It’s All About Me!….No It’s Not!

When I was a kid, and my dad took me to watch football, there was always etiquette if you wanted to leave your seat during the game. Whether you wanted to use the toilet, or get a coffee (in those days you could even go get a beer and bring it back to your seat to drink it!), you may be coming back to your seat late from the half time interval, or just leaving early. Whatever your reason, you waited for a break in play before asking the other people in your row to stand up. Could be a free kick, goal kick, maybe treatment for an injury, no matter what as long you didn’t inconvenience other people whilst they were watching the game.

It was courteous, it was polite and it showed respect.

I was thinking of those innocent times on Saturday whilst in my seat at the Emirates (home of Arsenal FC, for those who don’t know) as I stood up for the fifth time during the first few minutes of the second half to let a latecomer back to their seat. If I was lucky someone said ‘excuse me’ but in the main I was just expected to stand, even if I was concentrating on a particularly good passage of play. My enjoyment, which I had paid a lot for, was secondary to someone who couldn’t manage to get back to their seat in time for the re-start of the match.

And before I get smart answers, it’s not just at Arsenal this happens!…from cinemas to theatres to concert halls it’s the same story.

It used to be that it was the person who was being inconvenienced who was the important one in the situation, whereas now it’s the person doing the inconveniencing who takes control.

I guess it’s another example of an ‘it’s all about me’ kind of attitude which now seems to spill over into the workplace.

A snap poll of people around me:

How many people call and start talking, never ask if you’re free, just talk because it suits them?

How many people turn up for meetings really early…and expect to get seen then?

How many CVs get sent to clients without their owners being asked?

How many interviewers/interviewees don’t bother to give proper, meaningful feedback?

Meetings postponed at the last minute…

People not turning up for interview or appointments…

I’ll get back to you later…

IT’S ALL ABOUT ME!!! No courtesy, no politeness, no respect…

Go on…how many can you think of? Don’t want a grumpy old man/woman style rant…

…but let me know what inconsiderateness really bugs you in your day to day working life…

Simply The Best?…What Makes a Great Recruiter

Years ago I worked in sales recruitment. Every Friday we finished at 5pm and then sat in a circle and took it in turns to review our week. We gave ourselves a score out of 10 and then we each voted for our ‘Consultant of the Week’. Inevitably the most votes always went to the consultant who had made the most fees. Very occasionally the group would recognise the closing of a particularly difficult assignment, or the winning of a retainer against the odds, but those occasions were rare.

The biggest biller was always the best recruiter.

If someone said ‘he’s a good recruiter’ you knew they meant ‘he’s a big biller’

Times change…my sales recruitment experience was before e-mail, job boards, unprecedented boom and bust, and social media… so now I wonder

What makes a good recruiter in 2010?

Maybe it’s still the biggest biller? Other recruiters, managers and directors will still recognise the bottom line, the recruiter that not just hits their targets but surpasses them. During my years in recruitment to recruitment I often heard these people referred to as ‘billing machines’. I always found this an odd description, somehow dehumanised as if great recruiters are mechanical without compassion or emotion.

How about the most contacts or the biggest network…the Largest Community? Making placements historically pays the bills, but moving forward might we need to find other ways to monetise our networks? Great recruiters should build great relationships and it may well be that focusing on closing individual deals somehow turns attention away from the value of the wider network. A lot of effort goes in to developing relationships that may or may not result in a deal…information, knowledge, ideas, networking, introductions and referrals. If we cling to the traditional billing model are we in danger of giving away what we should monetize and trying to monetize what we should give away?

Perhaps it will be the best feedback, which should give rise to the most referrals? I’ve written at length how I am rewarded on feedback, and it would appear that a number of other recruitment businesses are adopting an element of client/candidate feedback in their incentive schemes. There’s little doubt that giving a consultative, positively different experience to candidates and clients, transparent and honest, managing expectations and delivering what you promise to the timescale you agreed, will result in recommendations and referrals…and there is no better client or candidate than one that has been recommended to you.

So who would you now salute now as being a great recruiter…?

The big biller….

The networking community builder….

The deliverer who gets the best referrals and recommendations…

There are those who would say that all 3 go together, that big billers will automatically be good networkers and deliverers, but I’m not so sure. During my time working in recruitment, especially when placing recruiters, I have met and worked with quite a few contingency ‘big billers’ and I have to say that often they aren’t the most engaging of people. Usually they are motivated by the deal, the commission, and their methodology can be quite transactional…many times I have referenced someone to be told that their relationship skills are somewhat lacking but they display a determination that pulls them through, often to the detriment of colleagues.

Interestingly, the recruiters who make the best matches, whose candidates succeed most in their new roles, aren’t always the biggest billers precisely because their placements stick. They get recommendations and referrals but their success often negates recurring business.

My view is that networking, community building and reputation will drive success in the future, as the traditional transactional sales model gets squeezed. For now, we still monetise what we do in the same way we always have however I believe that this will change.

Let me know what you think? Shoot me down or give me your own view…as recruiters and HR professional one thing I know we aren’t is shy!!

(This post originally appeared on RecruitingBlogs)

Listen Without Prejudice

Nick Clegg is suddenly a star! The leader of the Liberal Democrats is a front page face, a trending topic on twitter, and now has a facebook fan page –IagreewithNick. People listened to him in last Thursday’s leaders’ debate, some for the first time, and liked what they heard.

Why hadn’t they listened before? He’d been on TV every day last week so people heard him…but not many were listening. Many ordinary voters are encouraged to believe that we have a 2 party system…from print and broadcast media to the never-ending array of commentators, analysts and satirists who usually provide what passes for political debate, the notion of LibDems as a minority party is not only suggested but is assumed as fact. Even though 1 in 5 voters put their ticks in the LibDems box on Election Day – 1 in 5 hardly says ‘minority interest’ to me.

This time people listened, and heard things that struck a chord with them, saw ways in which Nick’s party may be able to play a part not just in the upcoming election but in a future government.

They Listened Without Prejudice…

They listened because all 3 party leaders were given equal billing and equal air time. For the first time Nick Clegg spoke not as a leader of a minority party but as someone the equal of the 2 other leaders.

I think there’s a big lesson here for Human Resources.

The future of HR, and the role that it can play in business, is forever under scrutiny and the subject of discussion and agonising. This debate raged again recently following an interesting blog from Bill Boorman entitled ‘Scrap HR’ which elicited the usual range of responses from the nodding agreement of non regular HR practitioners, to the traditional mix of defiant umbrage and/or hand wringing kvetching from those who earn their crust practicing HR.

To me, HR has the same problem as the Liberal Democrats…everyone thinks that they are fair game to take a pop at. Seriously, does anyone ever doubt the value of the finance department, legal team, IT department, sales, marketing, design, and supply chain?? Do their managers constantly debate the future value of what they do? Do Finance Directors need to push to get a seat at the table?

In fact, would anyone ever write a blog entitled Scrap Finance? Scrap IT? Scrap Sales??!

I’m vicariously an HR practitioner…not qualified to do it but I spend every day talking to people who do. And I’m always talking through their achievements, how they have made a difference and added value. And guess what? HR add tremendous value to businesses of all sizes. Re-organisations, restructures, transformations, talent development (acquisition and retention), performance management…all vital for business planning, future growth, cost savings and efficiency.

So I’m thinking that maybe, just like the ‘big’ political parties, it’s time for the ‘big’ corporate functions to give HR an equal platform. Listen to them not as a ‘minority’ function but as an equal.

Listen Without Prejudice…you may hear things you like!

Maybe it’s not Scrap HR…but Listen to HR

Imagine No Recruiters…I Wonder If You Can?

(This blog originally appeared on RecruitingBlogs.com, click here to see the comments that it attracted)

Every day I go over Putney Bridge on my way to work. This may seem like minutiae of my daily commute in South West London but a couple of weeks ago Putney Bridge became the focus for millions of people all over the world, as it does at the beginning of April every year. The reason?…it’s the starting point for the University Boat Race, and has been for 154 years.

Now you may think that two teams of amateur rowers from the UKs top 2 universities battling it out for 20 minutes over 4 ¼ miles is hardly a reason for so many people to be transfixed, and it has to be said that in the 21st Century I’m not sure of the event’s cultural and sporting significance, which makes me think…

…would anyone miss it if it wasn’t there?

Seriously, the rowing teams of the 2 universities would, some alumni of the universities would, and bar and cafe owners in Putney would…but who else? A lot of people watch it because it’s on and it’s a tradition…but traditions sometimes end.

How about 3rd party recruiters?

I was looking through the most recent figures in the UK from the REC (Recruitment & Employment Confederation) and see that in 2008/09 the total number of permanent placements was 582,803. We’ve got a full time workforce of 21.16 million and estimates of average staff turnover range between 10% and 20%…let’s take a conservative estimate of 15% which would mean 3.17 million job changes a year, of which only 18% were therefore through 3rd party recruiters.

It’s amazing to think that all the permanent recruiters are out there competing for about 20% of the job move market. Put another way, 80% of hires are NOT made through recruiters…that’s 4 out of 5. Sounds incredible doesn’t it?

Which makes me wonder…

…would anyone miss us if we weren’t there?

What do you think?

Would 80% of hiring processes remain unaffected?

Would the other 20% of clients/candidates find each other without us?

Could companies use the money spent on agency fees to create their own talent pool?

And how could we add value to the 80% who don’t use us?

I realise that I’ve used an estimate, but even if we revise upwards a bit and get nearer to 30%, that’s still a lot of hires (70%) not made through 3rd party recruiters.

So the question for perm recruiters is…

A lot of companies clearly don’t need us or use us…could the rest learn to live without us?

It’s a Selection Rejection Thing

“I nearly bought one of their products a few weeks ago. I’m glad I didn’t. Won’t be considering buying one again”

So said a candidate to me last week about a company whose brand extends into the High Street. Did he have a bad experience? Bad customer service? Was he let down by faulty workmanship?

Kind of..

He was a rejected candidate…he’d applied for a senior role, had 5 interviews including meeting most of the operating Board, giving a presentation, and also meeting a Director from a different division. At the final interview he had been promised a decision within 48 hours. When time was almost up he got a call saying that there was one more person he needed to speak to and a phone chat was scheduled for the next morning. At the end of that call he was promised a decision the next day, which was a Friday.

But he heard nothing. At 5.30 he put a call in (he reasoned that if there was still some doubts maybe he could assuage them) but got a voice mail.

He got a call back on the Monday afternoon saying that no decision could be made, that the company had not found a strong enough comparison so were unable to commit. He was told that a member of the Board would call and explain more. 3 days later he still hadn’t heard.

He asked what I thought, and I said: ‘Some companies forget that rejected candidates are consumers and ambassadors for their businesses’

A lot of time is put in to the hiring processes…design, criteria, testing, offer, dialogue, giving the successful candidate a positive impression of the company…and I think it’s easy to short change the rejected candidate(s). In my experience there are 3 things that the unsuccessful candidate wants:

Clarity
About the interview process, the competition, the selection criteria, the TIMESCALE for both the process and the decision, and some indication of where they stand

Closure
What went wrong, why it went wrong, constructive feedback, is there an opportunity in another part of the business, is it worth applying in future or is this now a closed book

Communication
Clear dialogue with the business, preferably with someone that they met during the process, and most preferably with one of the decision makers, a workable timescale with phone calls made precisely when they are promised even if there is no definite news to convey

You can’t sugar coat the message, and you can’t hire everyone who wants to work for you, but candidates you interview do invest time, energy and emotion in your company, your brand, and deserve some recognition of this investment.

Treat them well because they are your potential consumers and your potential ambassadors…

(This post originally appeared on Recruiting Blogs…read the comments it generated here)

They Shoot Recruiters, Don’t They?

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This blog was originally posted on RecruitingBlogs – click here to see all the comments that were posted

Question for corporate recruiters and hiring managers…if a contingent hire goes wrong, which of these is likely to be at fault:

1) The hiring and selection process?

2) The onboarding and integration process?

3) The recruiter who introduced the candidate?

Hands up who answered 3?

I ask this because I was told of a situation recently in which a client decided after 4 weeks that a candidate that had been hired was a bad fit and would have to be released. They asked the recruiter not just for a 100% fee refund but to cover the 4 weeks wages that they had paid too…their justification was ‘well you selected her’ to which the recruiter had replied ‘no, I presented her…you selected her’

At what point, I wonder, does the 3^rd part contingency recruiter cease to be responsible for the success of their introduction?

We present candidates who we believe are as close a match as possible to what the client has briefed us to find, yet after this presentation the clients’ processes, over which we have no control and very little input, take over…interview process, selection criteria, offer, pre-joining communication, induction and onboarding, integration…that’s a whole lot of actions where something can go wrong that may influence the new employees ability to fit straight into the role and culture.

And what happens if an employee thinks that the company has misrepresented itself, its culture, its talent development agenda, the scope of the role offered? All these are often cited as reasons that people fail to settle and become disenfranchised early in their employment.

Most recruiters offer a refund/rebate facility and yet many employers feel the need to negotiate these more favourably. Why? This leads to the recruiting process starting from a position of negativity, of risk minimisation, as if you are almost expecting the hire to be unsuccessful. I did have a client once who laid down their terms for a rebate…100% for a 2 month period if the candidate proved to be unsuitable, but if it was the candidate who left, for any reason, then the company expected no rebate as they felt it was their responsibility to represent their business and culture, and the role and expectations, and the recruiter could not influence this.

I’ve rarely found another client willing to share the responsibility, which will, in effect, recognise that the hiring company has a large role to play in whether or not their new member of staff succeeds. Too often when an employee leaves within the first few months it is the recruiter who made the introduction who is held to account, but is this just an easy option? Would the hiring process be any different if the recruiter offered no rebate/refund?

Maybe it’s hard to say ‘How come we couldn’t keep this person, we went through a long interview process, bought them in and got the approval of the team, went through our usual induction programme…where did we go wrong?’ and easier to say ‘where did we get that guy from? Find out what the rebate is and tell them if we get another dud candidate from them then they’re not a supplier anymore’.

I know I can’t speak for all recruiters. I know that there are too many who abdicate their responsibilities of careful matching and selection, of getting to really know their clients and being able to add value to the hiring process, who don’t properly reference and check…yet there are many who do all of these things, and present strong candidates in good faith that their clients have robust hiring and induction processes in place to maximise the success of their new hires.

So I return to my original question of who or what is at fault if your new hire is unsuccessful. How many companies have an inquest when this happens? Supposing it is a direct hire or a referral, what would usually be the reason? And why is this different if the employee was introduced through a 3^rd party recruiter?

Do you feel that there are times when we’re justified in saying…

…Don’t Shoot, I’m only the Recruiter

This Is Why You Should Hire Me! – Is Your CV a Sales Document?

This blog was originally posted on RecruitingBlogs – click to see the comments that were posted

No getting away from it, your CV is a sales document. Instead of typing the words ‘Curriculum Vitae’ or ‘CV’ at the top, put in ‘Why You Should Hire Me…’ and see how you write it. There’s little point just creating a list of duties or responsibilities; you will not get hired solely because of what you have done, but more because of what you have achieved within those duties and responsibilities, and how you can successfully build upon them and deliver in your next role.

Your whole CV should be your mission statement, your ‘This Is Me’ moment. It may be the door opener, getting you an interview, but when you get in front of a hiring decision maker you need a strong CV to present to. Written well, it can set the tone for an interview, manage expectations and enable you to play to your strengths.

When you write your CV, think about these 4 questions:

What are my biggest achievements?

Forget the CV format; just close your eyes and think of the 5 or 6 biggest achievements that have really meant something to you. They can be things that made a difference, or really stretched you out of your comfort zone, changed the way that the company did something, or required a lot of influencing. Whatever they are, they’ve got to be quantifiable achievements that will give whoever reads your CV an insight into how effectively you operate.

Where have I added value and made a real difference?

Too many CVs reflect a list of duties and responsibilities that look like they have been cut and pasted from a job description. You need to bring the CV to life, give it colour and substance, let anyone reading it know what you have done that really made a difference to your company. It doesn’t have to be a dramatic sea change, it can be something that simplified or enhanced a process that was already there.

What is most important to me about my job?

So many candidates list the ‘biggest’ duty under a job title. Invariably it will be something to do with managing people, or standing in for a senior colleague, or having taken a lead on a project, maybe around recruitment or talent. Whatever is listed first is quite often the thing that means most to you, the key achievement…you need to make sure that it’s relevant for the type of role that you want. There is little point listing management as your major responsibility or achievement if you aren’t looking to apply for a role involving management.

Why am I reading this?

Last question is not for the jobseeker, but for the person reading the CV. They’ve got a vacancy to fill and your CV has come to them, whether directly or through a third party. Why are they reading it? How does your CV fit with what they want? If they have to hunt for the clues and piece it together then chances are they’ll move on to the next one.

What do you think? What other questions should jobseekers ask themselves when they come to write their CVs?

Fear and Loathing in Social Media

At last!

NOW is when it starts to get REALLY INTERESTING!!

What does??….Social Media!

For too long social media, and in particular Twitter, has been one long love-in…Woodstock, peace and love, one great happening…we’ve been awesome, we’ve been rockstars, we’ve loved everything everyone has written…

…or have we?? Is it just that no-one has wanted to make the first move to shoot from the hip, tell it like it is?

Suddenly it’s all changing…there’s Debate! Opinion! Disagreement! Argument!

What we say on Social Media? Who reads it? How do they interpret it? How do they judge it? Are they snooping or are they sourcing? Do they hire or do the fire because of it?

…and guess what…we don’t all agree with each other! Yay!

All of us…

…the employed, the self-employed, the under-employed and the unemployed…

…consultants, advisors, directors, experts, gurus, enthusiasts, commentators, copywriters, marketers, coaches, trainers, conference organisers and conference disorganisers…

…blogging, microblogging and guest blogging…

Debates are starting…

This morning a debate started at 5am (UK time) about use of social media websites for referencing…it spread from Australia to UK to US….and it’s still going…and we don’t agree…

Follow it Andy Headworth’s blog…the comments are long and passionate

And a new thread is staring courtesy of this morning’s blog from Aaron Dodd

Then turn to Alasdair Murray’s blog ‘A Job Description Isn’t a Sales Tool’ and look at the range of comments, the disagreements, and the tangental diversions!!!

Then there’s Felix Wetzel’s excellent blog…he posted about communities, Bill Boorman didn’t agree and was offered a guest blog to reply…and the debate twists and turns and rages on

In my opinion, this is what it should be…honest debate, lots of opinion, theories debunked, ideas written about and read and absorbed…

This is the conversation we ALL need to be a part of

Never Mind The Quality…Feel The Width

Although I believe it was created for a TV sitcom, the phrase ‘Never Mind The Quality…Feel The Width’ has long been used as an expression signifying quantity over quality.

It certainly neatly summarises many modern recruiters…but I wonder if they are entirely to blame?

Volume and speed seem to have taken over from matching and selection, from the ‘throw as many CVs their way and they’re bound to hire someone’ approach of many 3^rd party recruiters to the ‘have you got any more CVs, I don’t think that we’ve seen enough’ procrastination of many internal recruiters/hiring managers.

To an extent, recruiters have largely helped to bring this on themselves for four main reasons:

1) Not really understanding their market, nor taking a detailed, qualified brief, has led to a service model where sending a number of CVs and letting the client select who to interview is often now the norm

2) Not properly sourcing for a specific role, but just posting an ad on a job board leads to numerous responses which lazy, or heavily sales targeted, recruiters can’t really be bothered to properly assess

3) Recruiters’ KPIs in many agencies include numbers of CVs sent per vacancy or number of ‘send outs’ per candidate as metrics. Too many consultants look at a new vacancy as an opportunity to send out a number of CVs.

4) In an attempt to seal an exclusive vacancy, recruiters are often encouraged to offer a number of CVs to a client as a way of closing off the need for that client to brief a competitor.

But don’t run away with the idea that this is necessarily all the fault of recruiters…

…how many times do you hear a client say ‘there must be someone else out there’ or I can’t believe that there aren’t more candidates looking at the moment’…

I spoke to an internal recruiter the other day regarding a difficult to fill senior contingency role and was told that the 2 key decision makers wanted to review a large number of CVs – 20 had been mentioned – to ensure that they had really covered the market. This for a role in which finding 3 relevant CVs in the current market would be a challenge. The role is seemingly an urgent one, yet they want to get it right I was told. Logic would seem to be that if they review a large number of CVs then they would feel more comfortable with the final decision…

Is it a chicken and egg situation? Do clients now expect to see a large number of CVs because their recruitment suppliers feel that sending a large number of CVs qualifies as good recruitment business? A way of showing your client that you speak to lots of candidates, have a wide network and therefore there is no need to contact a competitor?

Or do recruiters send over the volume of CVs that their clients ask for? Do corporate recruiters now expect to see a range of CVs as part of a hiring process? As a way of ensuring that they have thoroughly ‘searched’ the market?

Let me know what you think….

The Conversation That Never Sleeps….

Social media is a conversation; it’s a number of platforms, a set of tools that enables conversation, engagement, transferal of thoughts, ideas and information…

It’s New York New York…the City that never sleeps

Its Old Man River…it just keeps rolling

It’s a neverending networking event!

So many times I hear ‘I’d like to try Twitter, give it a go, see what it’s all about, but I don’t have the time’ and I say ‘just dip in and join in the conversation…you can dip in and out, or you can stay around a bit longer, make some contacts, read some interesting stuff you won’t see anywhere else’

I believe it changes the way we communicate, because there’s no end! If you phone someone – a client, a candidate, a contact – then there’s a beginning and an end to the call, and if you want to move forward you need to conclude with an action. You can’t just pick up the phone an hour later and say something else.

But with social media, there’s always a chance to pick up the conversation, anytime! Whatever you talk about, you’re engaging with people. As long as you’ve got something interesting, engaging, informative or just plain funny to say, then people won’t mind hearing from you.

There are very few HR professionals and recruiters from the UK on Twitter, which is a shame. I would love to be able to build an online rapport with them. I speak to many in the US and chat about all sorts of things. I have often asked them ‘if I was US based, then you could well be my client or my candidate – if that was the case, how would you feel about the conversations that we have?’

They usually tell me that it wouldn’t make any difference, that the business and personal can easily mix…this is who I am, take me or leave me. They feel the same about Facebook. In the UK though I think it’s a bit different, it’s more…

No Facebook Please, We’re British!

Will it change? I think it will, eventually!

So for this post I’m going to throw down the challenge to everyone from the UK reading this who is not blogging, tweeting, contributing to groups on Linked In, or generally joining in the conversation…

Come on in, the water’s fine….!

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