Recruitment’s Any Questions – How do we breathe life back into the recruitment industry

This is the first in what I hope will be a series of question’s posed by recruiters like you to the experts behind our industry and professional bodies. For December I asked the REC, IOR, APSCo as well as TEAM and the IRG What are the three main things you are doing to enable the current recruitment industry model to remain relevant and effective?

Here are their responses:

Ann Swain, Chief Executive, APSCo

1. The future of the recruitment industry rests with niche players in professional sectors. As a trade body which only represents recruitment firms which identify and supply professional talent, we know how easy it is for those firms to end up as collateral damage from ill thought out legislation. APSCo works to inform and influence for the benefit of the professional recruitment sector and provides a strong and powerful voice which resonates at the highest levels in Government – as evidenced by our victory over the consultation on the taxation of Controlling persons which was dropped as part of The Autumn Statement.

2. We understand that for today’s recruitment firms to remain competitive, they need to operate on a global scale. We have helped – and continue to help – recruitment organisations explore and expand to new international territories though our regular trade delegations in conjunction with UK Trade & Investment. We will be visiting Beijing and Shanghai in January this follows on from last year’s highly successful delegation to Singapore which resulted in a number of recruitment consultancies opening new offices in the region.

3. We have developed a professional development division which will ensure that recruiters have the opportunity to attain professional qualifications. We were the first trade association to offer an MBA in international recruitment management and will now be the first to offer a chartered qualification in leadership. These our qualifications that are recognised across all industries making them highly relevant to today’s market .

Azmat Mohammed, IOR Director General

The current recruitment industry model will always have a place, it’s the skills and specialism required to grow in a new environment that will change and adapt. Remember, it’s market forces and technology that are the change agents here, and both are equally disruptive. To compete, recruiters must take 3 things very seriously:

1. Skills – You need to up skill and adapt with relevant training and CPD. The word ‘relevant’ is important here. Creating better qualifications and training is the main reason the IOR formed in the first place. The courses you take and training you do has to be fit for purpose and ahead of the curve. If the IOR is known for one thing it will be the education and training we have created, it will set the standards and deliver results to members and their profits. It will be second to none.

2. Engagement – The IOR will create clients for recruiters via its HR Qualifications, ensuring the value chain which includes agencies is properly understood. The IOR HR map will show how the different parts of the industry fit together. Knowing what your clients challenges are, how you can architect solutions and how to best work with internal recruiters and HR is an area that has not been properly addressed by any recruitment trade body. This is key IOR focus area and we aim to deliver real benefits to recruiters via quality knowledge transfer.

3. Resources – To remain relevant a membership body has to provide real value and leadership to its members. Let me tell you, we are just getting started and we are already having a very positive impact in the industry and with our members. I am happy to say 2013 will bring some huge changes in the IOR and members will see how our recourses, courses and leadership help ensure that agencies have a very bright future indeed. There is so much untapped revenue for agencies and we are on course to deliver training to show how around 7 new revenue streams can be unlocked by recruiters.

Sean O’Donoghue, Founder & Chairman, Independent Recruiters Group

1. I personally don’t think that the current recruitment industry model is either relevant or effective in the eyes of either the employer, the job seeker, or the majority of recruitment agencies that operate in our industry (being small in size, and limited in resources).

2. We’re looking at introducing a new recruitment industry model next year which will encourage a better working relationship between the employer and the agency, more trust, more transparency, less fighting between agencies – and more collaboration.

3. We’re going to work very hard to educate employers, both big and small, as to why encouraging dozens of agencies to battle it out for your vacancies isn’t professional, does not encourage the best results, and forces agencies to operate in a manner which isn’t in the best interests of job seekers either.

When I emailed Sean the question he was working on a blog post on this subject. You might be interested in reading it; it focuses on how he feels contingency recruiting is disrupting the professionalism of the industry.

 

I think it’s interesting to see three quite different answers but which see commonality around training, exploring new revenues and the better “education” of clients. I would be interested in any feedback, although I’d prefer to see discussion on what can be done to enable the current recruitment industry model to remain relevant rather than the merits of membership of one association over another (if you want to chat about that I’d recommend heading over the discussion board)