Tag: Candidate Care

Thank You For Your Interest. Now Go Away.

Imagine this scene

….

You’re out shopping.  There’s quite a bit you need to buy and you’re getting frustrated because shop after shop doesn’t seem to stock what you want. And if they do, then invariably it’s the wrong size or colour.

Then you spot a new shop, one you haven’t seen on your High Street before. Looking through the window, you can see that it stocks much of what you’ve been trying to find. But it’s crowded, and you can’t really identify who is serving. There seem to be a few assistants but not enough to cope with the number of customers.

Undeterred you go in and start easing your way through the crowds. You can’t get close to the stock but from what you see it’s what you need. You start pushing through, looking for someone to serve you.

Suddenly you spot someone wearing a t-shirt bearing the shop name. At last, someone who can serve you! It’s been a long day of shopping with little reward and this is a great opportunity to get what you’ve been looking for.

You move towards the guy in the t-shirt – he appears to be free – but just as you’re about to reach him a bouncer appears from nowhere and blocks your path.

He stands there, arms folded, shielding the assistant from you. He hands you a card. It says…

‘Thank you for showing interest in our shop but as you can see we are very busy. Please go and wait at the back of the store. If no-one serves you within 5 minutes you can assume that we do not need your custom and you should leave’ Continue reading “Thank You For Your Interest. Now Go Away.” →

Wide Awake at truNORA

There’s a rumour going around the Twitterverse that I dozed off during truNORA on Thursday. It’s complete nonsense I can assure you.

Flicking through the excellent set of images that Sara Headworth has produced you may see one of those photographic moments where a mixture of light, angle and shutter speed combine to give a false impression…proof that the camera can easily lie.

The offending picture was actually taken during a track that I was co-leading about the candidate experience…there was plenty of debate there to ensure that I didn’t doze off.

I’ll start my thoughts of the day with the candidate experience track as it’s the second candidate experience track that I have co-led at a tru event this year, and it’s a subject that has filled blogs, comments and numerous conversations, both online and offline.

This conversation was similar to the last, in that it featured a mix of representatives from job boards and seasoned (cough, experienced!) recruiters and my conclusions are the same.

Candidate experience is a state of mind not something you should have to think about doing. Automated acknowledgements, no matter how personally written, are not an experience. They should be an absolute minimum expectation as a matter of respect and service and should be followed up by a more personal interaction. Personally I think 3rd party recruiters get too involved in conversations around job board functionality. The experience that matters to the candidate is the one that happens after they have applied, and is most probably important to the candidate whose application is unsuccessful.

Interestingly the recruiters who talked most of the importance of personal contact in this process, of candidates becoming clients and ambassadors for your service, were the most experienced recruiters, those who have been around for 20 years or more…maybe the candidate experience really is just good recruiting habit. In which case shame on the industry for turning its back on it recent years.

I heard a lot about Linked In too, and have to say that each improvement and enhancement to functionality seems to signal another nail in the coffin of traditional 3rd party niche permanent recruiters. Just my opinion, I know, but the industry really does have to come up with a value proposition and offering that does not include something that a client can do for themselves. Posting on job boards and searching on LinkedIn are both routes to market that a well connected hiring director has available directly…we should be able to offer something more that justifies our fee. Most new LI tools are aimed at clients, not at recruiters, which I fear could well lead to a client being able to put together a stronger shortlist than a recruiter unless we look seriously at what we can offer.

With recruiters slow on the LI uptake, it was even more interesting to hear employKyle talk of his age group’s indifference to the platform. Recruiters should be ahead of the curve, not playing catch up…which is why we need to be on top of how the next generation workforce will communicate and engage.

I really enjoyed hearing about Hard Rock and what they do. Loved the Authenticity – Lifestyle – Purpose approach to engagement and believe it is something that all companies should aspire to. I have long thought that trusting your staff, and enabling them see a wider purpose to their role and your business, is key to getting the best out of them. Companies have nothing to fear from social media if they have an engaged, collaborative workforce. If you fear your people will use social media to portray a negative image for your business then your problem is not social media…its much closer to home.

All in all another interesting, thought provoking day offering the chance to chat and debate with old friends and new faces…

…and certainly no time for napping!

 

 

 

 

 

It’s The Sales Model, Stupid!!

Whatever the industry cheerleaders will have you believe, there can be little doubt that the recruitment sector is facing critical problems that whilst not terminal, could be very damaging. Threats from direct sourcing, downward pressure on fees and timescales, upward pressure on candidate and regulatory volumes, increasing service demands and expectations from clients and candidates, and the advocacy that social media brings enabling poor practice and experience to be communicated widely and quickly, will inevitably create burdens that many underfunded, complacent, inflexible recruiters will struggle to see off.

The debate has raged again in the blogosphere this week with a quite stark view from @theHRD on this blog. Needless to say, it attracted opinion on both sides, and the debate immediately moved to figures and semantics…always a stifler to any argument of ideas, ideals and passion.

Only a few commentators picked up on the obvious fact…this piece was written by a client. The HR Director of a fairly major (so we believe) business who would almost certainly a ‘sales’ target for pretty much every 3rd party recruiter in the UK and here he was telling the industry that the party was over, the days of high volumes and big bonus cheques were probably  disappearing fast…and what was the initial reaction?

To disagree with him!

Can you think of any other industry in which a customer telling you that your offering is poor, outdated and no longer does what is wanted would be told that he was wrong??

Me neither!

I wouldn’t mind but the industry prides itself on being a sales led industry…and what is one of the first things a trainee salesman learns?  Don’t say ‘yes, but’! You don’t win business from someone by disagreeing with them and telling them they’re wrong.

But then optimism, whether unfounded or real, is a key driver for a sales business.

So what’s the main thing wrong with recruitment industry in my opinion?

It’s the transactional sales model!!

It’s been unchanged for 50 years and there seems no appetite to change it now. Not when it’s made many people wealthy in the past. I can’t think of another business sector that has a standard operating model that has been unchanged for so long.

Before I go on, let me try and establish a case for having such a strong opinion on this. It’s not just thrown together! I have been a billing recruiter, month after month, for over 20 years. I spent a number of those years placing recruiters, during which time I must have interviewed at least 3000 experienced and trainee recruiters and sat in well over 500 client meetings where I have been briefed by directors/managers of agencies on their requirements, culture, values and goals.

When you look at the recruiter behaviours that most annoy candidates and clients I believe they can all be traced back to the transactional sales model. So let’s consider a few inconvenient truths about the sales model. For starters…

It makes the recruitment process all about the fee and not about the person.

Yep, it sure does. Number one target for any recruiter is fees. Don’t bring in the fees; you don’t keep your job. In fact I can think of few business sectors in which an employee can have a clause in their employment contract which states that failure to meet targets for 2 consecutive months will lead to a written warning. I have seen these contracts and people sign them. Unbelievable short-termism. Similarly I cannot think of another industry in which an employee can be told that they are now on a commission only deal, and if they don’t like it they can leave. Yep, I’ve seen that too. In fact I’ve heard directors talk of having done it. In a tough market, with pressures on all sides, those fees have to be made…and when your job could be at stake, that’s quite a pressure.

There’s no money in candidate experience.

Damn right there’s not! (Irony alert) Well, there’s not if you’re measured on fees, jobs bought in, interviews, CVs submitted, and interviews gained with client. Why spend an hour interviewing someone you can’t place in a job this month? Why spend a few minutes ringing back candidates who have applied but aren’t relevant? Get on the phone…find a new vacancy or find a candidate you can place. This isn’t a guess on my part…it’s something I have been told many times by recruiters.

As I’ve blogged before, in my company we have a team who speak to every single candidate who applies for a role. They don’t have targets. A year on I have still to find another recruitment business that understands the value in a candidate facing team that have no fee or activity targets.**

No time for feedback.

I blogged about this last year…inspired mainly by a comment from a recruiter in another business who told a candidate chasing feedback “To be fair if we spent all day phoning people who were ‘no’, which we’d like to do because it’s the ‘experience’ as much as anything that counts, we simply would go bust”. So there you have it from the horse’s mouth. No money in feedback…get back on that phone and cold call. If you spend time talking to unsuccessful candidates you’ll go out of business.

Inappropriate and poorly matched CVs sent to clients.

Another metric favoured by agencies is number of send outs. It also pays to send as many CVs as possible, in case a competitor sends the candidate over. More CVs may also get you more chance of interviews…it’s all a numbers game. And it’s sticking to the numbers that will keep you in your job.

I could go on, but that’s enough for now.

None of this should come as a surprise to regular readers. My first ever blog was about how I believed that tomorrow’s recruiter should be incentivised on feedback not fees. I’ve recently blogged on how business communication is changing and how business to business sales is changing.

This isn’t an anti recruitment industry rant. Anyone who was at the last Recruiters Networking evening would have heard me debate passionately in support of the industry. It’s the way we operate that needs to change. The transactional sales model rewards behaviours that have gradually dragged us in to disrepute…which is probably the biggest inconvenient truth of all.

I am also lucky enough to work within a business that rewards on client and candidate feedback and is prepared to invest in areas that do not lead to immediate fees, but provide a service and experience to the candidates and clients who use us.

At least the recruitment industry apologists all seem to agree that behaviours have to change…but my question would be how…without changing the operating model? You can’t change the way people behave without changing the way they are rewarded and motivated, and they way that their performance is measured.

I just scanned some online ads for recruiters and picked up these essential qualities:

‘Successful candidates will have a good academic background, but most importantly will be focused on entering a target driven environment where there is the opportunity for rapid career progression as well as significant earning potential within the first 12 months’

‘You must be hardworking, driven and determined with a strong aspiration to make a lot of money and a desire for success’

‘The role is a traditional recruitment position involving, winning, maintaining and developing business. You will do this in a mature environment and have the ability to work both autonomously and also as part of a team’

‘You will not be afraid to pick up the phone and enjoy business development as this is a key part of the role’

‘You will be a graduate with some sales experience’

These people will be looking after your careers and recruitment processes.

Reading that lot, I can’t see behaviours changing anytime soon…can you?

** Previous posts mentioned are:

Incentivising Tomorrow’s recruiters – it’s Feedback, not Fees

No transferability, No feedback…Candidates have feelings too

The End of the Phone?

Four reasons why recruitment sales is changing

Candidate Care – do you value your currency

5 Guiding Principles for a Modern Recruitment Business

I love working as part of the Stopgap Group, not least because it’s a values driven business that places the welfare of its people and the quality of service given to clients and candidates at the very top of its priorities. Consultants have always been rewarded on feedback – since the day the business was launched 17 years ago – and we always look for consultants with who have compassion, a real interest in people and a genuine desire to make a difference, rather than just sales skills.

We’re empowered too, and all encouraged to contribute to the future direction of the business…a group of us will be embarking on a series of Blue Ocean Strategy planning exercises with the management team, and a similar group have recently been entrusted with redefining our core values.

That’s right, no-one is hitting us with harder targets, tightening KPIs and threats over not making fee forecasts…they’re asking us to help shape everything that the business stands for and how it will operate in the future.

And we’re now looking to the future with a new set of Guiding Principles which I believe should be at the heart and soul of a successful modern recruitment business:

Daring

Passionate

Integrity

Collaborative

Agile

Here’s my view of how we can use them in recruitment:

Daring – Audacious and bold, not afraid to challenge, be it career expectations or a client brief. Actively taking a path less travelled if it helps you get where you want to be and not being afraid of change if it is needed to help you get there.

Passionate – Need to feel a passion about the whole process, candidates’ careers and clients businesses and be committed to finding the right cultural fit and the right career development. Always be prepared to go the extra mile and have the drive and determination to succeed.

Integrity – A genuine interest in people as human beings, and appreciation of the need for honesty, openness and respect. Brave enough to challenge but in a sensitive, caring way. Building lasting, sustainable relationships. Basically, it’s about genuinely caring.

Collaborative – Our Company isn’t a place that is interested in ranking boards, competitiveness or egos but is an inclusive, all-embracing culture which helps us communicate. Whether dealing with a client, candidate or colleague, there should be a commitment to an unfaltering, consultative approach.

Agile – Adapting, evolving, flexible and not tied to any tired processes.  Ready to respond to any issue. This constant evolution is needed to meet the demands of clients, candidates and colleagues in a fluctuating, demanding market.

So what do you think?

What principles have you adopted, and what principles would you like your recruiters to adopt?

I’ll be co-hosting the ‘Future of Recruitment’ track at TruLondon and it would be good to share your thoughts.

Do People Still Buy People First??

“People buy People first and everything else after…”

That was the very first piece of advice given to me on my first day in recruiting, also my first day in professional sales. The role was in a candidate driven sector, a niche market with about 100 potential major clients and a lot of potential candidates. Oh, and a lot of competitors too! Developing relationships with candidates, from the time they first make contact with you, through their first meeting with you and the process of arranging interviews, briefings and feedback, to the eventual decision, meant taking time to build up the relationship and trust. I quickly realised that in a specialist sector your candidates become clients and your clients become candidates.

Last week I interviewed 2 very strong, senior candidates, both had contacted me speculatively with their CVs, and at the end of each meeting they both thanked me for having called them and arranged to meet them. I found it strange, as I would have assumed that candidates of their calibre would be on the radar of most HR recruiters, but both told me that they had difficulty even getting their CVs acknowledged, let alone getting phone time with a recruiter. To get a face to face interview, without a specific role to discuss, was impossible… except for me. Now both these candidates have had recruitment as one of their functions, and both have hired many HR staff in the past, yet even recruiters who they have briefed before don’t seem to want to talk to them.

One of them then said….

“I’m not sure if recruiters realise that candidates want to interact with a person, not a website”

Which kind of takes me back to my starting point…people buy people first…and I’m wondering if, in this social media driven, job board oriented, brave new recruiting word of communities and networks, this is still true.

Maybe we need to personalise our processes more…our Candidate Care Team recently sent an e-mail to a candidate whom they couldn’t reach by phone to let him know why he wasn’t suitable for a role he had applied for…he replied…

“Thank you for taking time to write to me, honestly this is the first time a recruitment company has spared time to personalize an e-mail, especially when this person will have no value for them.”

So what do you think??

Do we still buy people first?

Do we still trust the judgement and advice of people that we know well? Those we have a relationship with?

And if so how do we now establish that personal relationship?

If we swap messages on Linked In, or tweets (which we can now show on Linked In too), or comments on blog postings, are we establishing a relationship that will encourage dialogue and trust?

What will it take to get recruiters to interact face to face with candidates?

I’ll be co-hosting the ‘Who Cares What the Candidates Think?’ track at TruLondon and would love to be able to share your thoughts…..

Customer Experience and the Importance of Making People Feel Special

Every morning I stop on my way to the station to get a coffee…my Soya Latte is very much a part of my commute, even in summer! I have stopped for a couple of years at one particular coffee shop (Cafe Nero, for those in the UK) initially for their loyalty scheme which basically gives you every tenth coffee free – a free coffee every other Friday seemed like a good idea!

I say initially because they started charging extra for soya milk. Other coffee shops didn’t, but I stayed loyal. That was because I had got to know the 3 or 4 baristas who worked the morning shift. They were friendly, warm, engaging, always smiling and went out of their way not only take the time to indulge in some small talk but also (very important for coffee fans) they remembered what you liked to order. I was only in the shop a minute or two, but for that minute or two they made me, and no doubt anyone else stopping for a coffee, feel valued and important.

Now they probably didn’t earn much, and I don’t know what customer service training their company did, and they may have only done it to make a repetitive service sector job more interesting…but the thing is they got my custom because they made me feel special and valued, even though their product now was not the cheapest, and to be honest, the coffee was probably no better or worse than any other shop I could have gone to.

Now I’m not a master of suspense, and I’m writing in the past tense, so I’m sure that you can guess what’s coming next!

Yes…they’ve all moved on. One left completely to do something different, and the others were promoted to different branches. Unbelievably, management just let it all happen within a week or so…one week they were there, and within what seemed a few days there were different baristas.

And guess what…I don’t go there anymore. The new baristas most certainly did not make me feel special or valued. In fact, with possibly one exception, they made me feel the opposite, as if serving me was a chore. There were a couple of specific instances of rudeness and off-handedness (I won’t bore you with details) that made me think – enough is enough, I can get better value elsewhere.

When the experience is good, factors like cost can often come second…but when the customer experience is bad…

All businesses can learn from this, but I wonder how many of us really put their heads on the block and find out how we’re doing?

It reminded me of a customer satisfaction survey that I got handed on a plane on my way home from a holiday last year. The tour company usually performs well in independent reviews. The final question was…

 ‘Did we make you feel special on your holiday??

If so tell us what we did to make you feel special, and if not please tell us how we could have improved, to make you feel special.’

 Clearly they want to get feedback, and aren’t afraid to give their customers a voice to find out how they are really performing.

Which makes me wonder….

 Are there any recruiters out there brave enough to ask those questions of their clients and candidates?? Willing to find out from their community what they could do to create a special experience?

Optimistic recruiters don’t create jobs. Growing companies do.

Ask a jobseeker what they want from their recruiter and the chances are they will say, in one way or another, truth and honesty. Obviously they want us to find them a job, but – surprise, surprise – they know that there aren’t many around. In fact I sometimes think that jobseekers are a lot savvier about the market than many recruiters.

I’ve been following some discussions through LinkedIn and Twitter recently and I see little fact or detail but a lot of optimism and confidence. One thread, involving a mix of recruiters, trainers and online recruitment was summed up with this particularly depressing comment:

‘Jobseekers can return from a well-earned festive break to a veritable alpine snowfall of newly-budgeted vacancies’

Just think about that comment for a moment…hidden within the word ‘jobseekers’ are 2.5 million unemployed people, almost a million of them aged under 25, some still struggling to find their first job. Are we, recruiters, really telling them that a Christmas facing the desperation, desolation and uncertainty of continuing unemployment is a ‘well earned festive break’? And even if we don’t say it, do we really believe it?

Are we really saying that in January they will face ‘a veritable snowfall of vacancies’??

Is this what recruiters honestly believe?

With only 10% of companies planning to hire in the next 3 months (which means that 90% are NOT planning to hire)

With 50% of companies maintaining wage freezes/cuts (meaning they can’t really recruit until they can return their existing staff to full pay and benefits)

With 42% of companies who are not operating  a recruitment freeze already saying that will REDUCE recruitment in 2010.

With GDP in excess of -5%, and a public debt of almost £200bn??

Is this Honest? Is it Responsible?

Recruiters don’t create jobs. Growing companies do. And companies grow when there is demand for their goods or services.

We are a long way from growth. Recent reports from leading businesses in retail and leisure talk about demand not returning in any strength until 2012, hence a stagnant job market.

We can all talk up a good quarter. Spread some confidence to colleagues.

We’ve just closed our biggest quarter for 2 years, and we’re certainly working on a lot more roles on than we did 9 or 12 months ago. But then I also spend a large part of my days speaking to unemployed candidates.

It’s when unfounded, casual optimism is passed on to candidates that I get upset. The job market is a particularly tough, unforgiving battleground at the moment, and NO recruiter should forget what that means to candidates who need to work, to feed families, pay mortgages, restore dignity.

I spoke with one candidate yesterday who said ‘when I speak to you I know you’ll tell it to me straight. I know it’s bad out there, but some recruiters just keep telling me that things will be picking up very soon. They’ve been saying that all year and it hasn’t happened yet! Do they think I’m stupid? What planet are they on??!!’

What we say to candidates during their job search is as much a part of candidate care as how we treat them when they apply…if your business model has to rely upon an unfettered wave of optimism, then make it responsible optimism!

(Note: Figures quoted above are taken from the recent CBI/Harvey Nash employment trends survey 2009 see page 15)