future challenges.

 Jes is also a Regional Director of the REC and is leading on Welfare to Work initiatives aimed at delivering sustainable employment outcomes for Housing Association Residents. 

If you want to take part in this series just drop me a note at Louise@ukrecruiter.co.uk

Role-play calls with another recruiter

I recently had an email from someone within my network asking for help setting up some regular "coaching" time with another recruiter.
 
He is a sole practitioner recruiter and is looking for someone (outside of his sector) with whom he can role-play recruiter situations.  The idea is to help both parties to sharpen up their client/candidate telephone skills. 
 
All he is suggesting is a half hour conversation once a week, via the phone (or face to face if location would allow).
 
In order for it to be mutually beneficial he'll need to hook up with someone of a similar level of experience.
 

Now, so far he's not managed to start this with anyone, and there doesn’t seem to be much interest in doing it.    What I don't understand is why not?   

I think that most recruiters will admit that they still have areas in which they could improve.  Sharing ideas with someone outside of your niche couldn't harm your business could it?

So, if you are interested please drop me a note or leave a comment.  If you aren't interested I'd love to know the reason why!

Monitoring your clients' website activity

There has been recent discussion on the forum about services where you can search for vacancies posted by corporates on their own sites or on job boards.

Suneese do such a service and at some point I will endeavour to do a review of it.

However, whilst I was checking out their site, I notice they also have a service called "Website Monitor Plus" which is interesting. 

Suneese have previously offered a URL monitoring service where there systems monitor the recruiter's own customer websites and alert them when changes are detected (I assume so they can see if their clients are posting up vacancies they could potentially work on).  Their newly launched Web Monitor Plus goes one step further whereby it monitors the site and actually downloads any new vacancies that are published - then emails the details to the recruiter. 
 
Nice little tool for a recruiter who has a lot of experience with one client, or wants to monitor a number of companies in their niche sector without having to a) trust them to tell them when they have new vacancies or b) check the webpage themselves every week.
 
The costs are nice and visible and straightforward too - for each site you are monitoring there is a £100 setup and a £20 a month monitoring fee.  As with all Suneese services there are no contracts and the minimum commitment is only 4 weeks. 
 
I'd be interested to hear from any recruiter who use the service and see how it's saving/making them money.

ADDITION

One of my contacts (Elkie Holland at Prospectus IT) has dropped me a note since I wrote this sharing the following information:

I read your article and monitoring client sites is something we've been doing for years as we work in a niche sector. Very useful.

There are lots of software packages / services out there to do this and we evaluated loads and then chose and still use UpdatePatrol.

Features:

1) Monitors web sites, blogs and text files for changes
2) Improves your productivity by working silently and unattended
3) Notifies you of changes by popup, sound and/or email
4) Shows pages with changes highlighted in the internal browser
5) Checks single pages or entire web sites for changes
6) Checks normal pages or frame based pages
7) Monitors PDF files for changes (NEW)
8) Monitors Google SideWiki comments for your web site (NEW)
9) Optionally ignores dynamic text like page counters and dates
10) Easily imports your existing bookmarks

Cost:

US $69.95 for the Standard Edition or US $129.95 for the Pro Edition with additional advanced features. You can try the trial version for free if you are not ready to order yet.

BringUsTogether - Saving you some cold calls!

BringUsTogether is a simple concept - the site brings together employers and recruiters in an online environment.  Now, don't get me wrong this isn't a unique concept, but I do like it and think it's worth mentioning again. The idea is that agencies can work with clients they would not normally have access to.  Allowing them to develop new relationships and boost placement revenue. This service in theory eliminates the need for cold calling and speculative emails (saving money, time and making HR recruiters less annoyed!)

The way it works is that recruiters sign up for free, they are verified by BringUsTogher, and then can view live vacancies. They pick the positions they feel they can work best and then send suitable candidates to the client.   Each vacancy gives details of the job title, a brief job description, the salary and any other benefits for the role, and also the placement fee available upon successful placement.

BringUsTogether makes it's money from a 20-25% fee taken from the overall placement fee once the successful candidate has completed a rebate period with the employer.

One of the regular topics on the forum is around how to develop new business and this site could well be a useful tool in the recruiters arsenal. The service is currently in its early stages of launching so don’t  expect 1000s of vacancies straight away! However, I am assured they have business development and sales consultants working around the clock to provide vacancies for recruiters to work. As soon as a new vacancy is posted to the site, all registered recruiters are sent an email notification so they can visit the site and view updated details.

TalentPuzzle Update

I've been interested in the recruitment matching service that TalentPuzzle offer and so got hold of a few update stats. One of the things that I think would make it difficult for a site like this to get momentum is that you need do see a good a variety of jobs on there to entice the recruiters to sign up.  The idea is a good one - recruiters can visit the site and see live vacancies where a corporate actually wants to use an agency.  However, with everything that recruiters have going on even something as simple as this can be difficult to get buy in for. 

They only launched at the end of 2009 and already have more than 60 clients (and their recruitment needs!) singed up - including one FTSE 250 company and one Fortune 500 company.  Whilst the companies useing this come in a variety of sizes the most common roles are Engineering, IT, Sales and Finance.  The average advertised placement fee is 15%. 

The other good news is that for any CV submitted in February that leads to a placement (no matter when) they will not charge the standard fee of 25% of the placement fee. So the recruitment consultant gets 100% of the advertised fee.   Check it out and feel free to leave any feedback here!

The Agency Central Employment Index - 2009 figures

Agency Central produce an Employment Index which gathers data from a range of employment sources.
 
His index is based on statistics, (specifically relating to the Recruitment Agency Marketplace), compiled from the companies using the website and tracks the employment market activity across a variety of variables.
 
You can read more about previous figures in a post I wrote in October 2009.
 
The figures for October, November and December 2009 are on the new chart (see above).  Good news for the industry continues!
 

Heywood Salary Survey for the Recruitment Industry - 2009

Heywood Associates have published their annual salary surveys.  This is the eleventh year that Heywood have been creating these free of charge surveys which are a real value add for the industry.

The surveys cover the executive search recruitment consultancy sectors.  The reports can be downloaded from here:

Executive Search Salary Survey
Recruitment Salary Survey

If you want a hard copy version of any of the surveys you can complete the form on the site (see links above) or phone 020 7404 4884 or email to info@heywoodgroup.com requesting a copy.

Job Profiling

Over the years I've used quite a lot of psychometric products.  I offer psychometric assessment to recruiters for selection purposes and we even have a partnership with someone who offers a product to assess recruitment consultants.

The other day I was given a free report to try out from Myprofile.  They are based in Australia but are looking to service the UK market with their Jobprofile product.  One advantage of this for recruiters is that no accreditation or special software is required - they are all done online.

When I completed the questionnaire it only took me about 12 minutes (mind you I have done a fair few of these over the years!).  The results are sent as a PDF. Mine was eight pages long.  The product uses style identifiers (driver, promoter, supporter and analyser).  With each person normally being a combination of two styles (if you are interested I'm a Promoter Driver). Once the report has identified your style it talks about the job strengths for each style, lists career options (mine included many roles I would consider myself suited to), things that you value and things that annoy you, interview tips and suggestions on ways to "adapt" (ie, what to do about your weaknesses).
 
I thought the report could be especially suitable for personal or career development and I've already recommended it to someone who was looking to make decisions about a career change.
 
They are currently offering a free trial so that you and a colleague can assess the product for yourselves: http://www.myprofile.com.au/jobprofile/trial_request.htm

The Art of Interrogation

I was watching Dragons' Den the other night.  I haven't seen it for ages as I tend to feel the Dragons' take a condescending and arrogant approach to everyone who is on the programme.  But I thought I'd give this new series a go. There was a chap (Rupert) on who had invented a range of stuff to do with flying.  He came across as more bumbling professor than polished entrepreneur.  I can imagine that many people would instantly dismiss him as a bit of an eccentric.  In fact that's what a couple of the dragons did.  The poor bloke looked like being sent off without any serious consideration until one of the Dragons (the one with the background in recruitment!) bothered to ask him a couple of pertinent questions.  One of them being around how much money he'd made from pervious inventions.  One year he had made $800,000.  Suddenly all the Dragons perked up.

If you missed it you can view the episode via iplayer here.
 
James Caan finally invested in him (£80,000 for 49% of his business). 
 
Anyway, my point is this... without proper interrogation Rupert would have walked off with nothing. 
 
I was on Bill Boorman's radio show on Monday talking about the skills recruiter's need in the current market and (without giving the long rambly story of James Caan and Rupert the inventor) I suggested interrogation and interviewing skills.
 
Recruiters need to be able to "interrogate" their client to understand their exact requirements, they should come away from the meeting with the ability to write a job description, person specification and full company briefing document.  They should then be able to create competency and skills based interview questions to pose to each candidate they meet.
 
In a strong economy I feel skills in this area have slipped.  Over the year's I have done a lot of work with one particular recruitment firm.  In the "old days" they would write a job description and person specification from scratch for each role.  They would write competency based interview questions against these documents and then for each candidate they shortlisted they would produce an written assessment of how they matched up against the job description and person specification.  As client's pushed to reduce the timescales on assignments and, no doubt, as complacency set in all these standards slipped.  They ended up using the job description provided by the client, not bothering with set interview questions and scraping the assessment document all together.  Along the way I suspect the consultants stopped using their interrogation and interview skills to quite the same level. 
 
Now, I suggest, that if recruiters are to retain clients and make successful placements these skills will have to be relearned or reinstated.  Interviewing isn't an innate skill but it's one ALL successful recruiters must have.

By the way if you are interested in personal development why not check out our new site UK Recruiter Plus - the definitive online guide for the recruitment industry.