Standards? It’s money that talks, isn’t it?
October 14, 2011 11:35 AM written by Philip Marks 
17 Comments
Manager: “Call the candidate back and tell him the other offer was pulled!”
Consultant: “I can’t, the client offered him directly.”
Manager: “Then tell him there are rumours of redundancies, last in first out and all that.”
Shocked? Probably not. Infuriated? I would certainly hope so. The recruitment industry sometimes has a reputation for only caring about the short-term gain, the revenue against monthly target. In the current climate that is all the more tempting to some.
However, after 20+ years in the industry, I am more convinced than ever that the vast majority of recruiters are appalled by the caricature of the chancer in the sharp suit over charging and under delivering.
If there are any positives to come out of recent tough economic times, it is that many of the worst type of recruiters have been driven out of the industry. Their lack of meaningful relationship with clients and candidates has caught up with them. There is no gravy train to jump on, no ‘next client’ to move on to. The days when clients were so desperate for staff that they would give any agency or consultant a go are long gone. For those consultants, it’s too late to realize that it really is all about offering knowledge, service, authenticity and hard work. No relationships, few jobs and certainly little if any commission. What more incentive is required?
The fact that the question of ethics and standards in recruitment is still such a hot topic on forums and blogs shows that poor recruiters are not yet extinct. However, it also demonstrates that recruiters feel passionately about their industry, are revolted by sharp practices and are desperate to show that the majority of recruitment people are professional and ethical.
What else can we do? There is increased talk of regulating the industry by license. Is this a good move? The answer is … it depends. We have to be careful that the regulators do not end up wagging the dog. I believe that, as in most walks of life and problems around the world, education is King. By training and educating everyone in the industry to similar high standards and similar high expectations we can set the bar high to start with.
There are many operators out there who have been trained by Chinese whispers, passed on by their manager’s manager’s manager. Is it good training … you’ve guessed it … it depends. What we really need are recognised standards by which to judge how we are doing and how far we have to go. That doesn’t mean rigid, anti entrepreneurial rules. Just recognised levels of process and principals that draw a line in the sand to guide recruiters and focus attention, inside and outside the industry, on the side of the line that the overwhelming majority of recruiters already stand.
Hi Philip, love this blog and the example used. I am sure there will be a great number out there who will sympathise with this. I am particularly concerned and passionate about this very subject. Where has the service gone from our industry? Yet, there are still a great number of Recruitment Professionals out there providing a great service to their candidates and clients alike, unfortunately these are being drowned by those who put sales targets over service levels. It is astonishing that the number of companies in our industry who seem to have lost sight of the long term jeopardy that great service levels can provide to their company. With less than 62% of those within the industry who have any knowledge of the Employment Agency Standards Inspectorate, I guess we should not be surprised by the decline in standards. I look forward to reading more from you in the near future.
Totally agree, Phil.
I think it is practically impossible to deliver consistent levels of service when working on contingency. Until agencies recognise this and start to take their clients on a sales journey that culminates in them only ever being retained to fill jobs by any one client, regardless of the salary level, the industry will not evolve.
Any agency that disagrees with this has to just accept that their only value as a contingency recruiter lies in them being one of many. In other words, a faceless contributor of CVs.
Before they can get good at customer service, they have to get good at sales.
Mitch, have you worked in contingent recruitment before? I have filled many retained search roles and many contingent vacancies over the years and I would be mortified if any of my clients said that my service was anything less than excellent! I do, however, agree wholeheartedly with your comment that a key to customer service in recruitment is the ability to sell. Whether you work on a retained – or exclusive contingent basis – surely much of your relationship with the client will be based on how good you are at client control? And part of that control is the ability to sell. Your comment about “faceless contributor of CVs” is a good example of this. Aside from when I was contractually obliged to send CVs, I closed my clients to see the candidates that I recommended before I even sent the CVs. Your post was thought-provoking but but I think that contingent recruiters who work at a high level would have to disagree with it.
Yes Mike, I have worked in contingency recruitment before – for about 6 years and most of that also managing teams.
I agree that contingency recruiters who “work at a high level” might disagree with my comment, but that doesn’t make them, or you, any less wrong.
Mike, answer me this please.
What would you, as a billing recruiter, prefer to have – a desk that relies on regular cold-calling to find jobs that you’re going to fill 30% of? Or a desk that rarely requires any cold-calling and jobs that you’re going to fill 95% of the time with a third paid upfront?
It depends. As a general rule I’d obviously go for the 95% retained, but the biggest biller I’ve met in the UK billed £2.25M GP in contingency contract recruitment (£8M t/o on his own) and I’ve personally coached several £1M GP contingency recruiters – I guess “money talks” is the answer!
Thanks Mike.
So if you agree that building a desk that fills jobs on retained is better (which it is for the recruiter, the agency, the client and the candidates), why do you insist on advocating the exploits of a tiny percentage of contingency perm recruiters who bill £1m?
I don’t understand what you mean by “insist” – I was simply responding to your post, which I found interesting.
The fact is Mitch, the majority of recruiters in the UK work on a contingent basis – and for many of them, exclusivity is usually the best they can achieve for the level they work at. I think your post overlooks that.
I know they do, Mike.
Why do you think that is the best they can achieve?
For example in a situation where interviews would, without question, easily be arranged today by your competitor if you tried to close for a retainer. In that situation, exclusivity is often the best that can be achieved. Don’t get me wrong, it is possible to get retainers for lower salary positions (I’ve done it and I’m sure you have) but unlike more senior roles you really are swimming against the tide in the situation I described.
I agree, Mike. Companies that need candidates ‘right now’ have to be dealt with in a certain way.
But getting a commitment to see your candidates is only one step in what should be a longer sales journey – one that culminates in that same company asking you to fill jobs without ever talking to other agencies …and paying upfront for the time you’re going to need to invest in order to deliver what they want.
I never hear of recruitment trainers teaching recruiters how to do that.
Why is that do you think?
We are definitely on the same page here. I’ve taught this for years – and done it hundreds of times – the value of meeting prospect clients before they have a need and closing them for their next role (ideally retained!). I’ve no idea why other people don’t train that way. Surely some do?
Mike / Mitch, interesting discussion. I have mainly been involved in contingency recruitment. I have sold a few retainers in the past but in my experience in the current economic climate, many businesses / recruiters are in fear of losing the prospect of filling a role if they push for their clients to pay upfront. I think it just depends on the type of relationship you have with that client / across your market. This may seem like a very obvious point but an important one especially for new recruiters that want to learn. Recruitment businesses just don’t seem to be training / pushing the sale of retained as much as they used to, and ultimately it is becoming more like a “race to place”.
Hi Sanjay, thanks for contributing.
I think retainers were easier to get pre-recession because candidates were thought to be scarcer and agencies had plenty of work. Not sure too many actually sold them though.
I remember once, on an inhouse project in 2006, I offered a recruiter (from a decent medium-sized niche specialist agency) a third upfront in exchange for him having to fill a particular vacancy. He turned it down because he didn’t want the responsibility. That for me just about summed up the contingency sector.
They can’t sell and are only interested in the easy placements – meaning that they’d rather play the transient numbers game. They could have owned all of that companies recruitment for the next 5 years.
Maybe they do Mike – but i haven’t seen any.
I think if there are any that do, they train it as another one-off transactional sale.
I think a lot of it is driven by them not really having that much knowledge in how to build and run a serious attraction campaign – with all that this entails.
Agreed Mitch. Again the fear of not being able to deliver.
There are a new breed of recruiters out there – I am still learning but have come across many people that are not confident enough to forgoe a decent candidate attraction solution and therefore all at the first hurdle. A real shame for our sector.
I couldn’t agree more, Sanjay. There are over 35 ways to find candidates for free without using the web, but only a handful of recruiters use these techniques. I recently taught a recruiter in the USA just one of those techniques and, within a week, he generated 11 exclusive candidates, 9 of which were NOT on Linkedin ($15,000 fees in a candidate-dry market). And yet many recruitment directors say their staff don’t need training!
Unbelievable! We all need training..! Yes, Linkedin is good but it is only as good as technology is.. We are humans, we need to act like humans, speak to people!