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?

Yahoo and the flexible working debate...

Since publishing my last blog on flexible working, the topic has hit the headlines in a big way with debate raging amongst the business community on the pros & cons of working from home. I’d love to say it was my blog that triggered all this, but I suspect it may have had slightly more to do with the leaked internal memo from an HR representative at Yahoo, informing their staff that the business was putting an end to all “work from home arrangements”.  

The tone of the memo suggests that flexible working isn't working at Yahoo, and the move was to encourage greater collaboration between staff by working side by side – literally.

This bold move, driven by CEO, Marissa Mayer, has been widely criticised as being a backwards step, with accusations that Mayer is “out of touch” with the modern working demographic (not helped by reports that she paid to have a personal nursery built adjacent to her offices in order to be closer to her son).

There have subsequently been numerous blogs and articles quoting unnamed members of Yahoo staff who've said that people have indeed been abusing the system and that the move is a necessary change in culture to help weed out the slackers who are holding the business back.

(Photo by Chiot's Run)

So what will be the outcome of this change at Yahoo? There may well be an improvement in output from some of those who have slacked off when unsupervised, but are these really employees you’d want to retain in a business? If they’re just plain lazy, presumably they’ll now just take their foot off the gas at the first opportunity anyway; when their manager is away, for example. Or on lunch. Or in meetings. Are they really going to be monitored around the clock?

And what about those employees who are currently productive when working from home? Will they be even more productive in the workplace? Or will they just resent the change in circumstance and look elsewhere, to join a business that trusts them enough to allow them to retain their current working arrangements? That could signal a mass exodus of talent if so, and when hiring to replace these individuals, Yahoo is unlikely to appeal to those looking for a degree of flexibility on work/life balance.

To me, a blanket ban on working from home seems a step too far. Flexible working is a privilege that requires trust between employer and employee, but managed properly it can and will work for most businesses. It may mean getting everyone together for face to face meetings on a regular basis, and there may be limitations on the percentage of time individuals can spend away from the office, but there is usually a balance that can work for all parties. And if someone just can’t motivate themselves to work from home, they should be given the opportunity to work in the office or to find work elsewhere. Why let them spoil the system for everyone else?

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!

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