Posted: Tue 14 Apr 2009
We are in one of the toughest markets the recruitment sector has ever experienced - not just because of the prevailing economic conditions but because no-one knows just how long this recession is going to last. Developing and sustaining survival techniques is probably the biggest challenge that the industry faces today.
As leaders, we have a responsibility to provide our consultants with the tools that they need to succeed - that’s a given whatever the market conditions. But while consultants are often given training in core competencies such as sales and recruitment - how many of them are given training on how to be better business people. Simple business thinking at desk level can make a real and measurable difference to success - and we’re not talking about huge changes here - less can be more. Small changes to thinking can create really positive changes in results. This can’t happen on its own though and if your consultants are going to be equipped to make the right decisions on the desk then leaders have to provide the reasons why changes have to be made so that the consultants can provide the how.
Having worked through three recessions during my recruitment career I have numerous examples of working with organisations who have discovered how making their consultants better business people at the level where it matters most - at the desk - can lead to a real voyage of discovery.
Quality not Quantity
In this market, creating and winning new business is obviously key. Let’s take the example of an SME recruiter who undertakes a project to improve vacancy flow - an obvious and sensible tactic. The project is seen as a great success bringing in over 40 new vacancies - however only seven are filled. So what was the problem? No-one was actually looking at these vacancies from a business perspective. Quantity does not equate quality and if a consultant is targeted to bring in new business then that has to be qualified with more than just numbers. There is no point on working on 40 vacancies if half of them are not viable business propositions. One of the main problems in this scenario was that questions such as: ‘What are the benchmarks for a good vacancy?’ and ‘What makes a vacancy fillable?’ were just not being asked - let alone answered. Until issues such as these were resolved how could the consultants possibly begin to analyse why so many vacancies were left unfilled? Were the vacancies of poor quality? Was too much time being spent on too many requirements? Or were they short of candidates? (unlikely!). Basically, no-one knew. The answers were found by establishing a whole range of measurements and acceptable standards to help ascertain which vacancies were the most viable. This involved a completely new qualification system and resulted in a priority list of criteria for ‘hot jobs’ on which the consultants spent the majority of their time. The result? They reduced the number of vacancies they were working on and radically increased their hit rate.
Finally, they were looking at the vacancies not as recruiters but as business people and asking themselves ‘What do I need to do to ensure that this vacancy earns me revenue?’ They also learned that although the business development project was a good idea, nothing should be done in isolation without planning for the success - or failure - of any activity and its implications on other areas.
Business Development needs a business mind
Let’s look at another example - a specialist player with very experienced recruiters on board who have never worked through a downturn. The leaders of the business know that they need to develop their existing client base and bring in new clients - but it just isn’t happening. What had to happen here, was that the consultants needed a completely different mindset for a completely different economic landscape. The first thing was to decide what sort of client base they needed and then benchmark and measure those potential clients against set criteria - in this case by profiling existing top clients. Again, the consultants at desk level were shown how to look at the problem as business people rather than just recruiters - because basically this was not an operational recruitment problem - it was a business problem.
In this market it’s about working smarter - good recruitment skills in isolation will never be enough to ensure survival and success. What today’s consultants need is the ability to apply business thinking - develop that skill and they can succeed.
Fiona Lander is Managing Director of Lander Associates - international training and performance development specialists to the professional recruitment sector.