The most important stage in the hiring process?

Managing a successful hiring process and maintaining a great ‘candidate experience’ throughout can be a very difficult task.

Unexpected delays, difficult selection decisions and changing expectations from job seekers can create problems at every turn, and whilst an experienced hiring manager should be able to exercise some degree of control over all these aspects, all the hard work can quickly be put at jeopardy right at the very end of the process if the preferred applicant is left in limbo for too long.

Getting sign-off to make a formal offer sometimes takes time and may involve several people who have very busy schedules, but where this is likely to be the case, make this known (to the candidate during final interview or via their recruiter afterwards) and if nothing else, avoid giving unrealistic timescales of when you’re hoping to make a decision.

Here’s what can happen when such a delay occurs:

On the day the applicant has been told a decision will be made: they’ll be on edge all day waiting for the phone to ring and ready to accept. Many will be tired from lack of sleep the night before. They’ll inevitably take a little longer to get their work done, whilst struggling to focus. Most will have their partner/friends/family texting them by lunchtime “Any news???”. By mid-afternoon the seed of doubt might have entered their mind but they’ll remind themselves the day isn’t over and there’s still a couple of hours to go. No need to panic. By 17:30 if there’s still no news they’ll be wondering if maybe someone else has been offered, maybe they shouldn’t have said this or that at interview, maybe they should have studied harder at university?

By the end of day 2, if there’s still no news or satisfactory explanation for the delay, self-preservation will have kicked in. They’ll be considering why it’s not the end of the world anyway – there were some downsides to the position after all and, with hindsight, the commute wasn’t ideal and perhaps things aren’t really so bad in their current position on balance.

By day 3, they’ll be resigned to the fact that they haven’t got the role and they’ll be glad of it. They’ll be annoyed to be left in limbo for so long, disengaged from the business and disappointed that they hadn’t got on with the interviewer as well as they’d believed, or else surely they’d at least have been given some feedback out of courtesy?

And then the offer comes through.

Good luck!

Counter Offers - they're back!

With job market conditions rapidly catching up with pre-recession levels of demand, we’ve seen a steady increase in the number of counter offers being used as a means to try to retain staff who’ve secured an offer elsewhere and tendered their notice.

As demand for staff rises, availability drops, and with employers focused on making the most of the economic recovery, retaining experienced staff is high on the agenda.

Good news for employees, not so good news for recruiters who, having invested a significant amount of time managing the process to this stage, can then experience last minute drop-outs from jobseekers who are persuaded to stay. A quick search online will throw up dozens of blogs and articles about counter offers, usually written by recruiters, quoting unsubstantiated statistics on the number of people who end up leaving their employer six to nine months after accepting an offer (usually between 80-95% - take your pick or, better still, read Mitch Sullivan's investigative blog on this subject). The overriding message being: don’t do it, take MY job!

There may well be a high proportion of individuals in this situation who do ultimately decide to move on after promises have been broken further down the line, but even so, unless there is a history from the individuals’ specific employer/line manager, I’m not sure this is relevant enough information to be basing important career decisions on.

For me, when a jobseeker decides to accept a counter offer, what this really tells me is that:

a) the other opportunity wasn’t good enough in the first place, or 

b) the candidate never really wanted to leave their employer, they just wanted better reward and commitment from them. Maybe they’ve discussed this with their manager and it’s fallen on deaf ears, or maybe they just feel this is the best way to force their hand?

I do however believe there is some truth in the often-stated claim that going through a counter offer process breaks a level of trust with an employer, especially if the employee had not raised any dissatisfaction previously. I also believe financial boosts alone are short term solutions that will often reoccur when the employees next salary review takes in to account the unplanned increase that’s already taken place.

From the employers perspective it’s also far from ideal. How will this affect the employees trust and buy-in to the business when it’s had to get to this stage? You can be sure at least one of their close colleagues will be aware of the situation and may now decide to go through a similar process themselves to increase their financial position.

In an ideal world, counter offers would never need to happen. Employers would regularly assess the ability, value and career aspirations of their staff and employees would have the confidence and opportunity to discuss any issues and frustrations openly. Jobseekers would only reach offer stage for positions they know they would be willing to leave their current employer for, and then, and only then, recruiters might then stop quoting those tired old statistics.

Social Recruiting - let's get some perspective...

Although I like to think of myself as a modern day recruiter, and one who embraces the world of social media (both personally and professionally), I can’t help thinking that there is a huge amount of information and advice for recruiters online that will only help a very small proportion of the industry, and actually have a detrimental effect on the performance of others.

I hold a dual role at Balance Recruitment. I’m an owner/Director of the business and I am therefore jointly responsible for the promotion of our brand, our culture and for ensuring we achieve and maintain a positive reputation with all those we come in to contact with. I also carry out a full 360 recruiter role, representing a niche client base, sourcing candidates and managing all the really easy stuff (ahem) that goes in between.

Whilst wearing both hats, I feel it’s vital to keep abreast of new networks/tools/techniques to utilise the internet for the benefit of the business, but I also need to guard against investment of time in networks that just aren’t ever likely to yield returns. But this is where there’s a problem, because with each new social network online, there seems to be a blog somewhere telling recruiters that they should be using it or risk getting left behind.

So on the one hand, agency and search recruiters are working hard to stay ahead of the competition from in-house recruiters and RPO’s, whilst at the same time they’re being told that they should also be spending an untold amount of time on the development of peripheral social branding even just to keep up?

As I see it, too many recruitment or business focussed social media experts place the readers of their blogs in a position of being behind the curve, without considering how generic and non-targeted the advice they’re providing to a broad recruitment industry audience actually is. So whilst it may well be fair (I assume!) to admonish a specialist online marketing & design recruitment business for not having a Pinterest or Instagram presence, does this also mean an IT recruiter should be scouring the internet for stylish photos of server storage racks too?

Sure, some of the social networks are clearly beneficial to recruiters, whilst others may have great success for specific sectors and career disciplines (online, creative and marketing usually), but there are plenty for which, I suspect, the majority of recruiters will never really see enough return from the investment of time they put in.

Procurement Guest Blog: Apples with Apples

A guest blog today from my colleague Craig Williams. Craig is a Senior Consultant within Balance Recruitment, joining us last year to set up our Procurement Division. He’s had a very hectic and successful start to life at Balance, which is covered here in his first guest blog:

Apples with Apples

Having returned from a sabbatical overseas last year – which saw me taking a cargo ship from London to Buenos Aires and from there, travelling through South America and then over to SE Asia (this time flying!) I returned to London ready to re-enter the niche recruitment sector of Procurement & Supply Chain and joined Balance to set up the division, complimenting their existing presence within accountancy & finance.

A year down the line and these are my thoughts so far…

Having once been told that Procurement, from a recruitment point of view, is relatively straight-forward and having spent a number of years recruiting for senior accounting positions in London, I was looking forward to the challenge of exploring this new and important business area, a business function rapidly coming to the fore due to the straitened times we are currently experiencing throughout the globe.

I had the benefit of already knowing a fairly large network of well regarded procurement professionals personally and through my connections in finance, all of whom were more than happy to talk through what they do – the knowledge share would cost me a glass of wine or two, though being a fan of good wine I felt that was a good exchange! One friend, when summarising what Procurement professionals actually do, rather succinctly commented that ‘…in a nutshell we compare apples with apples and we buy stuff…’.

Having dealt with finance for so long, a market well furnished with specialist recruitment consultants, I was pleasantly surprised to find that procurement professionals were much more open to spending time with me discussing their profession – being recognised as a potential supplier to an organisation certainly helped open doors during my initial few months and I quickly found myself working on several mandates for a well-known technology business. I was quickly able to fill three out of five of the roles given to me - a great boost to my confidence whilst developing my understanding of this new sector.

However, many of the roles I have subsequently been working on have been challenging and far from straight-forward! A high profile IT Category Manager position I was instructed on late last year required an extremely rare beast, though through persistent searching and networking with existing contacts, I was able to track down the elusive individual my client was hoping to find, and placed them in to an interesting ongoing interim assignment. There’s no better way to build strong relationships with clients than by placing these difficult to fill roles that other recruiters have long given up on.

Before long I was running several mandates, working with new and existing Balance Recruitment clients; for example an Interim HR/Professional Services Category Managers for a global media business – the remit being to shape their global contingent workforce, a great opportunity for the right person who would essentially be in the spotlight – not just here in London but also within their New York headquarters. I’ve also had the opportunity to partner with Global law firms, large engineering businesses and transport organisations all bringing fresh challenges and increasing my knowledge of the Procurement profession day by day. During each piece of recruitment I’ve met with some amazing practitioners along the way, building a large network of professionals across a variety of industries.

So it’s “so far so good” and I’m thoroughly enjoying my role establishing Balance as high quality recruiter for Procurement staff.

Apple anyone?

Flexible working - why it should be embraced

As a business owner myself, I can fully understand why the term ‘flexible working’ doesn't sit all that comfortably when raised by a prospective employee during an interview process.

Do they just want more annual leave than our current benefits package allows? Or are they planning to work from home where they might have the TV on in the background or have a cat fighting for their attention by strolling across the keyboard? 

Whatever the immediate thoughts might be, for a lot of firms and managers, they’re often negative and focus on the lack of control over productivity levels. These are of course completely valid concerns and to be fully open to flexible working, a firm will need to carry out thorough reviews on any negative impact changes could bring and to also assess what levels of flexibility they can accommodate. Dismissing it out of hand however could be equally as negative in the long run. 

The Recruitment & Employment Confederation (REC) recently carried out a Flexible Working Commission, and came to the conclusion that, although the UK already has a far more flexible workforce than our European neighbours, there is still huge opportunity to be gained from further embracing flexible working options. 

The attraction and retention of top talent will be significantly enhanced if employees have more scope to influence their work/life balance without having to move jobs to secure it. The UK is facing an emerging talent crisis and, as the ‘war for talent’ intensifies, the opportunity is there for early adopters of flexible working to steal a march on their competition.

Employee productivity levels can also be positively improved. A large scale pilot scheme by telecoms giant O2 earlier this year reportedly concluded that by offering staff the opportunity to work from home they were able to significantly improve productivity. Staff were better rested from cutting out commuting time each day and were generally happier with more time to spend with their families or to pursue leisure activities.

A common misconception is that the requirement for flexible working is almost exclusively influenced by childcare logistics. Although this is and always has been a factor, the demand is being driven by the lifestyle choices of many different groups, and does not always involve a reduction in total hours worked.

So what challenges would flexible working bring for your business? There are plenty of businesses already embracing it and others that are actively looking at how they can make it work for them. Is your firm one of them or do you feel it’s not for you? Please share your comments below.

Is January a good time to search for a new job?

There’s a simple answer to this question: Yes

However, there’s also a longer answer which is: Yes, and so is February, March, April etc… through to (and including) December

Common belief is that the best time of year to be looking for a new job is after the New Year, when people have resolutions to uphold and the job market kicks off after a lull. ‘New Year, New Career’ is a corny cliché that will be trumpeted by recruiters up and down the land in January. I’d agree that this is definitely a good time to look, but in reality, with the exception of the week either side of Christmas, I don’t believe there’s ever really a bad time to be looking.

There will be some disciplines and industries that have well defined seasonal peaks and troughs, but if you work in a core business support or operational function such as Accounting, Marketing, HR, IT or suchlike, the majority of employers manage to keep you busy all year round, and therefore if you decide to find a new job elsewhere, to immigrate or retire, they’re going to need to replace you fairly quickly.

In a niche market, certain roles will from time to time have unpredictable surges of activity in the job market. For example, if just two or three Chief Legal Cashier vacancies arise in close proximity, this area will likely see a flurry of activity for a few months whilst people move around the industry leaving vacancies behind them. This could happen at any time during the year.

Generally, if you have reached the point where you feel you need to start looking for new opportunities, right then is your best time to start the search, regardless of what month we are in. Your ideal next job can arise at any given time, but if you’re not looking because you’re waiting for a perceived busy period, you might never even know about it.  Even better still is to establish contact with an experienced recruiter who knows your specialist area and who can help to identify your next step on the career ladder even before you've started to look.

Do you agree, or do your experiences suggest otherwise? Please share your comments below. 

Writing an effective CV - keep it simple!

If you search online for advice on preparing your CV, you will find a whole world of contradictory tips, guidelines, rules and warnings.

Most sites/articles will undoubtedly offer some great advice, and broadly speaking there are some rights and wrongs that should be adhered to, but when it boils down to it, it’s the relevance of your experience that will secure you an interview, not the layout of your CV.

This isn't to say that you can’t decrease your chances of securing an interview by sending through a badly designed CV however. There are definitely ‘wrong’ ways to present your CV, and you can undermine years of relevant experience with poor spelling and grammar, or by hiding away the key skills and achievements somewhere they’ll get overlooked.

In my opinion, the key to a successful CV is to keep things simple and ensure that the first page provides the reader with quick and clear access to the most pertinent skills and experience relevant to the role you are applying for. This will most likely include your academic achievements and qualifications, your IT/Systems experience and details of your current or most recent experience.  Your goal should be to secure an interview before they’ve even reached the second page!  

Here are my tips on how to write an effective CV:

• Ignore any ‘golden rules’ on the ideal number of pages your CV should cover. If you have many years experience and/or lots of achievements and experience don’t leave it out just so you can squeeze it in to two pages.
• Make sure your qualifications and skills (e.g. systems, languages) are at the top of page one, followed by your current position and then working backwards through you career from there. If a potential employer is only interested in the last few years, it’s no problem if they decide to skip pages 3 and 4.
• Lay off the clever formatting. Fancy borders and embossed headers may look pretty, but your CV’s not going to get framed and hung up on a wall. Better to just keep it looking clean & simple and let your experience do the wooing.
• Spell-check is not infallible. When you think you've finished, take a break from the screen, have a cup of tea and then re-read it one last time. Slowly!  
• Personal profiles. A topic that I’ll come back to soon in a blog of its own, but for now, try to avoid clichés and statements that offer no examples or evidence to back them up.

Finally, I know some social-media champions will have you believe the traditional CV/resume is on its deathbed and a job seeker will soon only need an online professional profile, but I'm pretty confident it’s got at least a few years left in it for now, so hopefully this blog will remain relevant for a little while yet.

If you’ve got a different view to those above, or have any other CV tips you’d like to share, please do add a comment below. 

Why selective recruiters can help you more than 'Yes-Men'

Although it's frustrating when a recruiter doesn't feel you have quite the right experience for a vacancy, you're in fact more likely to be successful in securing interviews through them than you are with a recruiter who is prepared to forward your CV to any opportunity you show an interest in.

I often hear of individuals being forwarded for vacancies when they clearly don't have the experience I know the employer requires. Most of these applications will be rejected at CV submission stage, but some will be invited through to a difficult interview which they have no real chance of progressing through. 

This is where the problem lies. The recruiter has got it wrong, and in the employers eyes this raises a doubt over the credibility of future recommendations by this recruiter, especially if it's not a one-off. Conversely those recruiters who consistently prove to understand the profile of individual required will develop a stronger relationship with their clients and their recommendations will carry more weight - to the point where the employer will trust the recruiters judgement rather than decide who to invite in purely based on CV's. 

A recruiter will generally have a much clearer picture of what their client is looking for than is evident in a job description or an online vacancy advert. They'll also know the availability of other interested applicants which will further help to profile who is likely to get an interview and who may not. 

Although it will be frustrating, if they're giving you open and honest feedback as to why they don't feel you would secure an interview, the chances are they'll continue to get more and more repeat business from their clients and will have something that is suitable for you further down the line, and when they do, you'll stand a very good chance of securing an interview through them.

Researching an employer ahead of an interview

Everyone knows they've got to do it. The majority will spend time on it. But how many see value in it, other than to prove during interview that they've done a bit of research?

From my experience, I'd make an educated guess that's it's around 50/50. That's a high proportion of people who don't understand the benefit of doing some homework prior to an interview and therefore put themselves at a disadvantage in the recruitment process. If you fall in to this category, it's time to change!

Employers do of course want to know that the individual they're interviewing has looked through their website. It's the minimum expectation. Depending on the firm, their website may well provide nearly everything you need to know to get an impression of the firm from a potential employee's perspective. A detailed 'careers' section and a content rich 'news' feed are great sources of information. Many company websites don't provide such useful info however, and in these cases you'll need to look further afield. 

When asked at interview what you know about the firm, very few interviewers want to hear just stats and facts, e.g; "I know the business was established in 1845 by Sir Joe Bloggs, and now has 42 offices in 25 countries across the EMEA region, with 2500 staff serving over 600 clients". They want to see an understanding of what the business actually does, their culture, how they engage with their customers and what they're trying to achieve. It's also reasonable to expect that if they've been in the press lately (trade press or mainstream) the interviewee may well be aware of it.

The key point here though, is that you might not actually be asked "what do you know about the business?". If all you've done to prepare is memorise the number of offices and staff they have, you're going to struggle to drop it in to conversation naturally and are therefore unlikely to leave the impression that this is a business you know much about and are genuinely interested to join. 

Fortunately, other sources of information are easy to come by. A simple search of the employer name on Google, filtered to 'news' results may bring up some invaluable topical information about the business. Wikipedia might provide some useful data too. One of the best sources however is online trade publications e.g. in the UK, for a Law Firm visit: www.thelawyer.com, or for a Retail business: www.retail-week.com. All industries will have something similar (and if they don't - there's a good business venture!). 

Finding topical news articles can create great opportunities to show your interest and understanding of the business, by asking questions such as: "I read that you're opening an office in Paris this month. Would this role have any involvement with the overseas offices?". This can set you apart from other interviewees and is very helpful to have in mind when you're asked in the interview if you have any questions.

If you're interviewing via a recruitment business, the other key source of information is your recruitment consultant. A good recruiter will be a goldmine of information, and will expect (rather than wait) to be involved in your preparations for interview by sharing their knowledge of the firm. 

The interview cancellation dilemma:

It’s a dilemma I’m sure many hiring managers and human resources professionals have faced; they’ve just interviewed the perfect candidate for a vacancy and are keen to offer, but they already have further interviews scheduled. Should they risk losing the perfect candidate by waiting until all interviews have been conducted, or should they just make an offer and either cancel the other interviews or conduct them out of courtesy, even though they have no chance of securing the role?

On some occasions the decision will be guided by the perfect candidate’s availability. If they’re already under offer elsewhere, they may not be prepared to wait until the end of the interview process, especially if they’re spread over a lengthy period. Then it becomes a case of whether the employer is prepared to risk letting them go elsewhere whilst they meet the remaining applicants.

I've recently had this scenario unfold for one of my clients, and due to business demands and risk of losing their preferred candidate they decided to offer the role to him before completing the scheduled round of interviews and called wishing to cancel the final remaining interview.

The candidate whose interview was cancelled was understandably disappointed. He’d already invested time preparing for it and was eager to meet with the client to prove his suitability to the role. Fortunately in this instance, he was understanding of the situation and hadn’t pinned all his hopes on the interview.

Personally however, I don’t feel the situation was handled well and the client ran the risk of damaging their employer brand by having a job applicant come away from the process feeling aggrieved. This particular candidate happened to be the understanding type, but that’s not always going to be the case, and it’s well documented that people like to share negative experiences more than the positive.

If the client needed to make a quick decision on this hire, the sensible option would be to bunch all the interviews together over the course of a day or two. In the real world this is easier said than done, but if a candidate can only commit to interviewing a few days after the others it should be made clear to them from the outset that there is a chance the interview will be cancelled if an appropriate candidate is identified beforehand. Then there can be no surprises and the dilemma of whether to cancel or honour the interview is already decided.

When applying for vacancies - be specific

One of the most common complaints of jobseekers is that they don’t get feedback from job applications. Whilst for recruiters, one of their biggest complaints is the volume of irrelevant applications they receive from job adverts.

The two go hand in hand. The more applications recruiters have to sift through, the less time they can devote to replying to all the unsuccessful or irrelevant applicants. Meanwhile a jobseeker, disheartened by a lack of response, may step up the number of applications they send out, in the hope it will increase their chances of progression to interview.

The danger of deploying a scatter-gun approach to job applications is that it can undermine your prospect of securing the positions you’re actually most interested in. A recruiter, through memory or application tracking software, will generally be aware of multiple applications made by the same individual, and if these are for roles covering different responsibilities across a range of salaries there will, at best, be confusion over where your strengths lie, or at worst they’ll assume you consider yourself a ‘jack of all trades and master of none’. Recruiters rarely get instructed to find these!

A better approach would be to only apply for those roles you’re most interested and suitable for based on the requirements detailed in the job advert. If you’re not then hearing back from the recruiter who is advertising these roles, give them a call to have a chat about your job search and see if they can assist.

Are you missing out on talent as a result of the recession?

The recession has affected recruitment in many different ways. It has also had a huge impact on the career decisions made by individuals over the last few years, and if you don’t take this in to consideration when reviewing job applications, you could be missing out on genuine talent.

We’ve noted a few occasions recently where high calibre applicants have been overlooked for reasons that say more about market conditions lately than the individuals themselves, and this is where opportunities are missed.

With widespread redundancies, recruitment freezes and budget constraints on hiring over the last few years, it has been a very difficult period for many who’ve been directly affected by cut backs.  Even for those who’ve remained safe in their employment, it’s not been a particularly opportune time to make significant career advancements.

Those unfortunate enough to be made redundant during this period have generally not had the luxury to patiently pick and choose their next move, as they have been up against a lot of competition for very few vacancies. Meanwhile bills still have to be paid. The result is that some career decisions and moves have been made which in a better economic climate might not have happened.

There has also been notable trend over this period for employers to hire staff on fixed term contracts rather than making permanent appointments. Those already on long term temporary or rolling contract agreements have had little chance of becoming permanent, and many have been let go as a first measure of cutbacks. Maintaining career stability has simply not been possible for those in this circumstance.

We’re therefore now reaching a point where these factors need to be taken in to serious consideration when reviewing job applications. Some factors which may have raised concerns back in 2007 may now be more understandable today. Moves that might not have made sense pre-recession, should now be viewed in a different light, and individuals who may appear to have a patchy or “jumpy” CV over the last few years, aren’t necessarily unreliable or flighty – they may have just had to secure interim positions quickly due to financial commitments and a shortage of permanent opportunities available.

Are these factors taken in to consideration when you’re reviewing job applications? Or have you been affected personally by the recession and feel your career prospects have taken a knock as a result? Please add any relevant comments below.

Career progression or just more money?

When discussing a jobseekers motivations for looking for a move, two of the most common reasons I hear are career progression and for a payrise. The two are closely linked, with the first generally taking care of the latter, but too often they are confused as one and the same thing.

In many circumstances it seems that a jobseekers idea of career progression correlates to earnings and earnings alone. Understandable that this is seen as a positive move, but if you’re really looking for career progression, the salary of your next position shouldn’t really come in to the equation. Naturally, very few of us are prepared to take a drop in salary, but when considering your career earning potential, the salary you earn over the next 12 months will have little to no bearing on what you might be earning in a few years time. It’s the work itself that will make the difference.

If you want to significantly increase your earning potential, be patient and don’t focus on what your monthly income will be over the coming year. Think about what your earnings will be over the next 5-10 years. A position paying £3k more than another has the short term appeal of the higher salary, but as a stepping stone will the position itself help you climb to the next step up in your career faster than the other? Of course it could, and if so – result! If not however, the role with the lower salary but better development could be the sensible option.

Consider a Sliding Doors situation. On one universe you take the role paying £3k more and 5 years down the line you’re doing the same job as you are now and are again looking for a step up in your career. Meanwhile in the parallel universe the other you, who took the lower paying role, has already gained 5 years experience in a more senior position, developing their skills and experience accordingly. Chances are they’ll have already overtaken your earnings and now they also start looking for a new job, but in this scenario they’re looking for a job two steps higher up the ladder than you are. If they stay on their toes they’ll remain the higher earner right through till retirement and their overall career earnings will dwarf yours.   

Of course, it’s not always as clear cut as in this example, and it’s not every day we find ourselves with two job offers on the table. However, the same logic should be applied if after resigning your current employer tries to persuade you to stay by matching the salary on offer elsewhere. A short-term win perhaps, but how will staying affect the long-term path of your career?

CV's can't talk back - so why not discuss any question marks with the consultants who sent them?

When using recruiters, if you are prepared to instruct them to assist with a role and represent your firm to market, you should have faith in their ability to find suitable talent and to identify the closest match to your requirements, regardless of whether on a retained or contingency basis.

I’m not suggesting that recruiters never get it wrong (and why continue to use those who often do?), but the best hiring managers and HR Coordinators will take time to seek advice from them on why you should meet with those they’ve recommended, and to challenge any concerns they might have when reviewing a CV.

The best talent won’t necessarily have the best looking CV, so relying on the document alone is ignoring the experience and judgement of a recruiter who will have rejected countless of other applicants they’ve met in person, ahead of the shortlist they have ultimately sent through. If your faith in a recruiter’s recommendations results in interviewing irrelevant candidates, you will at least have identified that this is a recruiter you shouldn’t be working with in future.

The problem may be that too many recruiters have been instructed or that those who have are sending far too many CV’s, so some ruthless filtering has to be applied to narrow down the shortlist, but that’s a blog for another day.

I’ve recently been asked by a new client to assist with filling a vacancy that has already been on the market for a close to two months. My first thought has to be to consider whether this is going to be a wise investment of my time? If it’s taken so long already and nobody has been found, is there actually anybody out there who can do this job, or is the client being unrealistic in their expectations?

Having completed my due diligence with the HR Coordinator on the position, it was clearly a good opportunity, paying market rate salary and with reasonable expectations on the experience required. I asked why it had proved to be so difficult to fill, and was told the line manager had rejected CV’s due them lacking relevant industry experience, or for having too unstable a career history.

Perfect, I thought! I know an excellent candidate who has 6 years legal sector experience with the same firm who would love this job and would be able to hit the ground running. Unfortunately however, his CV was also rejected at introduction stage by the line manager. There was no discussion about the candidate before the rejection, and no opportunity to talk through the reasons why with the line manager whose decision wasn’t challenged by the HR Coordinator, just a straight ‘no’ based on the CV alone.

If I wanted to, I could pose several questions about an individual’s experience, ambitions and drive from reviewing a CV, but unfortunately paper doesn’t talk and without meeting or speaking to that individual those questions remain unanswered. I can make assumptions of course, but is this really a good way to judge someone’s worth? I think not. Had a recruiter who’d met the individual sent their CV to me, the very least I would do is speak to them to find out a little more.

It transpires that nearly every CV submitted had been rejected at introduction stage for a whole host of different reasons by the line manager who had no direct contact with recruiters and didn’t wish to hear explanations/responses to his concerns.

The consequence: a vacancy which takes months to fill despite high calibre talent being available and a series of recruiters feeling their time and effort has been wasted and would be better spent in future focussing on competitor businesses.

Talent retention via extended notice periods. Surely there's a better way....?

Today, I thought I’d share some frustrations I have with the misuse of extended notice periods by some employers, and the ill-feeling it generates, which can only be counter-productive in the long run.

It’s commonly accepted that those in management, highly paid, or specialist knowledge roles will need to sign an employment contract that requires the individual to serve a three month notice period. The reasons are justifiable, and rarely cause any problems for the individual when they come to leave, as future employers would generally expect to have to wait three months to secure the services of someone at an equivalent level.

The problem is when an individual is in a position or at a career level where it is extremely rare for someone to have a notice period any longer than one month. In these circumstances, the individual will face genuine problems securing their next move and will effectively be stuck with the following options:

·         Option 1: To accept the reality of seeing good opportunities pass them by whilst they try to find an employer who considers them to be so perfect for an opportunity that they’re happy to wait a full two months longer for them to start than they would for the next best applicant.

·         Option 2: To resign before securing their next position in the hope that they will be offered something suitable within the last 5-6 weeks of their notice period.

·         Option 3: To not honour their full notice period and risk leaving their current firm under a cloud after a month.

None of the options are attractive, and all of them are to the detriment of the individual’s future career. Option 1 will inevitably mean missing out on good opportunities, which will lead to compromise on the range of opportunities they would consider. Option 2 is throwing the dice; hoping that a suitable opportunity will arise within a specific timeframe and therefore also encouraging compromise. Option 3 could well lead to real problems further down the line, and would clearly damage relationships that have taken long to build.

The reasons for these unusually long notice periods that I’ve encountered is generally due to them having been introduced during negotiations between an employer and employee when the employer is attempting to retain them with a counter offer, or whilst appeasing a restless employee who feels undervalued, with a slight change in job title and a payrise.

It will of course only happen to individuals that an employer particularly wants to retain, and can seem at the time to be a tit-for-tat compromise during negotiations. Ultimately however, the introduction of an extended notice period is not going to encourage someone to stay with a firm if they want to leave, it just makes it difficult for them to do so and limits the career options available to them. Surely there are more positive ways to retain talent within an organisation? If not, wouldn’t it just be better to wave goodbye to a star performer on good terms rather than chaining them down whilst they grow resentful?

The recruitment process, and how it reflects on your business....

It seems a lifetime ago now, but back in the glory years before the recession, there was a lengthy period when the legal accounts sector was considered to be very much a “candidate driven” jobs market. An above average jobseeker would have their pick of the jobs, and employers would have to act fast to secure them.

This turned on its head during 2008-2010 as the number of vacancies on the market dwindled and those employers who were hiring had the luxury of taking their time to scour the market safe in the knowledge that they didn’t have much competition for candidates. Whereas it used to take on average 3-4 weeks from issuing a job description to sending out an offer letter, during and post recession the average has risen to anywhere between 4-8 weeks.

The jobs market today is very different from the lows of 2009/10 however. Admittedly it hasn’t recovered to anywhere near 2007 levels and looks unlikely to do so for at least a couple of years (and that’s probably being optimistic), but there is now enough movement out there for jobseekers to have some choice and to be put off if they’re left hanging in the balance for too long.

We’ve experienced first-hand a number of processes lately where we’ve been instructed to recruit for a vacancy and have duly submitted CV’s, but the trail has then gone cold for as long as 2-3 weeks before interviews have been requested. Of course, there can be a number of causes behind this, especially during the summer months and at the end of the year during the holiday seasons. However, regardless of the reason for the delay, it does send out a negative message to the applicant. Either that they are not really considered desirable to the firm, or that the firm is disorganised.

Similar delays have even happened following interviews, sending an even stronger message to the candidate that they are not considered desirable enough to get them back in straight away. Of course, sometimes this is because the client is indeed hoping to find someone they consider a closer match to the role, but this hasn’t always been the case, and increasingly these employers are losing out on high calibre applicants who have either gone elsewhere during a delay or have pulled out of the process feeling that they are clearly not a “must see” for the next stage of interview.

If your firm has kept applicants hanging in the balance for extended periods lately; whether it be due to a line manager procrastinating over the review of CV’s, interviewers going on holiday, or simply having started the hiring process a couple of weeks too early, the end result is a negative image of the firm being sent to all those applicants who have been submitted (and who they talk to), and possibly losing out on the best talent available. 

Please don't tolerate cowboy recruiters!

The recruitment industry is currently trying to raise its game internally through introducing qualifications to ensure higher standards of ethics, service and compliance. Positive steps, however I believe there is a lot that can be achieved externally with employers and jobseekers asking more from the recruitment consultants they are dealing with, and not accepting unethical behaviour.

Take for example a situation I’ve experienced this week:

Having been briefed on an opportunity by a client, I approached a candidate to discuss the position and subsequently gained her permission to submit an application. In the period between this conversation and submitting the CV, Consultant X, who had also been briefed on the role, sent her CV through without approaching her.

The client quickly responded to Consultant X with an interview request. On learning that the candidate had already discussed the role with another recruiter, Consultant X used the carrot of an already secured interview request to persuade the candidate to go along with his application.

On receiving the CV submission via Balance, the client advised they’d already received the CV and that they operate a ‘first past the post’ system widely adopted by employers and accepted by recruiters, but with the expectation that the consultant will have first discussed the vacancy with the jobseeker.

On this occasion, Consultant X had not qualified if the candidate would even be interested in the role. Nor could he have known if the candidate had already made an application. Then there is the more alarming issue of confidentiality. Would Consultant X want his CV freely sent around the recruitment market if he was looking for a new job? I very much doubt it.

In this scenario the client did exactly the right thing on subsequently learning of the timeline of events, and contacted Consultant X to reiterate their minimum expectations from recruitment suppliers. Consultant X had little option other than to stand aside and allow the representation to go via Balance.

To me this is not a victory however. The correct CV submission was ultimately accepted, but only after the employer, jobseeker and I had to waste time undoing the tangle of another recruiter’s poor standards. He ended up with egg on his face, but at the same time left us all with a fresh example of the recruitment industry housing cowboys who don’t follow the most basic of industry standards.

This situation will only ever cease to exist if both employers and jobseekers refuse to continue to work with recruiters who adopt these practises. Employers can enforce better standards from their suppliers by spelling out these minimum expectations prior to agreeing to work with them, and investigating any subsequent duplicate applications if they occur. It’s not always the fault of recruiters, as unfortunately some jobseekers will mistakenly believe that hedging their bets and knowingly instructing two recruiters to submit applications will increase their chances of interview, however if you do have a recruitment supplier sending you CVs without first speaking to candidates, please do yourselves, job seekers and the recruitment industry a favour by taking your business elsewhere.

Are you LinkedIn?

Debates about LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter seem to form the majority of online discussions on social media platforms – LinkedIn discussions and polls focussed on LinkedIn itself are some form of bizarre internet mirror, it seems – and so I’m cringing at the thought of asking this seemingly banal question so early into my blogging career

However – I do have a purpose, and hopefully can offer some useful advice to those who aren’t in a sales-based role and may therefore not yet have realised what benefit it can bring to them personally.

With so many recruiters using LinkedIn to find people with specific experience, it’s worth asking yourself if you could be found if your dream role happened to arise when you're not actively looking for it.

Sometimes the best opportunities come along when you’re least expecting them to, and for this reason it’s worth making sure that you have a profile online that provides a summary of your career history and experience. The more people you connect with, the easier you can be found, especially when connected to your colleagues and peers at other firms.

The UK now has more than four million users on LinkedIn and that figure is rising rapidly. I don’t know how many recruiters make up that figure – anyone else know? – but they are very highly represented in comparison to other career professionals (no sniggering!). And the reason they are on LinkedIn is, largely, to find potential candidates they might otherwise not reach.

It’s worth noting that LinkedIn is no CV database, and adding a profile won’t therefore invite a barrage of calls from recruiters. There are of course many other features and benefits that you might find useful, and should you not wish to be found for the time being, you can always amend your privacy settings.

So, if you already have a LinkedIn profile, are you confident it will flag you up for that dream job? Does it reflect your experience and are you connected with enough of the right people? If you’re yet to get involved, you can be sure that your peers already are, so maybe now is the time....