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.

Managing salary expectations in the hiring process

In the increasingly competitive “war for talent” we are experiencing in the world of hiring these days, you’d be forgiven for being a little surprised to hear that there are employers who will go through a lengthy application and interview process and then knowingly offer their preferred candidate a salary lower than the figure they’re looking for.

Certainly it comes as a surprise to the candidate, and not a nice one, but it happens and we’ve experienced it on a couple of occasions recently despite making the individual’s salary expectations explicitly clear from the outset when making the initial introduction.

It’s understandable that the employer ultimately makes the decision on how much they feel each individual is “worth” in relation to an opportunity within their business, but if there is a difference between the salary expectation of the candidate and the employers’ valuation of their skills and experience, this really should be addressed as early as possible in the hiring process to save wasted time and to improve the chances of securing the desired individual.

 If it’s not dealt with until the point of offer, the underlying message sent to the jobseeker is: “we think you’re good, but not as good as you think you are” and all the faith and buy-in that has been built up during the interview process is immediately put at risk. The jobseeker, believing they’d gone through this process with their minimum expectations established, can feel undervalued and at worst, misled. There’s a high chance they’ll decline the offer and walk away from the process with a very low impression of the firm employer brand. 

Managed properly this can be avoided:

• ·         If a candidate’s salary expectation is above the level the employer is prepared to go, they shouldn’t be entering the interview process, unless it’s made clear to them that they are asking for a salary above budget and would need to lower their expectation. They may choose to walk away, but better that happen now than later in the process. 

• ·         If the candidate is within budget range but they are pricing themselves out of the running by asking for a higher salary level than other comparable applicants in process, this should be addressed as soon as this becomes clear. They may not be aware they are asking for a salary level above market rate and may just need their expectations managed before reaching the end of the process.

These conversations can easily be held by recruiters who ultimately want to assist all parties in reaching a successful conclusion to the process. They should also be able to help in identifying early on if a difference in salary expectation is likely to be a deal-breaker or something that can be managed.

The urgency compromise in Recruitment/Hiring

Having had over 10 years experience of working within recruitment, I can safely say that timing is everything when it comes to a firm successfully managing a hiring process.  Unfortunately I need to add that the majority of firms fail to recognise this and demand urgency when it’s not required and then expect patience when they should be acting quickly.

The outcome can greatly impact the calibre of candidates that are put forward for vacancies by recruiters, and can lead to employers missing out on talent they were hoping to secure.

On many occasions I have been instructed with a vacancy on a Wednesday or Thursday and have been told that the hiring manager is hoping to have CV’s through by the weekend. A shortlist has been sent to the hiring manager within this timescale, but then there has been no feedback on the CV’s until later the following week, or even longer in some cases.

This to me is wasted time. If the hiring manager is prepared to wait a week before reviewing CV’s and arranging interviews, they could have allowed the recruiter another week to spend time finding the best available candidates for their shortlist. Admittedly a good recruiter will already have an existing database of jobseekers and will be able to react quickly, but a good recruiter should also be able to go to the market to find new talent who may be even closer to the requirements of the role and produce a definitive shortlist at the end of this process.

A good proportion of the vacancies we have filled within my business have been with applicants who were not actively looking for their next move at the time. Having been approached and briefed about a suitable role however, they have considered the opportunity, met with us to discuss it in more detail and have gone ahead with an application. This process can rarely happen within 24-48 hours and rushing to receive CV’s will therefore rule out the largest potential candidate market available; those who aren’t actively looking (yet!).

There is also a high chance of missing out on candidates altogether when encouraging recruiters to send through only readily available applicants and then taking too long before reviewing CV’s. These candidates are likely to be very active in their job search and, even if they are still available a week or two down the line, they may not want to arrange further interviews if they’re already progressing to final stages elsewhere. This can put a supposedly “urgent” process back to the drawing board two to three weeks after it started.

The recruitment process rarely runs completely smoothly as there are too many variables affecting the outcome and causing delays. The whole process is generally a task that needs to be completed in addition to the hiring manager’s already busy workload. It’s therefore extremely important to put in place a realistic timetable for the recruitment process, and if you want to attract the best talent for your firm it may be worth allowing a little more time for a thorough search to be carried out before asking to review CV’s from a recruiter.

If you've enjoyed this blog, please do share any comments/views/experiences you've had in relation to this topic 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. 

London Bridge pics!

I'm afraid I've neglected the blog recently due to the arrival of my beautiful little daughter.

More content to follow soon, and more frequent blogging is already on my New Years resolutions list!

I've just added a subscription link to the blog, so please sign up (on the right).

In the meantime, I thought I'd share some recent pics I've taken from London Bridge whilst on my daily commute...

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. 

What to do if recruiters don't seem to be helping you?

Firstly, I want to start this blog by stressing that it’s in every recruiter’s interest to help a job seeker secure new employment. If there is a reasonable chance they can help, they will certainly try to do so. 

There are however plenty of instances where a recruiter feels they are unable to assist. This could be for a number of reasons; some perfectly logical, and some based on the recruiters own instincts. 

They may for example concentrate on permanent vacancies and struggle to secure interviews for individuals with a series of temporary placements over a number of years (logical). Or they may just feel they have met with several other individuals with similar experience who they feel would be more likely to be of interest to their clients (instinct).

So what do you do when you find yourself in a position where the recruiters who hold the vacancies you are interested in don’t seem able to able or willing to help you? 

Firstly, you need to assess whether it’s just the market conditions that are the hold up (perfectly likely over the last few years). If not, you need to get some honest feedback from them. It may be that you’re being unrealistic in the opportunities you are applying for (lacking suitable skills & experience, being overqualified, being too expensive etc), or it may be for reasons an inexperienced recruiter is a little uncomfortable raising with you (e.g. poor grammar on written communications with them, concern over interpersonal skills, your approach, etc). Try to find out the issue and in some circumstances, be willing to take on constructive feedback.

Whatever it may be, it’s never personal and can be invaluable feedback to take on board. Remember that a recruiter has every incentive to place you with their clients and will want to do so if they can. If you can take their feedback and use it, it’s likely to have a positive impact on your career prospects.

It may mean having to reassess your career expectations, even if only for the short term. If several recruiters have fed back to you that you don’t have the level or type of experience required for the move you want to make, they could be on to something. In this circumstance, can they give some advice on how to address this or keep you posted on stepping stone opportunities that can get you there? 

If you find that you’re still banging your head against a brick wall and getting nowhere with your job search through recruiters, you may experience more success applying for roles directly with employers. Work out which firms you’d like to work for and add the ‘Careers’ page of their website in to a ‘job search’ folder on your internet browser. Check the sites weekly to see if any new suitable positions have become available. 

A bit of networking (real life and social) could also strike gold. Speak to your network of contacts and former colleagues to ensure they know you’re looking for a move. Make sure you have a professional online profile, by setting up an account on LinkedIn and update it frequently.