‘Get it right first time’

Getting it right first time can avoid much costs and heartache when it comes to recruitment.

If after going through the exhaustive process of filling a position, what happens if you discover that the candidate does not live up to expectations? They might not have the necessary skills, may struggle to fit in with the organisational culture or perhaps they have behavioural problems that weren’t noticed during the interview and qualification process.

Some people can be trained, coached and mentored, yet others simply do not fit the job or your organisation and will subsequently have a very negative impact on productivity and morale.

These candidates will incur costs during the time they are employed and their level of productivity, the termination of their employment and, finally, in having to go through the whole recruitment process again.

If a poorly performing employee costs an organisation the business from a major client then the negative effects will escalate dramatically. The severity of the costs and liability to the organisation will of course vary according to the seniority of the position, the type of work involved and the level of skills required.

These costs will continue to escalate the longer the individual remains in the position.

Using sound hiring methods, innovative technologies and pre-screening processes will eliminate the majority of such personnel problems. Selecting the right person for the right position is essential to maintaining a satisfactory work environment and to achieving business goals and objectives.

As proven over and over again, substantial time and money will be wasted if the right candidate is not selected right from the beginning.

A large percentage of problems stem from managers who have limited experience recruiting staff, outdated procedures for recruitment or the lack of time or resources to do the job properly.

Mismatches between the new employee and the organisation arise due to a poorly defined job description – which may not have been truthful to the actual role – or the reference checking may have been insufficient.

Hiring methods are usually divided into two key categories:

• formal methods involve the use of advertisements, defined interview/assessment procedures and recruitment agencies.
• informal methods include word-of-mouth recommendations, approaching competitor’s staff or employing family members and friends.

The obvious benefits of informal methods are the time and costs saved by alleviating the need to review hundreds of resumes and lengthy interview processes. The new recruit is likely to be known and have existing knowledge about the company and the position.

Informal methods are certainly more popular with smaller organisations. Problems arise where the candidate is not viewed in a totally objective manner, no “real” skills or behavioural assessment is conducted and assumptions are made based on social and personal relations that do not transfer well to a working environment.

Other disadvantages include an untapped pool of suitable and possibly more appropriate recruits, leaving the organisation open to accusations of indirect discrimination.

Research conducted in North America and the UK suggests that many small to medium businesses who make greater use of word-of-mouth methods are unaware of indirect discrimination.

Since true talent is so sparse, people with the required skills are able to choose the type of work they do, where they do it, and how much they get paid. Aside from mistakes or having inadequate employment practices, bad hiring can be attributed to the fact that a lot of established formal employment practices do not provide the complete solution.

This is where Resourcing Partnership can really add value.

Modern globalisation increasingly changing the labour market

Globalisation requires us to move faster to keep up with the competition. The fall of the Berlin wall, the growing influence of the Internet and the rise of China and India, mean that the global labour market is also becoming competitive.

Three major trends now characterise the future of the global labour market. These are: a willingness to be internationally mobile, the globalisation of labour markets and the impact of ‘Generation Y’.

Recruitment research has noted an increase in the amount of people willing to be mobile in the international labour market, indicating people are keener to move around.

Willingness to work abroad depends on whether people want to live and work in a new environment and whether they are tired of their home country. Working abroad can also be driven by the need to get closer to relatives or learn a new language or culture.

Another reason for working overseas is the economic situation at home. This isn’t the actual state of the economy of the home country, but its perceived state. This perception can be a result of a short-term financial crisis or a slow rate of growth, as we’ve seen in the UK construction sector.

Then we have a major trend in the globalisation of labour markets. In 2006 barely anybody used search engines like Google for job-hunting. By 2009 this method was used by over 40% of job seekers.

When looking for jobs in local markets, 41% of respondents in the Global Talent Mobility Research study said they would use search engines. When job-hunting internationally, this number rose to 49%.

Besides the use of search engines, important developments have emerged with job boards, affecting the effectiveness of international job-hunting. As in the case of search engines, this made it easier to search for jobs in the global labour market.

Three types of job boards can be identified:

• Local job boards exist to search for jobs within a home country, and within a local labour market.
• Job boards abroad are job boards for a variety of markets in specific countries, however many of these job boards aren’t user friendly.
• International job boards combine local job boards into one search and allow a job-hunter to search for similar jobs across multiple countries simultaneously.

People looking for a job abroad make even greater use of social media – 35% of respondents in the Global Talent Mobility Research said they would use social media when searching for jobs. Just three years ago, this wasn’t the case: respondents to the 2006 study didn’t mention social media at all.

Then we have ageing workforces due to the baby-boom generation. These workers will soon retire. The next generation, Generation Y, is anybody born between 1980 and the early 1990s.

Gen Y will form a bigger part of the active workforce in the coming years, affecting attitudes towards employment in general. The entry of Gen Y into the workforce and the simultaneous decline of the baby-boomers will have a notable impact on the global labour market.

Three characteristics for Gen Y are: they were raised using computers and other digital devices, resulting in a greater use of digital job-hunting methods; they are more predisposed to studying abroad, resulting in students leaving their home country; and it’s common for them to go backpacking after finishing college or university, aided by today’s cheaper flights.

Gen Y are therefore more international and more outward looking than their predecessors, impacting levels of international labour mobility.

Research shows that the younger somebody is, the more willing he or she is to be mobile in the global labour market. The desire to explore different cultures, the opportunity to meet new people, to link up with overseas family, or simply a better climate are more important reasons for this age group.

Employers should be prepared and act appropriately to every event and trend affecting future global labour markets. Resourcing Partnership is here to guide them through the maze of current trends.

Recruiters and businesses should work together to face skills challenges

The UK’s employment model, with its flexible ways of working, has been the engine behind the unprecedented growth of the last decade. Now, as the economy falters, it is vital that we preserve what makes our economy different.

The future holds many uncertainties. But one thing is sure: the next decade will see employers facing more difficult choices and tougher competition in the acquisition of talent and skills.

Even against a backdrop of economic decline, the impact of demographic change, skills gaps, technology and globalisation will continue to focus the energies of employers. Placing the right individual in the right role remains a fundamental issue for business against a backdrop of increasing skill shortages and the war for talent.

More than £7 billion is spent annually on recruitment. Therefore poor decisions can cost organisations millions with damage to their reputation as a key risk.

The UK is facing a continuing skills gap. Recruiters and employers need to work together to maximise their access to different pools of talent and get the best from the various government schemes set up to address this problem.

Globalisation means that employers will feel the effects of economic turbulence. Regardless of the domestic labour market, firms will continue to compete globally for talent. The success of the recruitment industry in building international networks will become a vital resource for employers in the future.

Continuing competition for highly skilled people means that companies must strive to stay ahead in attracting and retaining the best employees. The specialist market knowledge that recruiters such as Resourcing Partnership provide is a valuable asset in this struggle, as is the ability to deploy a range of different attraction channels.

The UK has introduced a significant amount of employment legislation in the past decade. Employers are increasingly dependent on outside support to help them keep abreast of legal changes and recruiters are invaluable allies in helping them negotiate this minefield.

The progressive employment policies that have placed the UK at the vanguard of the European employment market rely on the input of highly competent recruiters whose work will remain critical in building and maintaining a truly flexible labour market, particularly to ensure that businesses are adequately prepared and resourced both during the current economic recession and as we move out of the recession.

Candidate demands are growing. People are seeking more balanced lives and want to make a difference through their work. The 21st century candidate has become harder to attract and retain, which makes an effective approach to recruitment all the more necessary.

Employers are facing difficult market conditions as economic turmoil adds to increasingly competitive pressures. Employers need to balance management costs, skills shortages, increasing legislation and the need to demonstrate CSR not just to their customers but also to their potential workforce.

As a leading recruitment firm, we are constantly developing our skills at a corporate and a personal level, so we can respond to this rapidly changing environment. Our role in building workforces which are robust enough to confront these new competitive conditions cannot be underestimated.

We provide significant added value on a number of fronts, from specialist profiling services and pay benchmarking, to ‘temperature taking’ of current market conditions. We can identify new approaches and new talent pools, and offer strategic recommendations such as the flexible options of interim management.

Technology, globalisation, legislation and skills shortages challenge all those interested in recruitment. We remain alert to these trends, and are adapting to the changing economy in order to deliver high quality services for our clients.

Recruitment firms are important ‘face of the client’

Recruiting today is about an inviting, straightforward experience which integrates a specialist recruitment agency and in doing so creates a much faster and effective hiring process.

A trusted recruiter is invaluable in the process of engaging top candidates. They have the ability to focus company recruiting strategy on optimising candidate relationships.

As the candidate application progresses, the recruiter is the one to guide the candidate through the process, ensuring all details for a requirement are understood and giving the candidate confidence to perform to their best.

The recruiter is responsible for building a rapport, not just with regular contact and updates on the process, but with empathy for the candidate’s needs.

In the current market, the most talented candidates are likely to have multiple opportunities available to them and the trusted recruiter will know each opportunity, at each stage and the preferred candidate option.

This knowledge will enable the recruiter to advise the company when to make a considered decision to modify the recruitment process if required in order to hire the best talent.

From first contact, candidates look to their recruiter as an extension of the company itself and view their actions as an illustration of company views, actions, process and expected culture. The most effective recruiter will conduct themselves with professionalism, providing an exceptional level of service.

As a recruiter, we are the first contact for the majority of candidates and are often viewed as the figurehead for the client’s business. It is the recruiter who is responsible for guiding the candidate right the way through from on boarding to integration into company culture, and this is where we add the greatest value.

Since the 1980s, Resourcing Partnership has been shaping its own approach to food industry recruitment. Employment agencies typically look at the short-term goal of filling a vacancy, while Resourcing Partnership prefers to work hand-in-hand with clients and jobseekers to shape long-term objectives and build prosperity. Resourcing Partnership is led by people with a construction background who have moved into the resourcing area.

Acquiring high-skilled workers requires high-level strategy

Companies in the food production industries are concerned about the lack of available talent. Globally, the working-age population is on the decline while the number of retirees is on the rise.

At the same time, low-skilled workers exceed demand while high-skilled ones are in short supply. For the foreseeable future, it appears there will be more buyers – employers – than there is ‘product’ to buy, in the form of talent.

How is it that, globally, 200 million people are available for hire, while 34% of companies around the world report having difficulty filling jobs? Quite simply, the demand for skilled talent vastly exceeds the supply. The distance between the world’s available workers and the skills that are needed is more than a gap. It’s a chasm, and it’s only going to get worse.

Developing a long-term, competitive workforce is a complicated business and many interrelated issues come into play.

Resourcing Partnership’s experience as a recruitment and outsourcing provider has enabled us to develop an understanding of the fundamental factors that contribute to talent acquisition.

Firstly, we help firms understand their market. Time and again, we come across companies who believe there is a shortage of available talent when, in fact, the employer simply isn’t doing enough to compete for the talent.

Without access to regional data, many firms don’t realise that their salary offerings are not competitive for the area. Once they have a better understanding of the market, they are able to reshape their recruitment efforts, resulting in higher quality candidates.

We also help our clients understand that hiring needs are never static. However, even industries such as food production that traditionally need to expand or contract their workforces on demand can build a sustainable competitive workforce.

Our solutions enable firms to leverage market intelligence and technology to meet near-term needs on an on-going basis, as well as to identify, recruit and retain contract employees with long-term growth potential. Outsourcing this kind of just-in-time recruiting can be crucial in a fast-paced business environment.

Resourcing Partnership also helps clients recognise and value potential as ever-changing technology and business approaches demand a more flexible workforce.

The more competitive companies will focus on a candidate’s capacity for transferable skills such as problem-solving and complex thought, as well as his or her fit within an industry’s values and culture.

Every available indicator suggests that competition for talent will continue to be fierce. Those who build the best workforces will have done so with an eye toward retaining them. After all, what good is training someone who gets poached by the competition?

With the talent shortage here to stay, victory will come to those who cultivate human resources in new ways. We can’t just assume that talent can be bought, because it makes the assumption that supply will always be adequate and that people will perform consistently in any work environment.

It would be misleading to suggest that developing an effective talent acquisition strategy is easy. It takes time and expertise as it relates to economic context, industry trends and market dynamics. Oftentimes, this means bringing in the right partners to help recruit high-quality talent – and this is where Resourcing Partnership really adds value.

“Bad hires” can cost a company dear if proper checks aren’t in place

Proper background checks should ensure a company doesn’t end up with “bad hires” that could cost them dear.

It’s true that, faced with the tough realities of the recent economic recession, companies across the board have undertaken steps to reduce unnecessary overhead and expenses.

But businesses that recognise the potential risks created by “bad hires” are wisely heeding the old adage: “Penny wise, pound foolish.” Good companies recognise the importance of carefully vetting job applicants before bringing them on board as employees.

Thorough background checking is a key component in protecting assets, customers and reputation. Many organisations unknowingly make common mistakes in employment background screening that can result in undue risks and security gaps.

Verifying employment history and education credentials is a critical step to ensure that the most qualified candidate is hired, but this is a step that companies often neglect. The cost of a bad hire is not negligible – according to a survey conducted by Right Management, the cost of replacing a bad hire can be up to five times an individual’s salary.

Employment history and education are the most common areas where the background check identifies adverse information. Surveys show that there’s around a 30% discrepancy rate in information provided by candidates regarding their educational qualifications.

Some candidates will have attended classes but not graduated or passed; some may have graduated but not with the qualification that’s claimed; and others may list degrees bought from ‘diploma mills’.

It’s also important to verify prior employment history as it’s common for applicants to exaggerate titles, job duties, accomplishments and salary history. Contacting previous employers to confirm titles and prior job duties can help ensure the applicant’s honesty, integrity and level of competence for the job.

The risks mitigated in screening your workforce segment are similar to those of your permanent staff – workplace violence, theft, fraud, for example – but this population goes unscreened in many organisations. Do you know more about the background of the new marketing administrator than the person who cleans your MD’s office each night?

There are a number of reasons risk-savvy companies run thorough background screens on applicants before inviting them in to their business and, in turn, the daily lives of their customers and employees.

Bad hires may put companies at risk of negligent hiring claims. In such claims, employers can be held liable when they hire someone that causes harm – often to third parties like the employer’s customers or other employees – where the employer knew or reasonably should have known that the person was unfit for the job.

Where the company has an established contract with its customers, failing to weed out “unfit” employees may increase the company’s likelihood of losing accounts or incurring potential breach of contract claims. This is particularly true where the terms of the contract impose an explicit or implied duty to use “due care” in fulfilling the terms of the contract.

New ‘on-demand’ recruitment solution required for today’s marketplace

A new ‘on-demand’ recruitment solution is required for organisations to be a success in today’s marketplace. Investing in hiring management systems, coupled with a genuine partnership approach, are vital to responding quickly and flexibly to organisations’ needs.

Talent Acquisition has changed dramatically over the last fifteen years. It is not a simple process of connecting a person to a job and a job to a person. People are difference makers, and they are the organisation’s number one asset. Organisations that are the best at talent acquisition become the leaders of their respective industries.

During the last fifteen years, there has been significant change in how organisations can best connect the dots to assist in hiring best-fit talent. Concurrently, there has been heavy emphasis on reducing the overall cost of acquiring talent. Then you have to consider the increased emphasis on legal compliance.

Job postings have all but eliminated costly media advertising as a method to source candidates. Job boards touch the masses quickly and cost-effectively. But doing this alone is labelled a “post and pray” process – are employers sure they are driving the right candidate traffic? How does you identify the right candidate amongst the masses? It takes a lot of time to properly digest this mass of candidate information.

Resourcing Partnership has invested heavily in management systems such as Applicant Tracking Systems, job board aggregators, Contact Relationship Management tools, and search engine optimisation platforms. Screening and assessment instruments continue to help predict best-fit hires.

This is because today’s market demands a new on-demand recruitment solution: one that can be turned on and off or scaled up and down based on real time hiring requirements; a solution that is both efficient and effective; and one that is predictable, repeatable, and consistent.

The new resourcing marketplace also needs:

• a price point that will support direct candidate sourcing to satisfy difficult-to-fill positions;
• a solution that is enabled by best-in-class technology and compliant with all legal requirements;
• a model that compliments the existing employers’ recruitment solutions;
• a recruitment solution that fits all types of organisations – large, mid-size and small firms from all market segments.

What is required is an on-demand product that can be delivered for just one or multiple openings. We accomplish this by forming a partnership with the employer. It cannot be shifting risk – both parties have responsibility and ownership. Both have an important role to play.

The best on-demand model is based on retained search principles. Each recruiting assignment is led by candidate research of targeted qualified candidates.

In order to properly identify the candidate universe, the process starts with a thorough intake call with client stakeholders. Candidates are identified, pre-qualified and screened to the benchmark candidate profile created during the intake call process. To be effective, the recruiter has to sell the job opportunity and employer brand as much as they screen for fit.

Each assignment requires a single point of contact with a professional recruiter who understands the company, the function, and the industry. The payment model is based on measurable activity and not a placement.

If done correctly, it will result in a hire. That is the desired outcome. That outcome will only occur through mutual commitment and both parties performing their respective roles. It is not good for either party to interview many candidates, especially when that activity does not net a hire.

The Importance of Specialist Recruitment Firms

There’s no doubt that the internet has seen a dramatic shift in the way that recruiters and candidates connect. Prior to the internet, recruitment companies would be tied to the publication schedules of printed media such as magazines and newspapers.

Now, online job advertisements can reach millions almost instantly. Today almost every company uses the internet at some point as part of its recruitment activities. The same shift is true for job seekers: in 2003, 45% of job seekers – according to the Society for Human Resource Management – used the internet to help find jobs. Today that figure is 94%.

But the internet hasn’t really changed how recruitment works – it has merely provided a ready mechanism to reach more people at a lower cost. If anything, this has amplified a problem, which already existed: quality versus quantity.

Sifting through lots of unsuitable CVs is not a new phenomenon. Even before the internet, organisations would find that the majority of candidates applying for a role were in some way not suitable for that role.

While this is time-wasting and frustrating, sieving through CVs is something that – quite simply – has to be done. It’s part of the evaluation process. It’s just that, with the rise of the internet, the number of people applying for each role has substantially increased, and, with it, so has the number of unsuitable CVs.

Instead of searching through a few tens of CVs, organisations may now have to review hundreds – to shortlist the same number of people. This means that the key role of recruitment agencies such as Resourcing Partnership – and the prime value we offer – is to undertake this burden on behalf of the employer.

The ideal is that employers then only have to review carefully selected CVs, each candidate already vetted and verified as capable of doing the job, located near to the role on offer and with enough experience to be taken as a good indication of a track record.

Sadly, that wasn’t always the case before the internet, and this hasn’t changed. There have been difficulties with mainstream recruitment companies, and the CIPD ‘Recruitment, Retention and Turnover’ survey found that the vast majority of organisations – some 84% – experienced difficulties with recruitment companies.

These difficulties pretty much boiled down to the same thing: not putting the right candidates in front of the customer. This was because the recruitment companies didn’t have the required knowledge to select candidates – 65% of organisations felt that recruitment companies they were dealing with lacked the specialist skills needed to intelligently select candidates.

This is why it’s important that companies use specialist recruitment companies such as ours where we have genuine and long-standing experience in the food industry.

This situation doesn’t just impact on employing organisations, it also impacts on the candidates who, for the most part, only want to go to relevant interviews and certainly don’t want to waste time chasing jobs for which they are not suitable.

The same survey highlights that only 42% of companies feel that agencies put forward suitable candidates – and that nearly half of agencies are more interested in ‘making a sale’ than they are in finding the right candidates for the role.

However, from Resourcing Partnership’s, experience we know what they want – the quality of the candidates is most important when choosing an agency, along with the quality of service from the agency.

We a specialist recruitment company, in that we are focused on a specific marketplace, which means that we are able to offer the kind of service that organisations have always wanted – or, as we believe, the way recruitment is supposed to be.

We are small enough to work with both potential employers and candidates on a one-to-one basis, so avoiding the trap of appearing as a large anonymous corporation which takes a percentage without adding much value.

We are also able to continually improve our knowledge and experience of our specific industry which helps us to be more successful at understanding our customers’ needs and in the way we communicate with candidates. This, in turn, allows us to better match candidates to specific job roles.

In many other respects, the way in which we operate is little different from the accepted norm: advertising for candidates, selecting the best, matching them to the job – it’s just that our focus means that we understand the needs of both parties which results in a higher quality service, with a greater degree of success.

It’s clear that, as a part of the recruitment mix, specialist companies such as Resourcing Partnership have an increasingly important role to play. This is especially true within industries where the candidates themselves require specialist knowledge and experience, as this makes it harder for generalist recruitment companies to learn enough about the industry to be able to offer real value.

For these industries and roles, we currently have the edge – and are confident that we can retain it.