As a much-maligned yet grudgingly respected female Prime Minister once said: "Recruiters are absolutely at the cusp of employers needing people and people seeking work". 

In the 1980's, that was absolutely true. Here in the 00's it's still true, of course, yet with a subtle but massively impactive difference: today, the people you really need are rarely "seeking work". 

It seems that hiring and retention has (at last!) become recognised as the single biggest issue threatening organisational output today. 

The last figures I remember seeing suggested that the private recruitment industry employed some 98,000 people and was responsible for co-ordinating and placing well over one million temporary workers in any one day.  This certainly emphasises what a significant role recruiters can potentially play.

Add  this sheer scale, to recruitment being the only business-related sector that spends every single working day in direct dialogue with the very people that organisations are seeking to hire,  then you get an idea of just how critically important it is that recruiters and employers get their relationship right.

 

Who dares wins - those who daren't lose good people!

 

One of the recent news posts gave a great real-life example of how 'dithering' over hiring decisions not only cost an organisation money in terms of lost output, but also its organisational reputation in the labour market too;  behaviour which will certainly return to haunt the company the next time it tries to attract top talent.   Warren Buffet's famous quote about it only taking five minutes to destroy a reputation, certainly applies to hiring practice.

The flip-side of this being that, those organisations daring to be bold and use competitor indecision to their advantage can make massive strides forward in terms of securing top talent. 

Accepting that it's slightly dangerous territory using the loveable archetypal 'wide-boy', Del Trotter as an example of how organisational managers and recruiters should behave, I'm going to do it anyway, because the sentiment is more relevant than the TV character.

Who dares really does win.  Conversely, those doing the dithering are killing opportunity within their own organisations and will find their top people being picked off one by one.

The people you really need; those who can do what needs to be done, in the circumstances that it needs doing in, respect strength of organisational character and will respond positively to positive action.   In hiring terms, there's never been a better time to attract great people.

 

"How do we reach people if they're not proactive in the labour market?"

 

This is a question I always get asked when my company first goes into an organisation to develop an employer brand.  There's also a far more important question to answer  before this: What do we say  to people to get them excited about  being a part of what we do?  

Can I make the point here that, although this website is never used for commercial purposes, as I'm sure most people appreciate, I have a commercial reputation to consider outside of For The Want of a Nail.org.  Point being, I will gladly point members in the direction of solutions, but there's limits to what can be successfully imparted through a website. 

The answer to the question in the sub-heading above goes back to the opening paragraphs and the fact that recruiters are the only service sector having regular and direct dialogue with the kind of people you want and need.

Employers who arm their recruiters with a compelling employer brand, will find that message reaches the parts others mediums just can't reach. 

The caveat here is that it MUST be compelling - check out this post on employer brand.

Recruitment / Hiring Services Supplier  

 Posts one and two in this series cover other constituents in the hiring process.  Here we look at how recruiters can help themselves - and their employer and candidate customers - to a more prosperous 2008 and beyond.

I hear this next statement so often that recruiters must hear all the time when being asked to pitch for a new client:-

"We're changing our recruiters because the ones we use just can't cut it"

Digging a bit deeper, I usually find that these supposedly 'poor' recruiters have only a job description, some salary, benefits and company marketing information to work from. 

Armed with this most basic of information, they are then expected to convince candidates (who are being bombarded with employment opportunities every month) to jump ship and join their client, whilst also being expected to keep candidates interested as the  client dithers and procrastinates over whether or not to proceed.

What can you do?

Now, this really is a blatant plug for both this campaign and my firm's services, because recruitment suppliers are right there at the front line of hiring issues. 

By making your clients aware of the issues that this campaign seeks to resolve, you are:-

i) Dramatically increasing the chances of your client adopting the practices that enable you to work more effectively with them.

ii) In turn, reducing your own stress levels, improving the service you can provide to your candidates in terms of information and timely feedback.

By getting your clients to work with someone like me in order to develop a compelling employer brand and a more effective internal process you are:-

i) Going to be armed with the kind of information that enables you to attract more of the right people for them.

ii) In turn, removing some of the decision-making log-jams that kill deals and render much of your work wasted, thereby improving your own reputation and profits.

So, if you do nothing else, why not use the emailing faciltity to share this post with an ambitious company owner, a frustrated HR manager and an over-worked line manager.......

After all, considering the impacts of hiring practices, what greater favour can you do for someone than helping them adopt the practices that see them hiring the people they really need?