Reputation Management - Look After Your Temps!

Over recent years, I’ve had many conversations with hiring managers in which they’ve asked about the reputation their departments hold within the market as an employer. These questions will often come at a time when a firm is struggling to attract candidates for what should be a relatively straight forward vacancy to fill, and I’ve had a couple of these conversations just recently.

On both occasions the hiring managers were concerned that a negative message may have been filtering out to the market from temporary workers they’ve had working within their teams within the last year. This may or may not have been the case, but it highlights an extremely important consideration for managing your employer reputation: LOOK AFTER YOUR TEMPS!

Recent legislation (the Agency Worker Regulations) has ensured that temporary workers are assured of equal treatment to comparable permanent employees in terms of their pay, annual leave and access to employer facilities, but legislation can only go so far.

When it comes to how welcome they are made to feel, how much time is invested in getting to know them and to what extent they are made to feel part of a team, temporary workers will experience vastly different approaches from one employer to the next, and even between different departments within the same firm.

These temporary workers may only be with an employer for a matter of weeks, but during that time they will have formed an opinion on whether the department they’ve been working in is one they’d recommend or one they’d advise others to steer clear of. Naturally their views may not always be taken as gospel, but people talk, and ‘career temps’ will already know and come in to contact with a huge number of potential hires for your firm as they move from one assignment to the next.

So, if you use interim staff in your firm, consider how much time you invest in making them feel welcome, and consider how other team members will engage with them also – do they know why they’re joining? Might they feel threatened and unwilling to assist them as a result?

Treated well, a temporary worker can make a significant positive impact on your employer reputation.

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.

The dangers of one stage interview processes

For recruiters, recruitment processes with just one stage of interviewing can be very appealing. Less time spent arranging interviews, and generally a quick process to manage with fewer decision makers for the applicant to please/upset. In most cases however, this is a false economy.

It may be convenient for an employer to reduce the time spent interviewing during busy periods or for urgent hiring requirements, and in some instances, such as when it’s for an interim assignment it’s also convenient and anticipated by the potential employee. But in other cases, these one stage processes often do not provide the opportunity for potential candidates to build up enough of a connection to the employer or hiring manager.

Recent recruitment industry surveys in the UK have shown that whilst demand for staff is on the increase, the availability of candidates is decreasing, which inevitably means that jobseekers who are actively interviewing will have more options to consider. Whilst on the one hand it’s important to move quickly in order to secure high calibre candidates, if the focus is all on speed of hire, the candidate engagement process will be compromised, which could lead to offers being rejected as candidates join competitor businesses.

For the instances when time is at a premium, adding in a 15 minute telephone interview to the recruitment process can make all the difference, even if only for the preferred applicant. It adds another layer of selection in to the process, giving the candidate confidence that they’re being selected on merit, not just availability, and crucially it allows them time to reflect on the opportunity after their first meeting, so they can follow up with any questions or raise any potential concerns they might have. The chances of them accepting any offer would undoubtedly increase and potentially save the employer having to go back to the drawing board.

Do you agree, or you do feel one interview should be sufficient to identify and attract the right candidate to your business? Please add your thoughts below. 

Financial Recruitment Continues to Make Gains (Guest Blog)

A guest blog from James McCaffrey - with a number of years of accounting experience, James now focusses on recruitment and the financial jobs market, writing for Total Jobs.

As recently documented in the latest edition of Balance Recruitment’s Quarterly Update, financial recruitment is continuing to make gains. The latest update also pointed out that there had been an increase in the number of vacancies in the financial sector, coinciding with a demand for more staff – especially those with backgrounds as Analysts or within Billing, Revenue, and financial reporting.

In a recent Google Hangout for Total Jobs, Tom Newcombe, a leading journalist for HR magazine also agreed that growth was taking place in the financial sector, pointing to figures from PWC which highlighted that by 2020, there could be an additional 200,000 financial jobs vacancies which could contribute to a 3% growth in GDP- but only if the financial sector can improve regulation.

These figures hold relevance for the wider financial industry too, as the recession has forced businesses to increase their focus on due diligence, accuracy and transparency- and in recognising the importance of sufficient monitoring; the financial sector, and indeed the financial departments across all industries have made a demonstrable commitment to tidying up processes across the board. It’s this commitment that is reflected not only in the increased number of vacancies, but also in the roles that are currently high in demand. In the same session, Jane Clarke, Head of Campus Recruitment at Barclays Bank, also noted that over the next year, the biggest intake of new graduates would be in the fields of compliance and legal capabilities, roles centred on analysis, monitoring and managing processes efficiently.

There have long been calls for more transparency in business, especially when it comes to balancing the books and reporting on performance – now that more businesses are making a commitment to delivering on transparency, they are starting to recognise the vital importance of hiring teams of skilled people who can deliver the processes, monitoring and accurate reporting that will go into making sure that finances are in order and that balance sheets add up.

When businesses can present themselves to the public, stakeholders and potential investors, as well as potential staff that they are committed to honesty and thorough processes, it helps to boost the reputation of company, making it more attractive for business opportunities and skilled jobseekers – the figures reflect the truism that investing more in staff makes sense for all areas of business. Jane also pointed out that graduates who had been studying during the worst phases of the recession were keen to ensure that they found work in companies that were seen to have honest practices – in as much as companies of all sizes have re-evaluated their recruiting criteria since the worst days of the crisis, jobseekers are also showing a desire to work for a company which has a will to organise its finances and processes too. 

Personal Profiles on a CV - do it right or don't do it at all

I referred to Personal Profiles on a blog late last year giving advice on writing an effective CV, and said I’d come back to the subject in a separate blog soon. I may be stretching the definition of “soon” leaving it 10 months, but here goes…

The first question to consider about Personal Profiles on a CV is whether it’s worth having one at all, and that’s a debate on which I could argue for either side. Having been a recruiter for well over 10 years now, I wouldn’t like to guess how many CV’s I’ve reviewed in my time, but let’s just say it’s a lot. From those, I would argue that the majority of the CV’s which have Personal Profiles would stand no less chance of progressing with an application if the Personal Profile were removed.

There are two main approaches people take with these profiles:

1.       Opinion based about the personal qualities the individual believes they hold, which they wish to share

2.       Factual about the experience and informative about the specific career focus of the individual

The problem with the first approach is that the reader/hirer is often offered no real evidence to back up the claims made in these profiles, and can therefore only be satisfied that this is just how the individual would like to appear. Claims to be hardworking and proactive are worthless if examples are not provided, and it’s far better to include this information where it might be expected elsewhere on the CV – when detailing your experience/achievements within your employment history.

The other common problem with this approach is that the same qualities/attributes are nearly always used.

“I enjoy working in a team but work equally well on my own”

If this is a phrase you recognise from your own CV, don’t worry you’re not alone (trust me!), but it may be worth taking it off for something a little more original.

It’s my opinion therefore that the first approach is worth avoiding altogether. The second approach can be useful to give the recruiter/hiring manager a brief summary of the individual’s experience and career focus, and displays that the potential employee can communicate pertinent information in a concise manner. An example would be as follows:

·         I am a 2012 CIMA Qualified Management Accountant with experience gained within the Legal sector, including financial analysis, budget preparation and supervision of an Assistant Accountant. I am now seeking a more commercial role in a larger international firm where I can improve my business partnering skills.

The third approach (not having one at all) is also an option, as long as it’s very clear from the rest of your CV what experience you hold and that the career path you are following is evident.

Do you agree or have a different viewpoint you’d like to share? Please be bold and add your thoughts/comments below!

Interviewing and attracting passive talent...

This is a subject I’ve been meaning to write about for a while, but I’ve been prompted in to action after seeing the following Tweet last week:

If you're asking passive talent "So tell me why you want to work here..." You're Doing It Wrong. #facepalm #talent42
— Amybeth Hale (@researchgoddess) June 27, 2013

‘Passive talent’ is a phrase I’m sure anyone involved in recruitment & hiring will be very familiar with, but for the benefit of those new to hiring, it’s a catch-all phrase to describe high calibre potential employees who are not actively looking for a career move, but who might move if the right opportunity were to find them.

It’s widely accepted that around 80% of the workforce in the UK (or 79% worldwide according to those in the know at LinkedIn) fall in to the category of being ‘passive’, whilst the remainder are those who are proactively searching for a move.

When searching for the best available talent for a vacancy, it therefore makes sense to be fishing from both ponds, rather than just posting an advert online and hoping that the best candidate will fall within the 20%. Another widely held view is that the 80% contains a higher proportion of quality candidates – those who are most effective in their given role, and are therefore well rewarded and happier in their existing employment.

All common sense so far, but when it comes to actually engaging with ‘passive talent’ many employers fail to adapt their communications and interview questions accordingly to reflect the fact that they are the pursuers and not vice versa - as highlighted so well in the Tweet above. Incidentally, accordingly to her Twitter bio, Amybeth is a 'Senior Talent Sourcer' for Microsoft in the US - a business and brand which I'm sure doesn't exactly struggle to attract potential hires.

These candidates do not expect to answer why they want to work for your organisation or why they want to leave their current employer (certainly at first stage interview). They might not want to do either…  yet!

They must have some level of interest to have made it through to interview, but there is still work to be done to move them from being merely interested on an exploratory level to being prepared to leave a job they were otherwise happy in to join your firm.

If the individual has been introduced via a recruiter/head-hunter you have an advantage. The recruiter should be able to provide more information on what makes the applicant tick – what would appeal to them, and what their current position might lack.

Things to consider:

·   

    Standard interview questions: do these need adapting? Instead of ‘Why do you want to work for us?’, how about: ‘What would you be looking for from an organisation if you were to move from your current employer?’

·   The interview process: does the direct line manager typically get involved at first stage interview? If not, this needs to change. The candidate will want to see who they would be working for if they’re to take the process any further. Could you also bring in someone who would work in the team alongside the individual, who can champion the business to them on  a peer-to-peer level?

·   Selling the opportunity: have the interviewers been briefed on how to sell the company and the opportunity they can offer? Do they all know there is more of a need to do so?

In summary, I’m not suggesting you should have to jump through hoops to entice someone to your organisation, but by recognising an individual is already content in their current position and making a few tweaks accordingly to the interview process, you are more likely to secure the best available talent for your business when the opportunity arises.

Do you have any tips/advice for employers looking to attract passive talent? Or any related experience you’d like to share. If so, please add to the comments below…

#AskBalance - Career Advice for accountancy and finance

Back in April, we started a new 'ask the expert'-style feature at Balance Recruitment - #AskBalance

First up as our resident expert was Tony Vickers. Tony heads up our accounting division recruiting in to Commerce & Industry. He has this year been crowned 'Best Permanent Consultant' at the Global Recruiters Awards, and 'Recruiter of the Year' in the Recruiter Awards for Excellence.

See below one of the questions answered by Tony, and click here to see the full feature. 


I'm a qualified accountant looking for my first role in industry.  What are my options?

Completing your accountancy training in practice is a solid grounding for a move into industry.  Whether you qualify as an ACCA or ACA or in a small, mid tier or top 4 practice; there are plenty of options for you.  The most common move for someone at a newly qualified level would be to take a role either in internal audit, group finance or financial accounting.  It is less common for newly qualified accountants to take a first step into a commercial/analytical role which tend come once you have cut your teeth in industry in a more traditional accounting role.  Generally those FTSE 250 businesses tend to favor people with a ‘top 4’ background however this is not always the case with those training in a smaller firm tending to gain a greater breadth of experience which is valued.