So what is the industry doing wrong – well according to the survey, end user clients want recruiters to:

• Provide innovative  pricing models
• Be more customer led
• Employ better people
• Provide technical solutions
• Be better communicators

That got me thinking – surely good recruiters would be doing all that anyway?  But this was 173 organisations –  a not insubstantial number.

The meeting then moved onto a client panel – and here’s where I got a real shock. The subject under discussion was:  ’How can recruiters help you attract and retain people with the right values and cultural fit for your business’.  The panel included Greg Allen Head of Recruitment for Nokia who said that when his organisation organised a briefing  session and round table discussion for all PSL agencies  on Nokia’s culture – what good looks like – what sort of  people they are looking for – in fact all the things that would make the recruiters job easier – half the agencies didn’t bother to show.  I was genuinely shocked.

What are you doing to enhance the client experience?

In my job search experience I have come across some great consultants – they have listened and understood exactly what I want, then fixed me up with a good interview. However, the majority I have encountered, in both small and large agencies have been terrible. Without naming names, I have found some consultants to be rude and pushy.  They haven’t read my CV properly and they don’t listen which results in them contacting me about jobs that are of absolutely no interest to me and completely unsuitable. Here are just a few examples:

• ‘The salary is £10k less than your current wage – I think you should go for it anyway.’
• ‘The job is in Norwich – I think you’d be great for it – would you relocate from Aylesbury?’
• ‘The job is for a finance officer, I know you have a degree in marketing and pr, but I’d like to put you forward for it.’

Since leaving university, I’ve never been without a job and I’ve never been desperate enough to take any old position. So  the number of inappropriate opportunities I’ve received along the way has got me quite used to saying ‘no’, which I have found out is not a word accepted by all recruiters. One wanted to put me forward for an interview, ‘an opportunity I’d regret if missed’. The role wasn’t for me so I said no… several times. After speaking to a pushy consultant I was passed onto an even more relentless manager who informed me that if I didn’t go they wouldn’t help me in my search any more. I’ve never spoken to them since!

And it’s not just me – a colleague of mine relayed the sorry tale of a consultant asking her to change her CV so that her skills would fit a position they were trying to fill! The consultant guaranteed the interview, but the fact that my colleague didn’t have the required skills and wouldn’t be able to do the job didn’t even cross their mind!

This is why I get wound up with some recruiters; do they really realise what they are doing or how they are coming across to candidates and clients? In my experience, I can only think of 1 or 2 consultants out of about 10 who were professional and really had my interests at heart.

If I’ve had a bad experience with a recruiter then I will tell others not to use them. I’m sure that goes for a lot of people, including clients. Word of mouth is a very powerful tool, and now with social media you can reach millions!

I know you shouldn’t tar all recruiters with the same brush, and I know there are some good recruiters out there; this is just the view I have gained from my experience over the years.  And having got stuck into reading various recruitment blogs since I have started at BlueSky, it seems I am not on my own.  Andy Headworth in his recent blog post advises recruiters to:  ‘Look back at yourself through the eyes of your candidates’

Wise words indeed!

As BlueSky’s resident social media ‘leader’ if I can use that word, I recently went to PR Week’s Digital Media Conference, where I could listen to big names speak about their social media presence. I wasn’t really sure what to expect but was interested to hear what fancy things the experts were doing.

The answer was: everything that we’re helping recruiters to do. Social media really is so new that we’re all still figuring out what works best. Vodafone had some impressive Google and Twitter mash ups and Action for Children managed to get a massive 9,000 people doing the Time Warp in Trafalgar Square through using social media! These campaigns were really interesting to hear about but it was nice to know that even know that although these companies have techie experts to call on and big budgets to spend, they’re still using the same ideas and technology that many SMEs are using – leveraging blogs and twitter to promote themselves.

It was even more interesting to listen to how companies like Eurostar managed a crisis; I’m sure we can all remember back to the snow trauma which left people stranded and complaining that they had no information. Eurostar at this time actually had two twitter accounts which they used for marketing purposes, but it hadn’t occured to this huge organisation to use Twitter to actually speak to and engage with customers! This only changed when they brought in a specialist digital agency to help them out. All this at a time when recruiters were already on Twitter, talking, networking and engaging with other people.

So, the point to this post is really to tell recruiters that as an industry they are really staying ahead of the game. Of course we still have a way to go though, with many recruiters still not seeing the value of some of web 2.0. However it was Gabi Whitfield, Communications Director at Nissan that said “ignore Twitter at your peril” and I thought that was very apt. I may just use that phrase when trying to convince the next sceptic!

I recently spent the day with Twenty Recruitment at a vision and values day they were holding for their most recent hires.  I have to say it was really refreshing to see a recruitment firm not just talking the talk and paying lip service to the notion of values – but really living them. The firm has three values Life’s Short; Be Eclectic and Crystal Clear. Through the facilitator Rafe Offer, a marketing and branding expert, the new consultants talked about how those values related to themselves, their clients and their candidates.  

 Looking at  ’Life’s Short’ drove a discussion around daring to be different, embracing change, and being brave enough to take calculated risks. ‘Crystal Clear threw up phrases such as transparency, honesty, no spin and clear objectives; while ‘Be Eclectic’ explored ideas such as ‘there is no box’, solutions driven, differentiation and ‘there’s no such thing as a problem – only an opportunity for a solution’.

Then the real fun began with role plays where consultants had to pitch to clients and potential employees – and integrate some of the ideas around the values. I had great fun playing a client!

OK, I hear you say.  So what stops the consultants enjoying their day away from the office and then forgetting all about values when they walk out of the door?  Well, because how they live the values in the business is part of their performance appraisal – and it’s also linked to their bonus.  There was a great discussion around how the consultants felt that they could be judged around those values with some real measurable metrics.  And what’s more – to ensure that there isn’t a disconnect between how the values are perceived internally – and how they are perceived externally – there is going to be ongoing research with clients and candidates around whether the values are being demonstrated.

Recruitment is an industry where sometimes the egos of the founders can suffocate any attempt at creativity or originality.  It was great to see a company where the employees are really driving the vision and the values.

So what do you think?  Comments welcome!

Matt has absolutely hit the nail on the head here – and it is something we have blogged about before, giving some concrete examples of twitter successes.

However -  while Matt is a true expert – see his website ( anyone who has listened to him speak or read his blogs will know that he really does know what he is talking about) what I’m more interested in is how so called ‘social recruiters’ who have built a huge profile on twitter and through doing so, have associated themselves with real experts can then purport to be an expert themsleves when their own businesses have actually failed owing large sums of money.

Hmmm – beware of false prophets perhaps!

I had an e-mail shot the other day from a supplier to the recruitment industry.  They wanted to test the power of viral marketing and were offering an incentive.  All good stuff you might say – great marketing ploy – but then when I read on it actually left quite a nasty taste in my mouth. All you had to do was to mention the supplier on various social networks and you stood a chance of winning a not inconsiderable amount of  their services for free.  So what’s so bad about that I hear you cry?  Well what they actually wanted was a plug – not a mention. The examples they gave were announcing on your LinkedInstatus that you highly recommended them with their url; telling your friends on facebook that they are your favourite supplier;or that you follow them on twitter and then send out a message to all of your followers saying they should too. “We don’t care where and how you give us a mention as long as its clean and legal” they said.

Now don’t get me wrong – after all I am in PR and promoting yourself  as a ‘must have’ resource for the recruitment industry is all well and good. But, when I read a recommendation on Linked In – I’d like to think it’s because they know the firm or person involved, have worked with them, and can personally vouch for them. If a friend or colleague or fellow tweeter suggests I follow someone on Twitter, l’d like to think its because they think I’d genuinely find that person interesting.

Isn’t this just trying to buy recommendations? And isn’t that just a bit sad? Or is it innovative marketing? What do others think?

I look at loads of recruitment websites – and loads of recruitment brochures. And most of them are deadly dull. Now I know, as someone who has a lot of involvement in producing content for such things, that’s a pretty controversial statement. But it’s true.  And it’s mainly because a lot of recruiters all say the same thing. Leaders in our field, passionate about client service, yadda yadda yadda.

Now, correct me if I’m wrong but recruitment is and always has been a people business. And we all know that people buy from people, and, to coin yet another over used phrase,  that people are your greatest asset. But because of the paranoia surrounding staff poaching, recruitment websites rarely talk about the people who work there.  And then I saw Aquent’s website. What a breath of fresh air – at last a recruiter who bases their own image around their own people.

It may not be to everyone’s taste – but it’s different and fresh and innovative – and no – I haven’t had anything to do with it (more’s the pity).

And what of brochures? I’ve written copy for many over the years but have they had their day? I’d love some feedback here. Do you use them? Do your clients read them? And what’s the most important thing about them? Is an on line pdf enough or do clients want something they can touch and feel. Comments please!!

Now here’s a debate.  Should recruiters be rewarded solely on their billings? Should big billers be promoted into senior roles bcause they are big billers? Are big billers always the best managers? 

Of course recruitment is a performance driven culture – that’s a given – but disengaged employees, managed by poor leaders, are far more likely to underperform.

If the recruitment industry wants to be taken seriously in terms of offering career paths and career development then shouldn’t the sector be looking at being a bit more innovative in terms of their reward strategies and bigging up their employer brand? And won’t that ensure that your staff become rounded business professionals, proud of who they work for, and not merely motivated by the size of their pay packet?

Now before you all start shouting I know that some of you already do this.  In fact, technical and engineering recruiter CBSbutler is a shining example of just what can be achieved if you are brave enough to really raise the bar.

Managing Director David Leyshon introduced a new performance management system that links 40% of a quarterly bonus to behaviours such as self development, drive for results, teamwork, problem solving, customer focus, and organizing & planning. The result? A 25% increase in sales since the scheme was introduced together with significantly better delivery across all key business indicators. 

David believes that the building of talented workforces and lasting customer relationships is absolutely key in driving competitive advantage.  And that sustainable business success can only be achieved through competent managers who haven’t been promoted just because they are the biggest billers.  Consequently, he feels that if you ‘performance manage’ and reward everyone solely by ‘hard’ figures, then that can foster harmful practices and mindsets.  It will undoubtedly also compromise values – creating management headaches together with the promotion of acute personal greed at the expense of teamwork and professionalism.  If you link financial rewards to behaviours, you end up with a much more engaged and co-operative workforce who will deliver performance across all areas and not just next month’s targets.

The lack of sophistication in managing performance within the recruitment sector has been to the detriment of building sustainable and quality operations because of the overwhelming emphasis on short term results. Behaviour linked reward schemes ensure a holistic approach is taken to developing and harnessing talent- isn’t that the key to future success?

A decade ago, online matching technology was seen as a huge threat to the traditional agency model. Did they all go out of business? No! But what did happen was that once that ubiquitous war for talent reared its head, lazy recruiters thought they could source a CV from a job board’s CV database; send it to a client, place that candidate and claim a fee. That’s not recruitment – that’s taking the proverbial.

In my view, the recession has , quite rightly, hit those ’recruiters’ who thought that it was ok to just press a few buttons and if technology is going to threaten any recruitment model then lets hope it’s that one.  What really makes my blood boil is that some of the real recruiters – the professionals in our sector – get tarred with the same brush.

So embrace all the technology at your disposal and add it to your toolkit. But don’t forget that ‘added value’ that all your clients will be looking for. It’s what they have always wanted – and more importantly it’s what they always will want!

To any innocent eavesdropper it would have sounded like an episode of grumpy old men/woman. You see Alan and I are from the old school of recruiters – before technology, before faxes – hell even before electronic typewriters. But during the last twenty odd years one thing has remained constant – the complaint from candidates about the candidate experience.

So why haven’t we learned? And there really is no excuse, as technology has made it easier than ever before to engage. But still we have the problem of candidates applying for jobs online and, at best, getting some impersonal auto reply. I know that we have a huge pool of candidates at the moment – and okay – many of then may not be suitable. But how difficult is it, on that auto reply, to point them to something that may help – a careers guidance area on your website for example with downloads on networking advice, coping with redundancy, the benefits of temping, upskilling etc etc .  Because when the war for talent comes back – and having worked through three recessions I can tell you it surely will, which recruiters will those candidates remember? A recruiters reputation can succeed or fail on something as simple as this so isn’t it time at last to try and get it right?  Here are my three  favourite anecdotes from my conversation with Alan:

• The candidate who received an e-mail to say your details  look exactly right so we will be putting you forward for the job and will contact you shortly.  The candidate then never heard anything.
• The recruitment firm that sent an auto reply after two weeks.
• The candidate who, having uploaded her CV as requested was then sent a form asking for two referees

There were lots more but it is too depressing! Technology is a great tool but you can’t e-mail a handshake! What are you doing to engage?