Five reasons why recruitment partners are what you need right now
As companies wake up to the fact that the candidates they
are looking for are in high demand and it is becoming harder to secure them,
more people are choosing exclusive recruitment partnerships. These partnerships
offer security on both sides of the arrangement.
“But why do we have to when there are recruiters out there
who don’t require a partnership?”, we hear you cry. It is true that there are
lots of recruiters out there eager to help you out but that way of doing things
is not the silver bullet it once was.
Here are 5 ways Exclusive Partners can help your company.
Knowledge
With in-depth knowledge of salaries, resumes, job specs, career trajectories, hiring trends and much more, specialised staff have endless experience whereas their generalist competitors do not. They can strategise and problem-solve as they are no strangers to your sector. Real, earned knowledge simplifies the process considerably.
2. Feedback
A partner is honest with you. They are there to deliver, and that means feedback too. Recruitment Partners take the responsibility to guide you very seriously and with the aforementioned knowledge, highlighting something that isn’t obvious, to help you, can be critical to your success. Generalists generally, and we might be generalising here, take the easier route, letting any gained knowledge go, rather than broach difficult subjects.
3. Quality
Having access to a larger pool of more specific candidates sets the specialist apart. Using dedicated methods to discover talent, which is not even on the job boards yet, is how they do it. This also means they are pre-screened and much more likely to meet your criteria. Understanding the needs of both sides ensures the correct candidates are put forward.
4. Focus
Dedicated focus is something that is not really talked about in terms of recruitment, as if it is a given that any recruiter you engage will give 100% of their time to you and your hiring. Yet, if there is no exclusivity, then how would you know you are getting even 50% effort. With the lottery that is going on in the candidate-driven market, a generalist recruiter is probably hedging their bets, and in those circumstances it is wise for them to do that, but not helpful for you.
5. Ease
Using experts will make the process easier, possibly shorten
the time-frame depending on the niche you are recruiting in and they can
leverage connections to help you get what you want. They will already have a
structure in place to find and persuade candidates. They can simplify job spec
creation and streamline your interview process. They can advise you on what the
prospects will and won’t go for, what they are and are not looking for. All of
this makes the process so much easier.
With these reasons, it is easy to see why savvy companies are moving toward this style of recruitment. If you like what you’ve read, then reach out to find out more.
Curious about how Zenshin Talent can help your organisation? Contact us today for a no-strings conversation about your needs and our experience.
Treat every candidate with respect to get the best out of them
Since the hiring market has transformed from being a buyer’s
market to a seller’s market, leaving candidates in the driving seat, it has
exposed how some companies and organisations treated their prospects prior to
the change.
Obviously, there have been bad apples who have treated their
candidates terribly. We often see those brutal rejection emails going viral,
but we are talking about a much more sedate kind of disrespect, a one that
organisations do without realising.
The Covid-19 pandemic has changed how interviews happen and,
even during these testing times, disrespect has seeped through. Take video
interviews, for example. If you were on the receiving end of a video interview,
you would want those who are conducting it to be understanding of your
circumstances. You would want them to put you at ease. You would want them to
show respect. You would want them to give you their full attention. So why are
some interviewers checking their emails while they interview? Or perhaps they
have the webcam positioned in such a way where it is pointing upwards, up their
nose, or at the top of their head, hindering any feeling of eye contact. If
your laptop is not working properly, get IT to fix it before you do these
interviews.
This blasé attitude towards interviews goes hand-in-hand
with a lack of understanding of the commitment that the company is asking of
the individual they are hiring. The position that the prospect should be glad
we are offering them the job does not sit well with most people. Never forget
that you are asking for a life changing career move. This will be a 3-4 year
commitment, at the very least, if it is a permanent role.
Where will they live? Can they buy a house? Are these the
types of questions you have even given the first thought to? Probably not,
because you think it is not part of your job to imagine the life of a possible
future employee, but it is. If you cannot empathise, the likelihood is that the
candidate will not feel a connection to you or your business.
With meetings and interviews and phone chats and tests, the
candidate has a lot to schedule in and one might imagine that you think because
they are probably working from home that they have all the time in the world
and are free at any time. But what has been your experience of WFH? You’ve
probably been working more, haven’t you? So why would their life be any
different?
One of the best ways to show some respect is in trying to
trim down the process. This doesn’t mean one interview and done, even though
some companies have their processes refined to the point where they can do
that. We mean you cut any unnecessary interviewers from the interviews if they
do not bring anything important to the table. Or you double up. Or you deep
dive into the CVs to make sure only the truly hireable prospects go through to
the next round. And quit waiting for that perfect ‘golden’ candidate that you
imagine is out there somewhere but is not anywhere within the resumes you have
received. If they’ve gotten this far, they must have something going for them.
It is your job to find out more.
Scaring off perfectly good candidates is not on anyone’s agenda, yet it is still happening. Of course you want to be sure but refining the stages will help. Understanding what a big deal interviews are, even if you conduct them day-in, day-out, is integral to getting the best hires. Don’t become jaded. Approach every candidate like they are a human being and they will treat you like a human being in return.
Curious about how Zenshin Talent can help your organisation? Contact us today for a no-strings conversation about your needs and our experience.
If your company is hiring people to work on the Cloud e.g.
Cloud Data Analysts, it is important that you understand what you are looking
for, as well as the specialist recruiter who is helping you. Job specs are a
very important element in your search for the prime candidate and if the
incorrect one is sent out, it makes your life so much harder in the long run.
So many people labour under the misapprehension that the
Cloud is merely a back-up for things that exist outside of the Cloud. This is
understandable as that is how it is discussed generally but the truth is more
complicated than that.
The more information we create, the need to store it and
move it around more easily, becomes more and more important. So virtual servers
are required in order to store this data. You don’t need to know where it is
exactly as long as you know it is safe.
This way of doing things gives you the advantage of
expanding and contracting your infrastructure when you need it. This lends flexibility
to a business, and the cost savings, especially for start-ups, can be a
godsend. Changing to subscriptions and having the stress of hardware taken away
helps make the business more agile.
If you already knew all of this, great. Now how are you
going to target and hire these professionals?
Firstly, your existing team needs to research and introduce
the best fit in terms of Cloud, creating strategies for the adoption of this
solution and creating an environment where Cloud is accepted as the next step
for the company while also keeping an eye on security concerns.
If you don’t have that help readily available within the
company, the next choice is an outside recruitment consultant who has Cloud and
data team experience. Ideally a specialist willing to work in a dedicated
partnership fashion. They will have the experience, relationships and systems
to find the hidden gems.
With many companies waking up to Cloud, there is so much
more demand for those same candidates, in addition to new projects coming back
online after the stalling during Covid-19. This is one of the most important
reasons for the need for correct targeting, including focused job specs. If you
get that part wrong, you waste time during the hiring process and miss out on
prospects who gravitate toward companies who have their ducks in a row.
During these periods of popularity of new or newish roles,
there is a tendency for organisations to start hiring straight from
universities because they are the candidates that they can easily find, but
that is not the way forward. Of course, the next generation needs to get their
start somewhere, but they are not experienced enough at this point. Once you
have your team of seniors secured, you should then be looking for the new blood
to bring through.
The approach must be specific and those who make the
approaches should know enough about Cloud to be able to sell your companies
Cloud plan with confidence and also to spot the difference between the new
starter and the pro.
The world is moving to the Cloud, that is undeniable. You need to understand and engage with it. Making the correct choice when it comes to hiring always saves time and money, so if it feels like Cloud hiring is something you are struggling to get to grips with, look to those who can do it. It makes perfect sense.
Curious about how Zenshin Talent can help your organisation? Contact us today for a no-strings conversation about your needs and our experience.
The well-being of your recruiters is the stress test of your company
Are your recruiters happy? Talent drives success. It is as simple as that. Without it, all the will in the world cannot make a business a success. Without recruiters, whether inhouse, generalist or partnership, that talent cannot be found. When it really clicks, it is the best feeling in the world.
With all of talk about and drive toward AI-augmented
recruitment, what is missing from the conversation is the human side. The
things that motivate dedicated recruiters to go that extra mile to find that
perfect candidate. It cannot be created as an algorithm.
With long-term recruiters and those new to the industry,
there are common areas of frustration when it comes to careers within the
industry. Some are common in most industries but sometimes there is a perfect
storm of factors within recruiting which leads to dysfunction.
Failures in communication can damage morale far beyond the
obvious. Misunderstandings can pile up if they are not addressed. Paranoia can
creep in that they are being left out of the loop on purpose. This can breed
resentment which affects the day-to-day operation.
Constantly changing schedules, admin problems, high pressure
contracts and the ‘groundhog day’ nature of constantly having similar or the
same conversations can put pressure on mental health.
If a recruiter isn’t looking after themselves, how can they
look after the best interests of the client? In purely business terms, it makes
sense to look after your recruiters, let alone the moral imperative to support
your team and make sure everyone is okay. Stressed and distracted recruiters
are not going to perform at their best, so why exacerbate the situation?
If you are hiring a recruitment firm to help find great candidates,
are you checking that they have suitable structures in place to find said
candidates? Are they over-promising to get the contract and leaving their
recruiters to pick up the pieces on sometimes unachievable tasks? Contingency
recruiters can sometimes do this as they do not get paid at all if they do not supply
the candidate who secures the job.
One of the things the recruitment firm can do is to offer
training and support. This can be in courses to help them deal with demanding
clients or to upskill to rise to the level they want to be at. Recognising
achievements is also a great, simple way to boost how someone is feeling.
Self-care and taking holidays that they are owed will help mental well-being
too.
The simplest thing recruiters can do for themselves, is to
ask themselves: why am I a recruiter? They may want to write a ‘Pros’ and
‘Cons’ list because there is no point remaining in a role you are not sure
about. If there are doubts, these should be communicated. 46 percent of
recruiters who were recently surveyed admitted that they don’t communicate
their feelings or needs when it comes to their job and that is pretty surprising.
A conversation needs to start and management must demonstrate that they are
willing to listen, understand and act.
Nurturing recruiters has a knock-on effect to the client.
When a recruiter feels truly connected to their company, they go out into the
world and connect meaningfully with candidates and can really connect those
candidates with your clients. It is a false economy to constantly push staff to
work harder and harder when the point of recruiting is connecting human beings.
Without that human element, it may as well be machines that are doing the work,
and we all know how that can go badly wrong, especially for recruitment.
What a business, any business, should not lose track of is the fact that people are much more important than the processes you have put in place. If something isn’t working, it is likely that it is the process that needs to change rather than all of the people involved.
Ultimately, this is
a people business and people do not excel if they are put under excessive
pressure and not appreciated. So if you want your people business to thrive,
help the people in the business thrive.
Curious about how Zenshin Talent can help your organisation? Contact us today for a no-strings conversation about your needs and our experience.
So you find a candidate that you are interested in and you simply introduce them to your hiring processes and a few weeks later they sign on the dotted line and everything is good in the world, right? Well sometimes fairy tales come true and it is that simple, but it is becoming increasingly clear that things are not as they used to be.
What we are calling the ‘Candidate Ticking Clock’ is a symptom
of the switch around from employer-driven hiring market to the employee-driven
hiring market and it is a sign of worse things to come if businesses don’t stop
acting like they are holding all of the cards.
The wise organisation will question their entire process,
from start to finish. Right now, there is a denial that there is a problem,
with those firms who do notice something wrong merely tinkering around the
edges instead of recognising a total reorganising of their mindset is needed.
So let’s walk through the process and figure out how we can
fix things.
Candidates are found, either by a generalist recruiter or by
a specialist partner recruiter. More often than not, a specialist will
recognise roadblocks in the process but let’s assume that they haven’t this
time. If the generalist has found them, it is likely they were actively seeking
a new role. If the specialist found them, it is likely they have been persuaded
to consider a move from an existing role.
The candidates go to interview. The interview lasts a few
rounds. All the while that clock is ticking. How many interviews is enough to
ascertain whether this is the right candidate? If the candidate already has a
position they are not unhappy about, is your organisation giving them a good reason
to jump ship? It needs to be reiterated that you do not hold the cards here. Also,
as we mentioned a few weeks ago, the newer generation of employees have values
that do not necessarily revolve around money. Your inefficient interview system
is dragging on. Remember that you are not the only ones after this candidate.
There are other recruiters looking but also their current company is interested
in keeping them.
All the while there is a tick tick ticking of the clock.
Did the interviews go well and did they convince them that
your firm is special? Those drop outs during the zoom interviews really added
to the interviewers nervousness and cranked up the tension. Did the candidate
get a good idea of the work environment they will be walking into and did they
believe in your company’s ethos?
Remember, the longer you take, the larger the worries of
leaving start to grow for those candidates. Their current job will not let them
go without a fight. They will receive counter offers and they probably won’t be
about money.
Now, this process can take between 2 weeks to 2 months from receipt
of resume to offer, but with more people involved in the decision or other
candidates entering the mix later on, sometimes it can many months. Ask
yourself this: if you had to wait two months for a decision, would it be your sole
focus? Would you start forgetting details about the company and role? Would you
start reconsidering?
The fact of the matter is that when a person (or a company)
is indecisive, it does not give a very good impression of that person (or
company). Currently, recruitment partners are having to deliver refreshers about
the role because it is taking so long to get a ‘yes’ or ‘no’. That kind of PR
exercise of reminding them why they are moving in the first place is important
but it shouldn’t have to happen. Candidates do need to be patient, of course,
but there is only so long that someone will realistically wait around until you
get your act together.
If it was only about the money, then the candidate shouldn’t move from their current role. They will be looking to be valued, to do exciting work. Can you offer them that? If you can, then you just might get that candidate, but you also have to beat that ticking clock.
Curious about how Zenshin Talent can help your organisation? Contact us today for a no-strings conversation about your needs and our experience.
