In The Olden Days...

It occurred to me recently that there's a modern version of the question I used to ask my parents when I was little; 'Mum, Dad, what was it like in the olden days before television?' My little boy, some time soon, is going to ask me the same question about the Internet isn't he? I will then of course feel ancient.

I will then be forced to explain that 'in the olden days' if one wanted to find out an obscure fact, one consulted an encyclopaedia, which were big, heavy alphabetically sorted books, that usually came in sets of 12, that were, at best, snapshots in time. Salesmen came round knocking on your door offering easy payment plans for Encyclopaedia Britannica. Even the name suggests a bygone era of lost Empire...but I digress.

I will of course insist on explaining to him that we only had three TV channels, that my brother and I used to watch snooker in black and white (and get the balls right), and that if we wanted to contact our mates we got on our bikes and pedalled to their houses. I will then probably say something about kids today not knowing they're born, to which he will undoubtedly reply that he never asked to be.

Enough of that, and why this nostalgic post I hear you ask? Well, I was musing on the world of work and business over a glass of something with my octogenarian uncle-in-law the other day, and he told me an interesting thing. The uncle had had a very successful career in the UK and abroad as both a Buyer (now known of course as Procurement Executive) and as a Salesman (now known as Business Development Manager) of expensive shoes. That isn't the interesting bit.

Despite having a varied career for several different firms he told me he had never used a CV, never actually applied for a single job, and had never had a job interview in his life! Every job he ever had, including his first opportunity in the business, came through his father or friends of his father, and later friends of his. In his words, the 'old pals' network. He was very successful at his work and I did wonder if the other poor applicants (had any of the roles actually been advertised) from less well-connected backgrounds might have been more suitable? We will never know.

How times have changed. In these days of equal opportunities, endless measurement, targets and relentless self promotion through networking, and more recently, Social Networking, the Old Pals network is probably the strict preserve of the upper echelons of commerce, law and government, and maybe that's a good thing really, especially if you're the wrong side of the doors of White's Club. As most of us nowadays are.

He did ask me some seemingly basic questions about what I do from day to day, and he was both fascinated and mildly alarmed at the constant let-downs, excuses, broken promises and general human egregiousness that we in Recruitment have to put up with on a daily basis.

But then, we do have HD TV and the Internet. Must go and check Twitter...

Are Recruiters All Optimists?

Sales, and recruitment in particular, is populated by optimists. In fact in an interview, if you said something like, ‘to be honest I’m actually quite cynical and pessimistic about people…’ you probably wouldn’t get the job.

But surely being an effective recruiter is all about being able to spot the forgeries?

In rec-to-rec, our clients are faced with a continuous and familiar problem; because we all work in recruitment, we all feel the imperative to ‘fill the job’, and whether you like it or not it can influence your judgement when recruiting for your own company.

In the candidate-driven market of the middle bit of this decade many managers within recruitment firms cheerfully glossed over an intuitive ‘I’m not sure…’ because they needed a bum on a seat and it was more optimistic to look the other way and give the candidate the benefit of the doubt.

Not so nowadays. Particularly in the SME sector, where I mainly operate, many firms have overhauled thoroughly their selection, interview and assessment processes, in a way that candidates would not have put up with pre-recession.

The result has been varied. Some managers have undoubtedly thrown the baby out with the bathwater, mindful of the New Rules and over-obsessing about a decision a candidate made in their career that made them uncomfortable. Or passing up a perfectly good candidate because of a prejudice of some kind.

Others have got the balance between scepticism and optimism about right, and some, it must be said, still just say, ‘send me lots of CVs, if they were trained by XYZ they must be good.’

So where does that leave candidates? My advice is simple, don’t apply for a role that you don’t really want, or don’t have the skills or experience for. If you do, it will either be spotted by the savvy firms and you won’t get the job, or it will be overlooked by the ‘optimistic’ ones and you’ll not get past probation.

Bad either way really, and I’m not even a pessimist.

Winter Market Update 2.0

If the first half of 2009 was a half of downsizing, and the following half was one of consolidation, it looks to me that the outlook for 2010 is, in the main, positive. As we see 2009 drawing to a close it's encouraging to see so many firms putting into place positive and realistic plans for 2010.

Even in the sectors worst hit such as Commercial, most firms are optimistic about the future and that shows in the number of vacancies being released. There has been a steady increase in that since June. It's still the usual suspects at the top of the heap however, IT, Healthcare, Industrial, certain Construction sectors, with Accountancy and Finance growing too, which is great news.

Since the last time I wrote, this blog has featured on a few mainstream news outlets and plans are afoot for more. Over 1100 individuals have now visited since I started in the summer. Some may have even stopped to read it. The blog has also been entered in the UK recruiter 'recruitment blogs' competition too, which I'm delighted about.

There is still a reluctance in many quarters from people running a steady desk to go out looking (and why would they? You might say) however early signs show that many more interesting roles will be released in Q1 of 2010 so that is likely to entice more successful candidates looking for a career move.

Some bad habits of the Recruitment market are still there of course, many CVs are still appalling, many hirers are too old-fashioned about a candidate's motivation and still project too many assumptions on them about the future. I have posted comments on these issues in the last so please scroll down and have a look at older material if you like.

Enjoy the run-up to Christmas.

But will the job be too small for them..?

Aah, what a question. I've placed a few middle and senior management candidates recently who for reasons of their own are downsizing roles and looking for jobs at a 'lower level' than they previously held.

You know the inevitable questions; will the job be too small for them, will they leave as soon as something else comes up, are they burned out, are they just looking at this out of desperation? The answer could be yes to any and all of the above.

But it could be no too. Successful careers don't always have to go up the ego-ladder all the time. After all, who would want to be Head of Deck-Chair Re-Arrangement on The Titanic when there are good jobs as Assistant Head Deck-Chair Re-Arranger on other, more successful cruise liners? Who indeed.

The question also arises that surely it's better to recruit the top talent and manage and reward it properly to make damn sure it won't leave, rather than recruiting second (or third) best on the basis that it's less likely to go? Sounds crazy in such black and white terms but firms do it all the time. They refuse to take on someone who can clearly do the job (but suspect they may not really want to) in favour of someone who has never done it but claims they can (and you know they want it as it's a 'bigger' role).

It comes down to two questions; CAN they do it, and WILL they do it? The trouble is, judging them purely on the fact that the role they have applied for is a step down is no basis for answering the second question.

I know I'm being a bit harsh here, Recruitment has its share of middle-management types who secretly want to swan around with their laptops from branch to branch achieving nothing but massaging their own egos. But it's pretty easy to spot them, and if every ex-manager looking for a new challenge scares and upsets you, you're in danger of throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

Will the job be too small for them? Maybe it's you who needs to think bigger.

More on (moron) CVs..

"A good CV should be like a meticulously planned sales document", so says Mike Jones here, and adds "The first thing to understand about the job market is that it is a market. Within it there are buyers and sellers, and the laws of supply and demand are as valid here as anywhere else."

Mike is right.

I know I've mentioned it before on this blog, but in Recruitment, especially in Recruitment, the quality your CV really does matter. Not only for the obvious reasons, but also the fact that if a Recruitment person (of all people) creates a bad CV, then surely it's a statement of their overall intelligence that they can't even get that bit right.

Katrina Collier's site has some good tips on avoiding common mistakes.

Unsurprisingly, the well-constructed CV tends also to include pertinent information, achievements, billing figures and all the things an employer needs to know to answer the question, "Can this person fill my need?"

So come on, let's turn over a new leaf and take a fresh look at your CV, you are, after all, Consultants.

Profit at all Costs?

What are some firms doing to their senior management?

Often of late, people at Operations level are being expected to be not only be in several places at once, but to run a branch or business centre in addition to their regional duties.

So what changed? Well, profitability for a start. As firms cut consultant and manager jobs at branch level, more and more pressure is put on the higher-paid operations management to compensate, not by solving the problem strategically, or by hiring, but by spending their own time doing the job that their (non existent) staff should be doing.

Surely this is a counter-productive strategy? Short-sighted firms, in order to bring a positive spin on this year's P&L, are wrecking their chances of competing properly and fatally weakening themselves at the worst time. The clever ones are of course investing in people and strengthening client relationships now.

Get some talent in place where it's crucially needed. Yes it will cost money, but it will allow your Senior Managers to do their real jobs, not the Temps Payroll!

Horses for Courses in Recruitment

Is it time for recruitment firms to rethink their expectations and develop blended businesses, taking individual talent into account?

This was the topic of discussion between me and the BDM of a large firm recently. We both agreed that many firms expect too much of individuals, and hordes of potentially successful people can be blighted by being made to do things that they are plainly no good at. No other industry works like this one, expecting the lead generation, sales, marketing, 'manufacture' and delivery of service, (and often a large part of the administration), and follow-up to one individual. Think about it*.

A client of mine has recently decided to encourage people to excel at the very things they like doing and are effective at, so salespeople sell, recruiters recruit, and administrators, well, administer.

So far so good. The sales people are a lot freer to concentrate on making appointments and going out to see clients without the pressure of having to see candidates, for the recruiters the opposite is true, and the administrators back it all up with a decent and efficient support. Does it work? Yes, why? Because it's managed properly by a talented operations manager with a foot in both camps.

Client's expectations can be managed so they know the initial contact will manage the transition from dealing with them to the Recruiter responsible for the account.

The problems start when a split business like this becomes polarised and the communication between the business developers and the job-fillers is ineffective, or worse, is an 'us and them' situation.

I am not saying that this is the only way to run a recruitment business, not by a long chalk, but if your firm has a very high turnover of staff, maybe it's worth looking at.

Done properly, you can get the best out of people and it takes away the element of surprise in recruitment, the surprise being guessing what aspects of the job a generalist recruit won't be any good at when they actually start, despite what they said at interview, trying to please you, because you wanted them to be perfect, and nobody is, not even you.

*Since writing this I have been reliably informed by a scientist friend that Scientific Research works like this too! You know who you are.