It's All War and No Love in Recruitment

By Julia Briggs

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It's All War and No Love in RecruitmentIt’s Valentine’s day and our thoughts turn to love, affection and relationships. But not, it seems, in the recruitment industry.   Where, if you follow the content at some of the conferences, it’s all about …..getting CVs in first and fast. 


As someone wisely said of the contingency market, 'in recruitment you don't get a prize for coming second'.  It's only filling an assignment that counts.


And at a recent conference, very sensible stuff was advised:


?    Make sure that your 'desk jockeys' can win their pitches by giving them data to impress a client - lots of graphs and analysis

?    The recruitment world has gone mobile and the key times to contact people on their smartphone? 6.45 am… and 9.45pm were mentioned

?    Simplify the consultants desks i.e.: systems so they integrate and time is saved

?    Get your consultants to maximise their LI profiles and improve your candidate and client volume (I thought your LI profile was yours, not your employers)

?    Use agency aggregators to get to clients and get your candidates in first. It's all about speed (and 80 page sets of client terms)

?    Video screening, video CVs and video interviewing - all coming soon.   So we can pick and choose even more easily and quickly (the expression 'tits and teeth' came to mind)


Not once did I hear anyone (bar Keith Robinson) mention quality - either of the candidate shortlist or of the candidate experience.  Absolutely no heart or emotion in any of this. Volume, speed and numbers …….that's what it's all about.

Now, I don't blame the recruitment industry because, as HR is always telling us, you use reward (particularly big bucks) to drive behaviour.  So, if you only reward on (quick) results and not on quality and not on candidate experience, what do you think your suppliers are going to do?   They are going to give you what they think you want.

If you really want to win the war for talent, if you want candidates to have a great experience so that they are engaged employees from their first contact……then, you're going to have to put your heart and soul into it.   And that means with your suppliers as well.

 

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