This is a guest blog written by Stuart Britton, Chief Executive of SEC Recruitment.
The title of this blog as a phrase, has been used ad-infinitum since time has begun and doesn’t specifically relate to recruitment, but to any organisation. Yet it is a concept that I still think – even in this day and age – is completely overlooked by so many across so many industries. People in business talk about ‘getting to know the client’, but how many take the time to? We see it in recruitment all too often.
I’ll give you an example. Take describing a company to a candidate. If you can’t explain to a candidate in enough detail about the employer you are representing – in the same way that you could explain the detail about your own business that you work for – then how can you justify sending that CV?
In the industry that SEC operates within, I have heard many a recruiter over the years, talk to a prospective candidate with such vagary that “this company x are a great Contract Research Organisation (CRO), a fantastic Life Sciences business”, but never really getting to the granular of that clients’ business, that it makes me wonder how some candidates can ever get a real feel for a business.
It’s not all about the technical details of the job itself. Technical details are important to give an understanding of what competencies will be expected of the individual, but it doesn’t really sell the business, does it?
What about the location? What’s in the immediate vicinity? Where is the nearest train station? How many trains arrive at the station every hour? How long does it take to walk from the station to the office? Or is it a bus journey? If so, how much does the bus journey cost? Is there a coffee shop near the building? Do they have free wifi? How’s the parking? How far is the car park from the office? How much does the car park cost? What is the atmosphere like when you first walk through the door? Who will most likely greet you? What sort of personality do they have? After all, you’ve been there yourself and walked in the shoes of the candidate, right?
What about team bonding? Does that happen? Who has what interests? Is there anything the candidate would have in common with the line manager, or fellow work colleagues in their department?
How does the business communicate with its people? Do they have annual company get-together’s or meetings at the beginning of the year, where the company gets together, to discuss the year ahead? Do they talk about how the company is performing?
There are some employers that might not be able to give some of that information across, either because they don’t currently have some of these initiatives, or they don’t have that information. But if we are truly delivering a consultative approach as recruiters, shouldn’t we be trying to find out this detail and advising clients? That’s certainly what we aim to do at SEC; get as much detail, it doesn’t matter how granular, as possible and use that information to your advantage to deliver a truly ‘best in class’ service and ‘real life’ advice.
It’s the nitty gritty that is important to people. And our industry is a people industry, so we should try to know absolutely everything about that client and their business outside of what’s on the job spec and core competency briefing that’s been given, because when you truly know your client and can give that level of detail, that’s when the phrase ‘candidate experience’ really means something. It’s a collaborative approach. If we can work with employers in a truly ‘partnered’ approach to know everything about the culture of the organisation – answering as many of the types of questions I’ve listed above – then we improve the perception of the process for everyone – to the candidate’s perception of your business, the employers business and our own business’ perception by the industry. The aspiration should always be to try to show how far you are willing to go to support an individual’s life-changing decision.
The term ‘employer brand’ is also used very often when talking about the candidate experience, but I do think that for many, the word has been used so many times by the industry that the meaning is lost. The industry talks about it, but beyond a job description, how many recruiters have actually properly got to understand the company beyond the job title and description? If you want to be a truly consultative organisation, don’t just know terminology like ‘good employer brand’ and ‘good candidate experience’, make sure you deliver the service that backs up what it means. We try to do that at SEC and I will admit we don’t always manage to get the process as perfect as we’d like, but we always have those aspirations to make it as good as it can possibly be.
Stuart Britton
Chief Executive
SEC Recruitment
