This guest post seemed particularly pertinent with our Recruitment Technology Conference just around the corner. Steven Bryan is the co-founder and the Senior Appointments Specialist at Bryan & Armstrong Ltd. He has been recruiting health & safety specialists for over 10 years and passionately believes that successful recruitment comes from building long lasting relationships based on trust, professionalism and delivering an excellent service. You can reach Steven via http://bryan-armstrong.com,
A good recruiter will be a true expert in their field and will have the ability to engage and build a working relationship with both candidate and client to identify the right technical and cultural fit.
It sounds easy. Many organisations and individuals have tried to find new ways of recruiting talented people without paying a recruitment fee. Online recruitment portals, recruitment advertisers, internal recruiters, job boards and CV databases are all a very easy sell when compared to ongoing agency spend.
Good recruiters are always busy and no amount of technology will ever replace them. At Bryan & Armstrong we use technology to make life easier and help us to do our job more efficiently, but the fundamental principles of recruitment remain the same – it’s a people business and people want to deal with people.
When an organisation decides to recruit online, it is usually driven by cost rather than quality. These campaigns are rarely targeted, so it’s hardly surprising that the response is often unmanageable. This approach can lead to reputational damage, particularly where quality candidates end up with an automated acknowledgement and no personal contact. They will tell their friends in the industry and it’s unlikely that they will be making future applications.
So what about the passive market? Some internal recruiters will spend time on LinkedIn to directly approach potential candidates. Perhaps run an advert online or in the industry press? Unless you are immersed in the industry all day, every day, it’s very difficult to know enough people or have a strong enough network to truly attract the best available people.
A good recruiter will nurture working relationships over a number of years and will therefore be in a strong position to attract the interest of passive candidates, so will achieve a far better outcome than a one-off recruitment campaign. By their very nature, passive candidates don’t respond to adverts. They typically require detailed information to gain their interest and commitment to go forward for a role.
Clients and candidates can be very demanding but ultimately the role of the recruiter is focused on managing expectations and producing an end result that everyone’s happy with. We have all seen situations where the offer process turns into a stand-off. Nobody wants to give any ground. It gets personal and before you know it, the client and candidate are both subconsciously trying to sabotage the offer.
When we do our job well, it looks really easy. Send 3 CVs, book 2 interviews, make the offer and send an invoice. Even when the recruitment process is not going well, being able to negotiate on behalf of both parties can help to deal with a situation before it becomes a problem.
Experienced recruiters understand that recruitment is not just about sending a CV. Success can be based on the quality of your network. It can be about knowing where to look. Sometimes it can be about your sales and marketing skills. One thing never changes – it’s always about people.
