Licensing

 

(Q) If Recruitment Agencies were like Taxis, which one would you be?

(A) You’re the unlicensed one!

If you think something should be done about this please add a comment.

When is Recruitment Consultancy really Recruitment Consultancy and not just People Placing on commission-only.

Employer: What do you do?

Consultant: I’m a Recruitment Consultant.

Employer: Ok so you advise me how to recruit - right?

Consultant: Well not exactly. I find people for your jobs.

Employer: So if there was a better way to find people, would you recommend that?

Consultant: No I only get paid to place people with you, not for pointing you in another direction.

Employer: So where’s the “Consultancy” in that?

Consultant: Pay me to advise you on how to optimise your recruitment processes and I’ll show you.

Now that recruitment has changed so much, should People Placers look to offer more Recruitment Consultancy regardless of who actually finds the candidate?

What the Recruitment industry must learn from Steve Jobs.

There’s stuff you’re happy to pay for and stuff you begrudge paying for. Think about that one for a second - the list of examples forms quickly in the mind! I’m pretty sure iPhones fall into the first category and life insurance falls into the second.

What about recruitment consultancy?

Well, we have all experienced the moment when a client hires a great candidate and just for that moment they’re not thinking about the cost, they’re thinking about value. Unfortunately the moment tends to evaporate the next time they get a commission-driven sales call or an over-sold candidate.

What Steve Jobs did so well was create a product that resonated with a generation. It was so cool people couldn’t wait for it. They queued around the block for it. As Recruitment Consultants we need to do the same for our clients so that, when we call, they are dribbling with anticipation.

What product or service can we offer that resonates with this generation?

I believe it involves turning our backs on the volume cold-calling “Big Biller” self-interested mentality and taking an holistic consultative approach to recruitment: what’s in the best interests of the client? How can we help make this company better at hiring? How can we reduce their hiring costs? You may never introduce a candidate to them directly again!

This is what I am now doing with www.rsg1000.com. Its recruitment consultancy but not you have known it!

It’s not going to be easy and for many it will be beyond their capabilities but I believe the answer to the question above is:

“Give your client the coolest recruitment strategy they’ve ever seen, upgrade it regularly and leave them feeling in awe.”

Let me know what you think?

Those that would like to become involved should email me david@rsg1000.com

What has the King of Tonga got to do with Recruitment Agencies?

I think we have all accepted that Social Media and the In-House recruitment model have taken root and we need to adapt our recruitment agency offering accordingly.

Does this acceptance mean that a large part of the £20 billion per annum spent on agency recruitment will disappear? The answer depends on to what extent agencies evolve new services to generate new revenues that will replace those that will inevitably be lost.

So what might Recruitment Consultancy look like going forward?

New Services:

Agency recruitment has traditionally been a single outsourced function. Your clients are now exercising the option to take that back in-house. However there are new challenges they will face. These challenges are actually bi-products of the very changes that triggered the move back in-house in the first place. They include: fast-evolving social media, software, technological and cloud based recruitment tools. We may also see: agency licensing, professional qualifications for in-house recruiters, national recruitment agency networks, global recruitment agency alliances. In 5 years time there will be many more. If your client wants to remain recruitment-competitive they may well seek expert help in choosing and integrating the best resources. Are you equiped to provide it?

Greater Accessibility:

What Agencies must also do is overcome market fragmentation and become more accessible. We need to create a supply side where 1000s of great agency recruiters no longer have to shout to be heard.

Due to the nature of the job, the way you are rewarded and zero barriers to entry, fragmentation is inevitable as Recruitment Consultants ultimately seek and value their independence. However there is a possible solution.

The one-stop Recruitment Network who's members cover: all Recruitment Agency sectors, Contractor management, Social Media consultancy, HR consultancy, In-House consultancy, New Product reviews and Global recruitment solutions offers the client an accessible resource that meets all possible needs. It also goes a long way to removing the now redundant PSL.

Like the King of Tonga ruling a tiny kingdom may not be what it once was.

The Word is not Enough!

Recruitment Consultancy in most peoples’ eyes involves the successful introduction of a candidate to a company resulting in an agency earning a fee.

But this isn’t Consultancy!

Consultancy is about providing advice, in this case about how to best approach recruitment, irrespective of where the candidates eventually come from.

In the old days the way you best served your client was by finding and delivering the right candidate. Nowadays, in spite of the fact that agencies are in a shrinking market, fortunately there’s much more to talk to clients about.

The options and choices hiring companies must consider to remain recruitment competitive are complex and demanding: In-House? Agency? RPO? ATS? Facebook? Twitter? Mobile?

Consultancy is about helping these companies get the best blend of resources, optimising their effectiveness and syncing them with internal resources. It’s about delivering the best recruitment outcomes.

Recruitment is evolving.

Calling yourself a “Consultant” is not enough.

If you choose to do so, you have to become a Consultant.

Don’t complain about agencies if you haven’t given enough thought as to how you use them.

One of the problems with using agencies is that there are so many of them and they’ll all tell you how good they are. So what you’ve done is adopt a PSL and engage with a few good suppliers and block the rest out….. Is that really the way to get the best out of the market?

That was fine in the 90s but the world has moved on.

Now you’ve got smart phones, LinkedIn, In-House recruiters, you download music, cars run on electricity and Man City won the Premiership….come on things have evolved! The way you use agencies must evolve too.

Inflexible models like the PSL must give way to faster, leaner, better agency recruitment mechanisms in the same way newspapers have given way to online and desktops are yielding to tablets.

I’m not suggesting you don’t have relationships with agencies but working with 25 agencies paid purely on results, on a PSL is the worst of all solutions for all concerned.

So if there’s a part of your recruitment you’re going to use agencies for:

1. choose a single recruitment partner,
2. take your time finding them,
3. pay them on a monthly retainer,
4. review the relationship as you would any company employee and
5. let them optimise the outsourced element of your recruitment by:
1. working alongside your In-House team,
2. complementing your social media strategy,
3. monitoring new recruitment tools and processes,
4. partnering with and managing external agencies and
5. developing a global network of potential suppliers.

Remembering that the external agency market is huge by comparison to a company’s In-House recruitment team, clever management of that external resource could pay huge dividends in a company’s efforts to hire the best available talent, at the right price and in as timely a fashion as possible.

Licensing – The 10 Commandments

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The recruitment agency sector is a broad church facing unprecedented challenges on all sides. Now is the time for every Recruitment Consultant who cares about the industry to step forward and help shape change from within.

In order to achieve change I believe the current representative bodies (IOR, REC, APSCo and others) plus the government agencies (GLA, EAS and others) plus the growing number of networks (IRG and others) should harmonise their individual policies around a set of broadly accepted, fundamental principles and in line with current legislation.

The “stick” would be provided by the above mentioned bodies issuing revocable licenses to Recruitment Consultants and promoting the benefits of Employers of using licensed Consultants only. The “carrot” would be the raising of standards, strengthening of value proposition and the improvement of the industry’s reputation.

If you wanted to effect change, what would your 10 Commandments be?
Here are mine. 

1.      All Recruitment Consultants (you) must pass a common entrance exam covering law, best practice and compliance before receiving a license.

2.      All Recruitment Agencies (firms) should self-certify that they and their Consultants comply with the relevant licensing obligations for that year (they may change from year to year) and make themselves available for inspection

3.      You will send a summary of “Expectations and Rights” to every candidate you represent.

4.      You will not send a CV unless you have written authorisation from the candidate regarding both that client and that job.

5.      You will provide timely and honest feedback to all candidates you choose to represent.

6.      You will send a summary of “Expectations and Rights” to every Client you work with.

7.      You will agree and sign Terms of Business with all clients prior to submitting CVs to them.

8.      You will not advertise a job unless you have written authorisation to do so from the client regarding that job.

9.      You will represent all jobs in writing accurately.

10.  You will not call anyone for at least 1 year if they have expressly asked you in writing not to call them.