Recruiter- March 2015 by Redactive Media Group

March 2015

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BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE FOR RECRUITMENT AND RESOURCING PROFESSIONALS

Danny Harmer The chief people officer at Metro Bank reveals why she is more interested in a smile than previous banking experience

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March 2015

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RECRUITMENT FAILURES

THE CHALLENGE

Successful talent acquisition is down to the project management of the entire recruitment process

Skype called on Rethink Talent Management to find a talent pool of broadcast media engineers

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SOURCING TOOLS Technology can be used to not only source new people but to engage with them at every stage

Recruitment Matters 11/02/2015 10:34

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Contents

Let’s start with why licensing is essential for umbrella companies. The lack of a clear, black-and-white guidance from HM Revenue & Customs about what defines compliance has created a rather Kafka-esque environment for users and providers of umbrella services alike. A 1919 story by Franz Kafka, In the Penal Colony, described punishment meted out to wrongdoers by a machine that carved the details of the crime in the person’s back. At the moment of death, the person being punished learned the nature of his crime by recognising the words being carved into his back. The current grey areas around compliance, for both onshore and off-shore intermediaries, strikes us as a less extreme version of Kafka’s vision: you know you’re in the wrong when HMRC moves in. Users have a right to know which providers are definitely compliant, and not have to guess who is telling the truth and who isn’t. Recruitment agencies need a level playing field. A licence should be a basic minimum standard. Consumers, whether candidates or employers, have a right to know whether a recruitment business has met a legally mandated minimum standard to operate. If a business goes on to merit membership in an organisation dedicated to higher professionalism, that’s a bonus. Licensing will save time, money and guesswork. There will be a body that is responsible to the public at large administering the requirement. Whether a business has a licence or not will be a matter of easily accessible public record. For another voice on the matter, see recruiter Paul Farrer’s comments on p19. Let’s look ahead this month to a warm spring!

Peter Searle

The countdown to the May election has begun. Topping our wish list of actions for the next government is licensing — licensing for both recruitment agencies and for umbrella companies. 34

NEWS Resourcing visions of the future

Two in-house experts share their predictions for recruitment’s increasingly sophisticated future

Horizon looks to future talent to power its plants

The nuclear power company is developing the next generation with its own grad and apprentice programmes 7

FEATURES 28 COVER STORY Danny Harmer, chief people officer at Metro Bank 34 Tools to engage Sourcing hard-to-find candidates is only one half of the equation; bridging the gap between candidate identification and engagement is vital

Make use of your mapping

REGULARS

ADP’s Isabelle Hung on using your research partners wisely

12 Tumblr 19 Interaction

Tech & tools: Creating effective talent pools

19 19 21

ANALYSIS 14 Sector Analysis Hospitality & Leisure 17 Global Spotlight on Dubai 24 Insight Project manage recruitment for best chance of success

Soapbox: Paul Farrer Ricky Martin Soundbites 27 The Challenge Rethink Talent Management and Skype 41 Movers & Shakers Industry moves 42 Bloggers with Bite:

Matt Churchward

WHO’S HIRING? 38 Arrows Group 39 Search

DeeDee Doke, Editor

Scan here to get your own copy of Recruiter

EDITORIAL Editor: DeeDee Doke T: +44 (0)20 7880 7601 deedee.doke@recruiter.co.uk Reporters: Sarah Marquet T: +44 (0)20 7880 7606 sarah.marquet@recruiter.co.uk; Graham Simons T: +44 (0)20 7880 7603 graham.simons@recruiter.co.uk Contributing writers: Colin Cottell, Sue Weekes Production editor: Vanessa Townsend T: +44 (0)20 7880 7602 vanessa.townsend@recruiter.co.uk Art editor: Adrian Taylor ADVERTISING Business development manager: Tom Culley T: +44 (0)20 7880 7607 tom.culley@recruiter. co.uk Senior sales executive: Lisa-Jane Parker +44 (0)20 7880 7610 lisa-jane.parker@recruiter.co.uk Recruitment advertising: Amalia Zafeiratou T+44 (0)20 7880 7608 amalia@redactive.co.uk Fax +44 (0)20 7880 7553 PRODUCTION Production executive: Rachel Young T+44 (0)20 7880 6209 rachel.young@redactive.co.uk PUBLISHING Publishing director: Aaron Nicholls T: +44 (0)20 7880 8547 aaron.nicholls@redactive.co.uk RECRUITER AWARDS Events: Rebecca West T: +44 (0)20 7880 6236 rebecca.west@redactive.co.uk CIRCULATION and SUBSCRIPTIONS To receive a regular copy of Recruiter, the leading magazine for recruitment and resourcing professionals, telephone +44 (0)20 8950 9117 or email recruiter@abacusemedia.com • Recruiter is also available to people who do not meet our terms of control: Annual subscription rate for 12 issues: £29.99 UK £35 Europe and Rest of the World • To purchase reprints or multiple copies of the magazine, contact Ryan Hadden T: +44 (0)20 7880 7618 ryan.hadden@redactive.co.uk

Total average net circulation between 1 July 2013 & 30 June 2014 – 18,994. Recruiter is also sent to all REC members

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CONTRIBUTIONS Contributions are invited, but when not accepted will be returned only if accompanied by a fully stamped and addressed envelope. Articles should be emailed. No responsibility can be taken for drawings, photographs or literary contributions during delivery, transmission or in the editor’s hands. © 2015 Redactive Media Group. All rights reserved. This publication (and any part thereof) may not be reproduced, transmitted or stored in print or electronic format (including but not limited to any online service, any database or any part of the internet) or in any other format in any media whatsoever, without the prior written permission of Redactive Media Group. Redactive Media Group accepts no liability for the accuracy of the contents or any opinions expressed herein. The publishers cannot accept liability for any loss arising from the late appearance or non-publication of any advertisement for any reason whatsoever. ISSN 1475-7478

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RECRUITER

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EXPERTS SHARE THEIR RESOURCING VISIONS Assessment to determine a candidate’s resilience and adaptability, the individual brand of the line manager as a driver of candidate attraction and a specific talent strategy to integrate permanent and contractor hires — these points will be crucial to future recruitment success as resourcing practice becomes increasingly more sophisticated, leading resourcing professionals say. Sharing their visions of resourcing exclusively with Recruiter recently were Brian Dean, chief people officer at financial services industry consultancy Anchura Partners, and Simon Hallett, head of resourcing for retailer TJX Europe. Dean, who was previously head of talent & resourcing for Vodafone, suggested that global sourcing strategies will provide organisations with a competitive advantage. “Domestic talent pools are no longer capable of delivering against the demand requirements — therefore it’s even more important to have a multi-channel sourcing strategy, supported by an employer brand which connects to a culturally diverse global talent base,” he said. With quality of hire becoming firmly entrenched as the most important measure of recruitment success, Dean predicted that companies will “sacrifice time and cost-to-hire for great talent”. Hallett suggested that a key challenge for organisations will be to take a more proactive stance in exploring their future talent needs. This will mean they must “improve forecasting approaches to help identify where to talent pool and to invest”, he said. Hallett, who previously was group head of talent acquisition for Lloyds Banking Group, also predicted

TEMPO TO SHUT DECISION ‘NOT TAKEN LIGHTLY’ TWO YEARS AFTER ITS LAUNCH, •Tempo, an alliance set up for Simon Hallett

Brian Dean

an increase in the use of assessment practices focused on behaviours, values and strengths as a predictor of performance. Dean added: “As individuals weigh up career options the … line manager will serve even greater purpose for employees and future hires.” With the looming ‘rise of the freelancer’, “firms need to evolve an integrated talent strategy” that considers contractors along with permanent full-time equivalent employees. “More firms are realising that [contracting] is an effective approach to achieving their business objectives,” Dean said. In Hallett’s view, employment branding will also retain its importance but used in “a more targeted way” to help candidates make informed decisions about specific role types and fit within an organisation. Also evolving more closely in tandem, Hallett said, will be use of social and candidate relationship management approaches to support the best possible candidate experience and align with an organisation’s customer, or consumer brand. DEEDEE DOKE

deedee.doke@recruiter.co.uk

TRANSLINE 2014 RECRUITER AWARD NULLIFIED For the first time in the history of the Recruiter Awards for Excellence, Recruiter will nullify the conferring of an award last year. Industrial recruiter Transline Group was named the Best Temporary Recruitment Agency for 2014. However, Recruiter recently established through documents obtained from the Gangmasters Licensing Authority (GLA) via a Freedom of Information (FOI) request that Transline subsidiary Qualitycourse was not in possession of a valid GLA licence for a period in late summer 2013 when it was required by law to do so. At the same time, the GLA documents said, the company continued to supply workers in the sector requiring a GLA licence to operate, which contravened the law. Recruiter editor DeeDee Doke said: “Our Awards are intended to reward organisations and individuals that reflect best practice, operational transparency and compliance with legislated requirements in a highly competitive environment. We must ensure that industry and public confidence in the Awards’ credibility and authority remains at the highest level.” Qualitycourse supplied temporary workers to assemble pizzas for the retail sector. Supplying workers to perform roles in food processing requires a licence from the GLA. Transline has denied any wrongdoing in connection with its activity within the food processing sector. A Transline spokesperson said: “This is disappointing. Not least because no licences had been removed at the time of entering the Awards. In fact, no licences have been removed since. The position on the renewal was not finalised until 7 March 2014 when a final decision was reached and communicated to us. “The GLA’s bureaucracy meant that for a short period of time, we did trade without a licence. The brief period that we did was the result of a late cheque payment caused by the administrative error of an employee who was subsequently diagnosed with severe depression and anxiety. This is an unfortunate consequence.”

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News

recruitment agencies and hirers for the temporary recruitment industry, has shut down. The alliance was created and run by neutral vendor outsourcing company de Poel. Janice Henson, managing director of the de Poel community, said in a prepared statement: “The decision to terminate tempo was not taken lightly. However, after much consideration, we felt that the ambitions and goals of Tempo are best pursued through the de Poel framework.” Asked what was Tempo’s most signiﬁcant operational challenge, Henson told Recruiter: “The biggest challenge we faced was establishing a brand and an entity that was distinct from de Poel.” When it closed in December, Tempo had about 100 members from sectors including care, logistics, waste & recycling and construction, Henson said. It also had representation from agencies specialising in public sector recruitment. Chaired by long-time recruitment industry veteran Keith Faulkner CBE, Tempo had an eight-member steering committee consisting of agency representatives, as well as representation from end-user clients. Asked about the extent of de Poel’s investment in Tempo, Henson declined to provide ﬁnancial information. However, she added: “We invested a lot of time and resource in Tempo because we thought it was a worthwhile venture, we believed our clients wanted it and we believed the industry needed it. We have learnt a lot through Tempo… We will be applying that learning to the way in which we work with all de Poel suppliers.” DEEDEE DOKE deedee.doke@recruiter.co.uk

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News Events UK Twitter Job Fair 24 February blog.twitter.com/engb/2015/our-first-twitterjob-fair-in-europe

Gangmasters Licensing Authority (GLA) Conference 2 March iPro Stadium, Derby www.regonline.com/ glaconference2015

Third Sector Strategic People Conference 5 March America Square Conference Centre, London www.agendaconsulting. co.uk/event/third-sectorstrategic-people-2015conference/

TEAM National Networking Conference 6 March Whittlebury Hall Hotel and Spa, Whittlebury, Northants NN12 8QH www.jobsatteam.com

SourceCon 24-25 March Westin Seattle, Seattle, US www.sourcecon.com/2015

Recruiter Awards for Excellence 2015 6 May Grosvenor House Hotel, London Recruiterawards.co.uk

FOR MORE NEWS AND COMMENTS, GO ONLINE

RECRUITER.CO.UK

Thoughts from recruiter.co.uk, Twitter and beyond…

RECRUITER

MARCH 2015

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HEADHUNTER AND APSCO TRAINING PROVIDER IRENE MCMANUS ON HOW TO BE A GREAT RESOURCER.

HORIZON LOOKSTO FUTURE TALENTTO POWER ITS PLANTS Anticipating the need to recruit thousands of workers in a sector with known skills shortages has led Horizon Nuclear Power to develop graduate and apprenticeship programmes. The graduate programme is expected to begin taking its first students this September, with the apprenticeship programme to begin a year later. It is expected that 2,000 permanent jobs will be created once two Horizon nuclear power plants are commissioned in Anglesey, North Wales, and Gloucestershire. Horizons was acquired by Japanese electronics firm Hitachi in November 2012. As head of HR and learning Helen Shide explained to Recruiter, that acquisition marked the beginning of a recruitment campaign to more than triple its 87-strong workforce to 290, and possibly as high as 310, by the end of this financial year.

L-r: Helen Shide and Rachel Worrall

Key to that was the development of an in-house recruitment team. Rachel Worrall joined in June 2013 as HR business partner (resourcing) and quickly hired four experienced recruiters, as well as two co-ordinators. By the mid-2020s when the company’s first plant in Anglesey goes operational, 800 to 1,000 people are likely to be needed on site. That is in addition to bringing the Gloucestershire headquarters headcount up to 450.

“If we just recruit and try to attract individuals already in the industry, all we are doing is taking from [another] company,” Shide said. So while operational staff may not be needed until the end of the decade, investment is necessary now in apprenticeship and graduate programmes to ensure the right skills are available. Engineering skills will be an obvious focus but the entire array of business skills — for example, finance, commercial and planning — will also be needed. Brand awareness is a key part of HR workload currently, Worrall said. Among their efforts is work with local schools to develop an early talent pipeline. Shide said: “We all have a part to play to increase the [staffing] resources and that has to be engaging with schools and young people about our industry to get that future workforce going.” SARAH MARQUET sarah.marquet@recruiter.co.uk

H&S SEEKS CYBER SECURITY TALENT IN NEW PUSH DEMAND for cyber security professionals is leading executive search •ﬁrmINCREASED Heidrick & Struggles to elevate its cyber security practice to a similar scale

and size to its more traditional chief executive (CEO) and chief financial officer (CFO) divisions, according to the regional managing partner of the firm’s financial services practice for Europe and Africa, David Boehmer. Events such as December’s cyber hack on entertainment giant Sony ensured cyber security has grabbed the headlines. Recent research carried out by H&S and Oxford Business School found that in most regions of the world, CEOs and boards consider cyber security the number one threat or risk. As a result, H&S has doubled the number of consultants in its cyber security division to 35 in the last three years, Boehmer told Recruiter. This continued David Boehmer emphasis on cyber security will see the firm’s dedicated division grow further this year, Boehmer said. The role of the cyber security professional today requires expert knowledge about the potential threats affecting organisations and government agencies further afield and how to tackle them, as well as a commercial understanding of the damage to a company’s reputation such attacks create. According to Boehmer, the firm’s consultants working in this area had previously recruited for chief information officers and chief technology officers, while also partnering with consultants recruiting chief risk officers. However, the firm increasingly requires consultants who dedicate all their time to recruiting cyber security professionals. “We want to ensure we have partners who have been doing quite a bit of this work already — if not full time, pretty darn close to full time who understand all the trends,” he added. GRAHAM SIMONS

“We will get rejection because that is the kind of environment we are in, and it’s about not taking that too personally”

graham.simons@recruiter.co.uk WWW.RECRUITER.CO.UK

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News

“An interview should provide mutual discovery. It’s a conversation between adults” JEROME VADOT, STRATEGIC MD, GB & IRELAND, TIMAC AGRO INTERNATIONAL

“We’re not looking for special treatment, just a level playing field” HELEDD KENDRICK, RECRUIT FOR SPOUSES FOUNDER AND CEO SPEAKING ABOUT MISCONCEPTIONS MILITARY SPOUSES FACE WHEN APPLYING FOR JOBS

“Enable, facilitate, get out of the way — that’s how you create value in a business” TIM COOK, CEO, HUMAN CAPITAL INVESTMENT GROUP

MAKE USE OF YOUR MAPPING Talent mapping is useless unless resourcing professionals effectively work out how they use data collected by research partners, according to Isabelle Hung, software provider ADP’s senior talent acquisition director Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA). Speaking at the recent Inhouse Talent Expo in London’s Olympia, Hung told delegates ADP was faced with recruitment problems hiring experts in the firm’s ‘PAISY’ payroll software in Germany due to the advanced age of the software. “We had a number of roles that had been open for many months, with limited results from advertising or third parties,” she said. “The feedback was it was a small marketplace and we had mostly captured everyone at some point of another.” Hung explained ADP used a research partner to map the size and scale of the talent pool the firm was aiming to recruit. This resulted in 195 names, which were subsequently checked to

Isabelle Hung

see if they had worked for ADP or interviewed with the software provider before, if they were an end user or if the firm knew of them but they weren’t of interest. The approach has meant ADP is now seeking a longerterm solution to the lack of skills in this marketplace. One option is building training academies to help former PAISYknowledgeable workers return to the business to help train less experienced staff as PAISY will be used for at least the next decade. While Hung has had some success with talent mapping,

she told Recruiter it is vital that resourcing professionals know who can make best use of their research partner’s findings. “Who is going to make use of this information? Who is going to follow-up, cross-check and do further activities to gain benefit from the work carried out? “All too often, the recruitment managers think they have the resources, then use the list of names to reach out passively to the list, but in reality it often gets left and not used sufficiently, and is wasted,” she said. “If your research partner offers a contacting service to reach out to people to gain interest, use it — as long as they are UK natives reaching UK natives or similar country to country.” Hung said resourcers should also be prepared to write a brief defining the desired outcome of their talent mapping project. “We should all do this activity but in reality it’s getting the dedicated resource to action it well that hinders us actually doing it,” she added. GRAHAM SIMONS

CARE UK INTRODUCES A ‘LICENCE TO RECRUIT’ Social care provider Care UK aims to standardise its interviewing processes for its line managers across its network through the introduction of a “licence to recruit”, according to the health and social care provider’s resourcing manager Darren Campbell. Campbell told delegates at the In-House Talent Expo at London’s Olympia that its first licences were awarded in December. He told Recruiter that line managers are awarded a licence to recruit upon successful completion of interview training, which covers areas like what questions can be asked at interview and what questions cannot be asked WWW.RECRUITER.CO.UK

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from a legal perspective. “We put an interview sheet together so whether they’re interviewing a position in Bristol or Ipswich they have the same interview questions.” Campbell added Care UK is currently measuring the success of the initiative but hoped it would improve quality of hire as the training also covers improving a candidate’s recruitment experience. “When you’re showing candidates around, you show them around the office they’re going to be working in. It’s not

usually something line managers think about. They go in, do an interview and have a chat, and walk away.” Campbell also told delegates resourcing departments should use the recruitment knowledge that exists among their line managers. “If somebody has been working in that business and they have been recruiting in that business for a number of years, they have a pretty good idea [of resourcing], as opposed to somebody coming into recruitment who doesn’t have experience of that sector. “Use those networks. They are going to be doing great stuff. Find those people doing great stuff,” he added.

Contract News Air Energi: Adopted Bullhorn’s cloud-based software-as-a-service CRM solution… Aon Hewitt: Acquired Workday HR software consultancy Kloud… Berry Recruitment Group: Acquired Headway Recruitment… BLG Healthcare Executive Search: Acquired executive search firm HealthyCareers…

Bluestones Group: Partnered with JPS Supply Chain Recruitment, acquiring a small amount of shares…

Bridgewater Human Capital: Acquired training provider System Training… Cammio: Partnered with talent management software provider WCN…

Castlerock Recruitment Group: Appointed as a supplier of healthcare and nursing staff for the NHS… Cubiks: Integrated its online HR tools with Talentsoft’s cloud-based talent management software. Also appointed Link Resources ICG as a new agent in China… Invest|R Group: Acquired a significant stake in recruitment process outsourcing (RPO) firm Matt Burton Associates… RED: Became a SAP services partner in the SAP PartnerEdge Program in the US and joined the SAP Consulting Partner Program for North America. Also selected Mercury xRM’s recruitment software as part of an upgrade of its IT infrastructure… Talenetic: Entered a global partnership with Indeed to provide technology solutions…

World Duty Free Group: Extended ResourceBank’s contract to provide an outsourced recruitment service.

GRAHAM SIMONS RECRUITER

MARCH 2015

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News

Tech & tools

CREATING EFFECTIVE TALENT POOLS TALENT POOLS HAVE BEEN A TOPIC ON THE RESOURCING CONFERENCE AGENDA FOR MANY YEARS BUT ORGANISATIONS OFTEN STRUGGLE TO CREATE AND MAINTAIN THEM Traditional applicant tracking systems (ATSs) haven’t always been able to support the creation of talent pools. New generation recruitment systems are helping recruiters to realise their aspirations in this area though. Annual members’ surveys from The Forum for In-house Recruitment Managers (The FIRM) consistently identify talent pools and pipelines, and direct sourcing as the top two priorities. Emma Mirrington, co-manager of The FIRM and herself a talent management and resourcing specialist, says that employees see talent pools as some kind of ‘Nirvana or Holy Grail’ but the challenge is often identifying the future business needs that the talent pool will serve. “They must put their strategic workforce planning in place first and we are starting to see more of a focus on this,” she says. Lisa Scales, co-founder of talent management software developer

Tribepad, agrees and adds that talent pooling should be used as one of the tactical objectives that feeds into an overarching talent resourcing strategy: “But many heads of resourcing don’t have a strategy for talent pooling within their resourcing plan.” Why are you building it? Talent pools can mean different things to different people so decide on its purpose within the overall recruitment strategy. “Some will see it as a targeted mailing list; others as a community of people they want to engage with and convert from a passive state into candidates,” says Scales. “You have to know what you want out of it before you start and be confident that what you are doing is right for the target group.” Meanwhile, Mirrington says it is important to know which roles you will be recruiting for. “It’s all very well creating it but if a requisition doesn’t come live for a year, the database will be out of date,” she says. “Make sure you have your resource planning in place first.” Consider your platform Having decided what you want from the talent

pool, assess the type of platform needed. Talk to your current software supplier and if they can’t offer the level of functionality you want, explore other options. “It’s more about having a candidate or talent relationship management (CRM/TRM) tool now,” she says. She also observes in-house recruiters looking at tools used by executive search firms: “They’ve always been good at engaging with passive candidates, so we’re starting to see a crossover in tools with the agency and in-house world.” Tailored communication Some of the newer platforms allow you to create different groups within a talent pool. Scales says it is important to understand what’s in your total database, including internal talent, but is a great believer in “segmenting a database”. “Then you can start pushing targeted communication to them,” she says. “You can also ask these people if they know anyone with a particular skillset so you also have a referral piece going on.” Mirrington stresses that individuals expect a level of personalisation to their communication. “They want to feel special and unique,” she says. “If communication isn’t handled in the right way, it can be disengaging.” Have a content plan When communicating with potential talent, make sure you have great stories to tell them about the business. Scales warns against merely being “a spammer of jobs”. “It has to be more subtle than that especially if it’s a niche role,” she says, and explains that from a tactical point of view, recruiters must have a relevant content plan alongside

their resourcing strategy. “The content piece is so important and should be a joint effort with the hiring manager. They are the ones who know that part of the business, and to create credible content they need to be involved.” Measure success Like any strand of a recruitment strategy, the effectiveness of the talent pool should be assessed. Scales asked a sample selection of heads of resourcing if they ran KPIs [key performance indicators] on their recruiters on building talent pools — whether by measuring time-to-hire, reduction in use of agencies or some other method — and only one said yes. “This means they are still looking at it from a fairly transactional, numbers’ game approach, as opposed to understanding why that person you engaged with and who received your content has become a candidate,” she says. “In the future I would like to see a resourcing function rewarded on it [talent pooling] but we are far away from this point at the moment.” Learn from others Organisations that manage their talent pools well include those involved in ongoing, high-volume recruitment, such as call centres, as well as those with more technical, niche roles. The latter can accurately map their needs against the talent pool, Mirrington suggests. “It’s more challenging in FMCG [fast-moving consumer goods] companies where roles are much more diverse,” she says. “This is why it’s important to start with the resource planning.” In some cases though, recruiters are guilty of over-complicating things in this area. “If every recruiter had 10 candidates they were working with from a talent pool perspective and only hired two of those, it would make a huge difference. Sometimes it’s a case of starting small.” SUE WEEKES

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Interaction

When red tape would BOX be a good thing SOAP

I think it was about 1994 that Mrs Fagg’s role became redundant. Mrs Fagg worked for the Employment Standards Office in Watford and without notice she, or other members of her team, could make an inspection of your recruitment business and withdraw your licence to operate — in other words, put you out of business. What’s more, you couldn’t start up again without a licence. The recruitment industry was deregulated with the best intentions to reduce red tape for businesses, but of course it wasn’t long before people took advantage. The vast majority of recruitment businesses operate in an ethical manner and the best in class take up membership of respected trade associations. They sign up to codes of conduct and try to promote best practice. They invest in training and development, and are committed to professionalism. However, all the directors of these recruitment businesses that I have spoken with support a return to regulation. There are a number of reasons, the biggest being the tarnishing of the industry’s reputation by unscrupulous operators. With no barrier to entry anyone can set up a recruitment business. Many don’t even realise there is something called the Employment Agencies Act, let alone the Conduct of Employment Agencies and Employment Businesses Regulations (the Conduct Regulations),

RICKY MARTIN

PAUL FARRER is founder and chairman, Aspire

Remind candidates to interview positively

From discussing job requirements to advising on CV creation, there’s no two ways about it — we are here to support our candidates throughout the recruitment process. However, it’s only when they are shortlisted for an interview that reality really hits. This opportunity could change a candidate’s life, so it’s a big deal. And for them the interview will be the most daunting part of the hiring process. Trust me, as somebody who has both been interviewed during the infamous The Apprentice interviews and conducted them as part of the panel — I do know. So what advice can you give your candidates to help them with the interview? How can they stand out? You probably advise your candidates to research the company, look over the job description and think about possible answers to likely questions. But is this enough to nail the interview? Probably not. From the informal to the formal there are many types of interviews. The competency-based interview is probably one of the most common. Advising your candidates to employ techniques such as ‘STAR’ will help them to formulate a more structured response. p Situation — Present the challenge/situation • Situat • Task — What did you have to do/achieve? Action — What did you do? Why? • Acti Result — What was the outcome of your action? Did Resul meet your objectives? What did you learn from this you m experience? exper Here are some examples of how your candidates ccould use this model to ensure their responses are positive. Encourage candidates to talk about challenges.

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and their working practices have led to a unique phenomenon: can you think of any other industry where the customer sends you their terms and conditions? The reason for this is that in the past, customers of recruitment agencies got burned by cowboy outfits and have understandably sought to protect themselves. When you have the leaders of an industry asking for regulation then surely something is wrong. This is not a charter against one-person companies, smaller agencies or newcomers. It is about professionalising the sector, improving standards and, by default, the commercial return. It will need funding, so there would need to be a licence fee but that is affordable from a £28bn industry. Then we can bring back Mrs Fagg and her team who can respond to whistleblowing, order inspections and shut down rogue operators, bringing an end to CV spamming, fake candidates, fake recruiters, fraudulent timesheets and the like. The Association of Professional Staffing Companies (APSCo) and the Recruitment & Employment Confederation (REC) need to take the lead but with the best in class supporting them, maybe it’s not too late to get a commitment into the party manifestos before the next election.

We’ve all faced challenges both professionally and personally. So avoiding phrases like “I’ve never failed at anything before” or “I never make mistakes” is so important. These responses are deceitful. Your candidate should use this as an opportunity to demonstrate that, not only are they capable of dealing with difficult situations, but they’ve actually learnt from the experience. Encourage them to say things like “when things didn’t quite go to plan, I made sure I … so next time…”. Reassure candidates that it’s ok to talk about weaknesses. It’s a fact: we can’t be good at everything. So when this question comes up, remind your candidate to not focus on how bad they are at something. Instead, advise them to explain to the interviewer how they overcame this challenge; perhaps a colleague helped them? They could even say they “would like to learn…”. This is a great opportunity to turn a negative into a positive. Remind your candidates how important it is to leave a positive lasting impression. Shaking hands with the interviewer, introducing themselves, thanking the interviewer for inviting them to an interview will all help a candidate to make a positive impression. But how about going one step further? Saying things like ‘it was great to meet the team and I think I would fit in well’ would certainly show the interviewer your enthusiasm. In summary, knowing what to say and how to say it is essential. Using the right language in interviews will ensure your candidates deliver a positive experience and lasting impression. So next time, remember to remind your candidates to #thinkpositivebepositive during their interview! RICKY MARTIN is managing director and founder of Hyper Recruitment

Solutions. Find out more at www.hyperec.com or @Hyperec_HRS on Twitter

RECRUITER

MARCH 2015

11/02/2015 10:36

“If you think compliance is expensive, try non-compliance …”

RACS Group’s Compliance Team ǁŝůů ďĞ ĂƩĞŶĚŝŶŐ ƚŚĞ ĨŽůůŽǁŝŶŐ ĞǀĞŶƚƐ ĂŶĚ ůŽŽŬ ĨŽƌǁĂƌĚ ƚŽ ŵĞĞƟŶŐ ƌĞƉƌĞƐĞŶƚĂƟǀĞƐ ĨƌŽŵ Ăůů ƐƉŚĞƌĞƐ ŽĨ ƚŚĞ ƌĞĐƌƵŝƚŵĞŶƚ ŝŶĚƵƐƚƌǇ͘

Z ^ 'ƌŽƵƉ ƉƌŽǀŝĚĞƐ ƚĞŵƉŽƌĂƌǇ ƌĞĐƌƵŝƚĞƌƐ ǁŝƚŚ Ă ĨƵůůǇ ĐŽŵƉůŝĂŶƚ ƉĂǇƌŽůů ƐŽůƵƟŽŶ ƚŽ ƉƌŽƚĞĐƚ ĂŐĞŶĐǇ ŽǁŶĞƌƐ͕ ĐŽŶƐƵůƚĂŶƚƐ ĂŶĚ ĐŽŶƚƌĂĐƚŽƌƐ͘ &Žƌ Ă ŶŽ ŽďůŝŐĂƟŽŶ ƌĞǀŝĞǁ ŽĨ ǇŽƵƌ ƉƌŽĐĞƐƐĞƐ ĂŶĚ ƉƌŽĐĞĚƵƌĞƐ͕ ƉůĞĂƐĞ ĐŽŶƚĂĐƚ Z ^ 'ƌŽƵƉ ŶŽǁ ŽŶ Ϭϴϰϱ ϲϬϰ Ϭϱϳϭ͘

ZĞĐƌƵŝƚŵĞŶƚ ŐĞŶĐǇ ǆƉŽ ϮϰƚŚ Θ ϮϱƚŚ &ĞďƌƵĂƌǇ ϮϬϭϱ Stands 4-6 Olympia, London d D EĂƟŽŶĂů ŽŶĨĞƌĞŶĐĞ ϲƚŚ DĂƌĐŚ ϮϬϭϱ Ͳ ^WKE^KZ RACS Group - Stand 12 Z ^ DĂƌŬĞƟŶŐ Ͳ ^ƚĂŶĚ ϲ tŚŝƩůĞďƵƌǇ ,Ăůů͕ EŽƌƚŚĂŶƚƐ ZĞĐƌƵŝƚĞƌ ǁĂƌĚƐ ĨŽƌ ǆĐĞůůĞŶĐĞ ϲƚŚ DĂǇ ϮϬϭϱ Ͳ ^WKE^KZ ͚DŽƐƚ īĞĐƟǀĞ DĂƌŬĞƟŶŐ ĂŵƉĂŝŐŶ͛ ĂƚĞŐŽƌǇ 'ƌŽƐǀĞŶŽƌ ,ŽƵƐĞ ,ŽƚĞů͕ >ŽŶĚŽŶ *Paul McNulty &ŽƌŵĞƌ h^ ĞƉƵƚǇ ƩŽƌŶĞǇ 'ĞŶĞƌĂů

Head Office RACS Group House, Three Horseshoes Walk Warminster, Wiltshire. BA12 9BT

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0845 604 0571 info@racsgroup.com racsgroup.com

11/02/2015 15:02

Interaction

SOUND

WEB

BITES

COMMENT

“When recruitment goes wrong, in your view what has usually been the problem?” Russell Adams Director, AdMore Recruitment There are a multitude of reasons why recruitment processes fail. Poor management of expectations is among the most common, whether that be around timescales, the interview process or the remuneration package. Constant communication and, crucially, clarity of brief between key stakeholders goes a long way in preventing the process breaking down. Outline what the key parameters are and where possible, stick to your plan. Recruiters, whether in-house or agency side, have great value to add in efficiently managing a process; however, they are most effective when trusted to do so by the hiring client. Greg Allen Group HR, Lloyd’s Register There are a few reasons. Firstly, you have the wrong algorithm that does not fit the company or the programme. Many times the business will shout they want 50 [people] in five months and as recruiters we respond. However, the old tailor’s motto — measure twice, cut once — might point to where the breakdown is. Secondly, not understanding the ratios and then not comparing them against current performance. One needs to look at actual time against theoretical time. Managers don’t realise how much of their time recruitment will take up. In professional services organisations this is even greater. To take one manager’s time is a loss of billing time. So when you’re looking at the whole programme, what is lost is as important as what is required. The right algorithm will also enable you to resource the project correctly. Finally, set the stages from attraction, selection and onboarding into your timeline, and support the gap analysis of ‘when the well dries up… what next?’. Project management is the deployment of the project; my issue is: was the feasibility right in setting up the project? Jennifer Candee Head of global talent acquisition, SABMiller While there could be any number of reasons why recruitment could go wrong, in my experience, the most critical reasons include: 1. Not getting the brief right. Ultimate clarity by both recruiter and line manager is required. This should be driven by the recruiter who needs to have the confidence to ask the tough questions and play devil’s advocate. 2. Not having well-defined competencies. There must be clarity and agreement around the top line ‘must haves’ and ‘nice to haves’. 3. Not presenting a recruitment strategy. This should be agreed by both line manager and recruiter, and should contain critical paths, responsibilities, timelines and search methodology. Mariya Gibb Talent acquisition and development manager, RSA Insurance Group

In my experience, one of the most frequent reasons for recruitment going wrong is a ‘disconnection’ between hiring managers and recruiters. And this disconnection is mainly based on their wants and expectations not aligning — no matter how experienced the individuals are. Hiring managers tend to hire based on a candidate’s current skill sets and experience within certain business areas or industries. Recruiters often fail to advise on transferable skills or properly assess a candidate’s potential and highlight it to the hiring manager. They tend to stick to the requirements outlined to them during the briefing meetings, which results in passing numerous inappropriate CVs to business. For more on preventing recruitment failures, see Insight on p24

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Barclays aims to attract over 50s to apprenticeships (30 January) This is an outstandingly good idea. There is high potential for people of this age in employment. Something society as a whole needs as well as being a good idea for Barclays. Apprenticeships could well be offered to any age-group, in fact. I hope this proves to be a big success.

Naomi Hamilton Why do Barclays and other major banks and organisations actively engage in age discrimination? Why not introduce a scheme similar to the graduate schemes, where over 50 graduates with ‘O’ levels and ‘real’ degrees not from ‘Mickey Mouse’ universities? Also pay these educated graduates with valuable experience that is lacking in new hire graduates and have much more life and business experience than new graduates the same as new graduates or more.

Anderson A Cooper Great idea. This is an age group with lots of experience and dedication to offer.

Jean-Claude Etile

HMRC concerned about taxavoiding practices of umbrella companies (22 January) Unfortunately, there are many companies out there referring to themselves umbrella companies, which are actually tax avoidance scheme operators or, at the very least, are guilty of sharp practice. A traditional umbrella company will engage workers under a full contract of employment, will review any expense claims in line with HMRC guidance, will not engage with workers who earn anywhere near minimum wage and will maintain continuity of employment throughout.

Lisa Keeble, managing director, ContractorUmbrella

RECRUITER

MARCH 2015

11/02/2015 17:08

Rea s

o ount c o t s

am : yStre

#11

n Pa

Know every link in your supply chain PSL At PayStream, we’ve been advising agencies to operate Preferred Supplier Lists for a while now.

When it comes to assessing your suppliers’ compliance, there are a number of things you can do:

With legislation continually evolving, it’s becoming increasingly important to fully understand your supply chain.

1. 2. 3. 4.

We have robust processes and controls, audited by a strong internal compliance team and we invite external companies in to audit our audits.

Send out compliance questionnaires Check actual payslip calculations Review third party audits Carry out your own site visit

For the best assessment of your key suppliers, we recommend that you use all of the above.

Call 0800 197 6516 e: info@paystream.co.uk or visit www.paystream.co.uk

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11/02/2015 15:03

Recruitment Matters Issue 32 March 2015

Big names awarded Audited Education status Four of the biggest names in education recruitment have been awarded REC Audited Education status. Reed, Hays, Randstad and Capita are now among an elite group of recruitment companies who have been awarded the REC’s ‘gold standard’ for education recruitment, joining over 50 other agencies that have passed REC Audited Education. The REC Audited Education scheme assures schools that agencies supplying teachers and nonteaching staff in England and Wales have undertaken rigorous legal checks and assessments. Organisations undertaking the audit are required to complete an online diagnostic assessment, after which they are visited by REC auditors who review processes and procedures about safeguarding, client relationships and adherence to relevant legislation. REC chief executive Kevin Green says having four of the biggest recruiters pass the audit is no mean feat. “By undertaking this specialist audit, recruiters are measuring themselves

What’s inside The 2-3 Intelligence and REC Talk Is 2015 the year of the recruiter? Plus regulatory changes and the need to Scale Up

4-5Mission Control against the highest industry standards,” he says. “The fact that these four major agencies have all chosen to be audited by the REC shows the level of conﬁdence that business leaders have in the product. We encourage other agencies to talk to us about the beneﬁts of being audited both in terms of improving levels of service and demonstrating their compliance to potential clients and candidates.” Managing director of Oxford-based Data for Education Info Professor John Howson says the more recruiters embracing the REC’s standards, the better. “If getting full-time permanent teachers is going to be more of a challenge, and if we do need to use temporary teachers, they

should be provided by agencies with the highest quality standards so everybody can be assured in the quality of teachers for the children,” he says. Managing director at Hays Education Martyn Best says the award will help them grow. “This award recognises our high levels of professionalism and will help us to continually attract the highest calibre of candidates to work in education and ensure the safeguarding of children. The gold standard is a testament to our best practice procedures and compliance policies that ensure we deliver the highest standard of service to our clients.” For more information about the REC Audited Education award, visit www. rec.uk.com/auditeducation

Just how important is a mission statement when launching your new recruitment business?

6Legal lowdown

The importance of terms of business and your statutory obligations

Institute of Recruitment Professionals Zoe Crawley from LeapFrog and High Point Recruitment’s Rebekah Handford

and 8 Events Training Sign up for the latest training courses, see if Scale Up Live is in a town near you, take a look at our Corporate Blog

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09/02/2015 16:01

Leading the Industry

the intelligence 40

■ Upper quartile ■ Median ■ Lower quartile

30 20 %

Make the most of 2015

Fig 1: RIB members revenue growth

10 0

Nina Mguni, senior researcher at the REC, explains

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2 Recruitment Matters March 2015

RM p2-MAR.indd Sec1:24

now at pre-recession levels in permanent recruitment. The report also found that single operators are the largest proportion of businesses commanding margins of 20% or more for temporary/ contract recruitment. Similarly, fortunes look good for single operators seeking to scale by opening additional branches, as small businesses with multiple branches place 28% more permanent candidates than the industry average. The REC’s new report, ‘7 Secrets of a successful recruitment entrepreneur’, sets out some of the key considerations for people who wish to tap into their and their staff’s entrepreneurial spirit and grow their business. There are many factors that go into becoming a successful recruiter but this report draws on the views of 10 successful ownermanagers from businesses of varying size and scale. The lessons should give useful insights to recruiters who would like to take their business to the next level. By the end of this year, we are likely to have even more agencies in the market, particularly at the tail end of the industry among the small and medium enterprises. The challenge for new entrants will be to sufﬁciently distinguish themselves from competitors and making sure they are ready to capitalise on the uptick in the economy.

-20 Dec Jan Mar May Jul Sep Nov Jan Mar May Jul Sep Nov 12 13 14

Fig 2: Recruiter employee growth 40

■ Upper quartile ■ Median ■ Lower quartile

30 20 %

As business confidence continues to strengthen the UK is seeing something of a renaissance in entrepreneurialism. According to Companies House figures, 581,173 new businesses were created in 2014, up from 500,000 in 2013, 484,000 in 2012, and 440,600 in 2011. The recruitment industry is a major part of this trend. In October 2014 there were 19,440 VAT-registered employment agencies, the highest number in the last five years, with 18,180 new agencies entering the market in the previous 12 months. We are likely to see more and more recruiters making the switch from consultant to manager to owner manager, and those small business owners may see 2015 as the year in which they go for growth. There are and will be greater gains to be made in the recruitment industry due to higher rates of job churn, as more candidates become confident in looking for a new job. Falling candidate availability and skills will encourage clients to turn to agencies to find talent. There are clearly opportunities for small businesses entering the market. Data from the REC’s Recruitment Industry Trends Survey 2013/14 corroborates this view. Single site agencies have rebounded, particularly compared to small, medium and large multiples, and are

10 0

-10 -20 Jan Mar May Jul Sep Nov Jan Mar May Jul Sep Nov 113 14

Recruiters are accelerating! For the past few months we have talked about the strong revenue growth that recruiters have been achieving. The great news this month is that we now have a full 12 months of accelerating revenue growth. Recruiter revenue growth (Fig 1) has been steadily accelerating since October 2013 when revenues were growing below 5%, whereas in November median recruiter revenue growth continued to accelerate to over 19.5 compared with November 2013. Indeed a quarter of recruiters are growing their revenues at over 36% – a very welcome performance. Sadly, this stunning performance is not being enjoyed by all recruiters, with a quarter seeing their revenues actually shrinking. This strong revenue growth has allowed recruiters to expand and add to their headcount. As shown in Fig 2 the median recruiter is growing headcount by more than 10% compared to last year; even the lower quartile of recruiters are adding to their headcount compared to last year. The net impact of growing revenues and expanding headcount is that annualised turnover per fee earner has actually been falling; median annualised turnover per fee earner at just over £380,000 per year is 9% lower than a year ago. However, this decline in profitability is of less concern as the good news is that net disposable revenue per employee is actually 3% higher than it was a year ago. • Chris Ansell is chief financial officer at Recruitment Industry Benchmarking (RIB). The RIB Index provides bespoke confidential reports on industry trends. See www.ribindex.com; info@ribindex. com: 020 8544 9807. The RIB is a strategic partner of the REC.

www.rec.uk.com 09/02/2015 16:02

Leading the Industry

Tom Hadley, director of policy and professional services, looks at policy changes and the impact for recruiters

The policy ‘Scale Up’ Demand for staff is going through the roof in many sectors and recruiters are scaling up at a furious pace. As well as boosting growth by harnessing the right business support and staff training, how can recruiters use upcoming public policy and legal developments to their competitive advantage? And how can we at the REC best support this? 1) Spoonful of sugar. There’s a glut of regulatory changes in the pipeline as the government looks to clear the decks ahead of May’s election. As well as the long awaited review of the Conduct Regulations, new reporting requirements come into force in April. We’ll also be keeping an eye on other hot topics such as data protection and travel & subsistence schemes. Dealing with all of this risks creating a distraction at a time when recruiters are flat out and looking to maximise new opportunities. Our ambition is not only fight for the best possible outcome for the industry, but also to provide as much practical support as possible. Practical support is the spoonful of sugar that will help the regulatory medicine go down. 2) Building blocks. Demand for staff is on the up but managing risk remains a major priority for clients. Being able to demonstrate compliance is a basic but crucial building block in the quest to seize new market opportunities. On a general note, the fact that all REC members have now passed a compliance test is a strong ‘pitch’ in our ongoing discussions with government and employers. 3) Market levellers. Uncertainty over the legitimacy of various tax models and the lack of a level playing field is a potential barrier to growth. Recent announcements on issues such as travel & subsistence schemes are significant and long overdue. For recruiters the key is to stay up-to-date with the latest developments and prepare for any changes that may be made to current procedures. 4) New horizons. Being plugged into the latest policy developments can help drive growth. For example, the REC is represented on the government’s Professional & Business Services Trade & Investment Group, which aims to help UK companies seize new opportunities in overseas market. The support on offer includes access to UKTI trade delegations to emerging markets. Our aim here is to help REC members tap into various government initiatives and seize new opportunities. • You can follow Tom on Twitter @hadleyscomment

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The View The recruitment market is growing – the REC predicts by 9% in 2015. The question for directors and owners of recruitment businesses during an expanding market is whether to carry on as you have been and benefit from a rising tide, or else to scale up business to take advantage of the positive market conditions. If you choose the latter then the REC is here to help. We have developed a comprehensive set of tools and interventions under the title of ‘Scale Up’ to provide the guidance, insight, knowledge and all the skills you will need to develop your business and achieve sustainable growth. We have just launched a great piece of research called the ‘7 Secrets of a successful recruitment entrepreneur’. It maps out the path that many others have taken to build a great recruitment business. Please take a look because it’s jam-packed with good advice from those that have been there and done it. We believe that the conclusions of this research are so valuable to our industry’s entrepreneurs that we are taking it on the road, so look out for ‘Scale Up Live’ coming to a city near you. Up next are Leicester and Sheffield on 24th February. The ‘Scale Up’ campaign also includes social media workshops, toolkits, masterclasses and podcasts. A few people have questioned why the REC is undertaking this campaign – those people who think that our job is to deal with government and the media on the industry’s behalf and nothing else. However, I think it’s clear that the REC is here to do more than this. I believe it’s critical that we help our members be as successful commercially as they can be. This will create more jobs in recruitment and we will have bigger and better organisations. The industry has improved its reputation over the past few years. There is no doubt that we are more professional and compliant than ever before. This year we will help more candidates get jobs and even more businesses secure the talent they need. What we do is important. We are in demand, so why not take the opportunity to scale up your business so you can be even more successful in 2015 and 2016? • If you want to keep up to date with all things jobs and recruitment, follow me on Twitter @kevingreenrec

Recruitment Matters March 2015 3

09/02/2015 16:02

The Big Talking Point

Mission Control I

t’s 2015, and you’re hungry for something a little different. The only thing that will sate your appetite is starting your own recruitment business. The latest Recruitment Industry Trends survey predicts the UK recruitment market could shoot by its pre-recession high and generate £28bn in revenue this year. Businesses, too, are keen on building their ranks and capturing new talent. It’s the friendliest market employers and employees have faced in years. Building a new business is about more than latching onto a moving market. The prevailing thought is that entrepreneurs need a sense of purpose in their work – the more explicit the better. It’s more than work: it’s a mission. But what is a mission? Is it marketing fuzz or a guide for sculpting the face of your business?

ﬁlled with meaningless jargon and empty buzzwords – I believe the mission statement may have given birth to everyone’s favourite buzzword, ‘synergy’ – these statements often serve as nothing more than noise on a company’s About Us page. That’s unfortunate.” There’s a school of thought that says a company’s mission should be more than PR pabulum. Ideally, it charts the course for a new business. American entrepreneur and Forbes columnist Patrick Hull agrees. He has written extensively about mission statements and says they’re a must-have for any business, young and old. “Don’t

Defining the mission “In the last 20 years or so, mission statements have gotten a bad rap in the business world,” writes John Hall, chief executive of Inﬂuence & Co, an American PR company that helps businesses grow their proﬁles. “They’re often

4 Recruitment Matters March 2015

RM p4-5-MAR.indd 26

underestimate the importance of a mission statement,” he writes “Every entrepreneur should write a mission statement early on because they provide you and your employees with the framework and purpose. If you don’t have one, you need to get one.”

He lists four key questions every mission statement should have: • What do we do? • Whom do we do it for? • How do we do it? • What value are we bringing? The mission statement for one of Hull’s companies, Bizilla, reads: “Our mission is to help connect people who want to

sell a business with people who want to buy a business. [What do we do?] “We provide business owners and brokers with ﬂexible options for listing their business online. [Whom do we do it for?] “For buyers, we offer helpful tools such as our saved listings feature and customized email alerts to make ﬁnding the right business easier.” [How do we do it, and what value are we bringing?] We see it ticks off every question and leaves no doubt about what the business is trying to achieve.

www.rec.uk.com 09/02/2015 16:03

How important is a mission statement for a new business? Recruitment Matters editor Michael Oliver finds out.

Mission Control to Recruitment Fledgling companies can use their missions to shape their goals for their ﬁrst year of operation. Chief executive of Phaidon Press Adam Buck says a mission can be melded into a cohesive plan. But he is quick to remind entrepreneurs not to lose sight of the target. “There are usually two types of organisation,” he says. “One guy goes down the lifestyle business – it is a lifestyle more than a growth business, and they are not looking to expand. Think about what you want to achieve before setting out the business. If it is a lifestyle business, there is nothing wrong with that. But if you want to create a big business but then create a lifestyle business, it is hard to turn it around. Think about what you want to achieve. “Have a model and a plan, even if it is year by year, then it is something to fall back on to understand what good looks like. This includes individuals and clients that you work for. There is no point in you working with a client whose specialisation or pricing structure doesn’t ﬁt yours. Think about what you are good

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Karen Mattison is no stranger to success. She and co-chief executive of Timewise Recruitment Emma Stewart are riding high after being named winners of the Institute of Directors’ Breaking the Mould award late last year, adding to a list of accolades stretching back to 2012. But success was earned – Timewise was the product of dogged determination and stone cold hard work. “Timewise is a business really that was borne out of my own very negative experience as a candidate in the market 20 years ago,” Mattison explains. “I was told what I wanted wasn’t possible: I wanted to work four days a week in a senior client-facing role, and I was told that was not possible for my career.” Mattison and Stewart collaborated on a recruitment business championing the benefits of flexible work. “We saw a massive supply of candidates who wanted flexible work, and a huge amount of businesses who had a huge amount to gain from them, both small and large. It felt like the recruitment industry was not putting the two together, which seemed like a real market failure to us.” And so Timewise came to be, and almost 10 years later its primary goal of matching flexible candidates with

The Seven Secrets As part of the new Scale Up campaign, the Recruitment & Employment Confederation has released the third part in its Seven Secrets series: ‘7 Secrets of a successful recruitment entrepreneur’. Among a host of stories and advice from successful recruitment entrepreneurs, the report details the importance a mission is to the success of a recruitment business. To download the report, visit www. rec.uk.com/scale-up/7-secrets-of-asuccessful-recruitment-entrepreneur

iStock

at and what you can deliver,” he says.

clients holds true. Mattison says that mission was integral in the company’s growth and success. “The mission that gets me up in the morning hasn’t changed – and that’s to unlock the flexible jobs market in the UK. That informs everything I do,” she says. “The ethical social mission that underpins unlocking that market totally affects that. It helps every day and it helps the team here at Timewise. They know what the big picture is and it’s a change that we’re working towards.” The company’s sense of purpose is what drives its success, she says. That overarching sense of duty fills its walls and keeps standards high. “People are brought into doing something bigger than their own job; they feel it, and our retention of good people is very high,” Mattison says. “That’s because the people who work here really believe in what they are doing.” And would Timewise be where it is today without its guiding mission? “Our mission is everything. It helps navigate that path to unlocking the UK’s flexible jobs market. Without that guiding mission, it would be much more difficult,” she says.

Recruitment Matters March 2015 5

09/02/2015 16:03

Legal Update

The importance of terms of business Charlotte Allery, REC legal advisor, explains the legal obligations for recruitment companies and possible future changes When taking on new business and expanding a client base, recruitment companies need to ensure that their interests are protected through robust terms of business. This not only makes commercial sense, but there are also statutory obligations that your company must consider. The Conduct of Employment Agencies and Employment Businesses Regulations 2003 (the Conduct Regulations) impose a legal obligation on employment businesses to agree terms with a client before first providing services to them. The terms that must be included are: 1. A statement that the employment business will operate as an employment business (ie. that it will be supplying temporary workers) 2. Details of any fee payable to the employment business, including the amount or method of calculation and the circumstances in which refunds/rebates may be payable. If no refund/rebate is payable, a statement should be included to that effect; and 3. Details of the procedure to be followed if a worker introduced or supplied proves to be unsatisfactory. These terms must be provided to the client as soon as is reasonably practicable, but must be agreed before the services are first provided (ie. before a worker is first supplied to the client). We also receive numerous calls on the REC legal helpline from employment businesses whose clients have directly taken on workers that the employment businesses have supplied. The question our corporate members are keen to know is: ‘Can we charge our client a transfer fee?’ The Conduct Regulations require that the following three

conditions are met for an employment business to charge a client a transfer fee: 1. The terms of business must contain an express provision allowing the employment business to charge the client a fee on transfer of the worker; 2. The terms of business must also contain the option for the client to elect for an extended period of hire, instead of paying a transfer fee. The terms of business must state the length of notice the client is required to give when they have decided upon an extended period of hire. The terms should also address the fact that the employment business may be unable to supply the worker for the extended period of hire (for example, should the worker be unavailable) and that a transfer fee will become payable should this occur; and 3. The transfer of the worker must take place within the statutory ‘relevant period’. This is defined as either 14 weeks from the beginning of the first assignment, or eight weeks from the end of the last assignment, whichever ends later in time. Please note that if one or more of these conditions are not satisfied, your business will be unable to charge a client a transfer fee. The REC model terms of business with a hirer for the supply of temporary workers already contain the above three conditions at Clause 8. The REC also produces a guide to the Conduct Regulations, which can be found here. However, please be aware that we are awaiting amended Conduct Regulations (expected to come into force in 2016). It is anticipated that the conditions regarding transfer fees will remain, but this may be subject to change. The REC will keep members updated with any developments.

Business development: It First Cloud or server-based systems: how to futureproof your IT system. Having the correct IT systems in place is of paramount importance in today’s digital age. Choosing the right system can have a fundamental impact on the efficiency, cost and growth potential of your business. There are a wide variety of technologies available, which execute a number of different tasks including email, telephony, customer relationship and content management systems. So how do you choose the right system for you? The system needs to work for you, not you work for the system. Changing the way people work is counterproductive, therefore it is essential to find a technology that complements your workforce, so you don’t waste time or money improving or changing it as your business grows. Futureproofing your system means planning for the future. The question is not where I am now, but where I want to be in 12-24 months. Make sure your systems are capable of scaling up and

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are aligned with your business plan. As your business grows, your systems need to facilitate expansion and still be cost effective. If there is a large jump in the pricing structure as you grow, make sure you are aware of the costs. How can we help? IT First, an REC-accredited Business Partner, provides full helpdesk and onsite support for all your IT needs. Working with all shapes and sizes, IT First provides a ﬂexible and friendly service, and works with you to develop your IT systems and ensure you get the best solution and level of support needed. As part of our partnership with the REC, we provide a full free-ofcharge Audit process to identify where changes and savings can be made. Should any member sign up for a 12-month contract, we will provide you with a free tablet. Call IT First today on 01444 237219 or email sales@itfirst. co.uk. For more information about how IT First can support your needs, visit the website at www.itfirst.co.uk

www.rec.uk.com 09/02/2015 16:05

Inspiration

Behind the scenes at the Institute of Recruitment Professionals Zoe Crawley from LeapFrog is one of the first students to receive the new Level 4 Diploma in Recruitment Management (QCF)

Congratulations on being one of the first recruiters to get one of the new Level 4 Diplomas in Recruitment Management. What made you choose the course? I’ve always been keen to take on extra study, and after studying for the Certificate in Recruitment Practice, I thought the next best step would be to take on the diploma. Being based in Guernsey must mean you cover some interesting sectors… The majority of our clients are finance-based, but having said that we cover a lot within that, like banking and trust funds. My specific area is the temp desk – and I run that myself and oversee all the work there. I spend a lot of time thinking on my feet, but it’s good to self-manage. Every day is different: sometimes you come into work with a plan, to find it blown out of the water, but that’s the fun of the job. How has the past 12 months been? It’s been really busy. We weren’t hit as badly as the UK by the recession – the Guernsey market slowed down slightly, but we still had a good flow of candidates coming in. But in the last year we’ve had an influx of more candidates. We’ve got a lot of potential for the New Year. What prompted you to choose recruitment as a career? I did a history degree, and the main point I got from that was communication and research skills were important. I wanted to get into a job that used those skills. When the opportunity came up to work at LeapFrog, I jumped at it. What advice would you give yourself on your first day? Always ask lots of questions and build upon on every kind of experience you have because every experience you have will be positive in the long run.

What I know Rebekah Handford is the managing director of High Point Recruitment

The importance of the candidate experience For all recruiters, the challenge is getting the right candidates and giving them the best possible experience so that they value the expertise we deliver. Look for a personal experience Recruiters need to look deeper when developing relationships with a client. It’s not just about ﬁnding a person to do a job – it’s about learning what that business does and understanding their forward strategy. Having this insight allows you to match aspirations and expectations, and that’s how you end up with longevity in the workplace. The recruiter is like a marketing person who sits between the candidate and the client. But if you’re going to take up their time, you need to have a greater understanding of an organisation’s purpose for hiring. The face of the candidate By the time a candidate meets a client, it should be a case of the client asking “Does the face of this person ﬁt here?” The client should know everything about a candidate before they select them. That’s the difference between having an hour-and-a-half long interview and a 45-minute one. The challenge is to educate all parties and offer them the full 360 degree treatment of how a recruiter works. The most important tool It’s the internet, but not to the detriment of the telephone. Email is very important, but you really need to harness the art of communication, both written and verbal. There’s such a mix in the digital word and the approach is so much different than it was 20 years ago. Recruiters must be willing to pick up the phone and speak because you can establish a relationship much more quickly. Listen, but be ready to talk Really good recruiters listen a lot, but ask a lot of questions too. We need to be competent enough to deliver fast, but we also need to educate clients and help them see whether their requests are realistic or not. It’s about listening to their needs. Less experienced recruiters worry about fees and numbers, but it’s got to be about the bigger picture.

To keep up to date with everything the Institute of Recruitment Professionals is doing, please visit www.rec-irp.uk.com

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Events and training

Scale Up Live Scale Up Live is heading to these cities in late February, March and May: February: Sheffield, Leicester March: Edinburgh, Cardiff May: Cardiff, Gatwick REC chief executive Kevin Green is hosting the events, and he says they are a fantastic opportunity for recruiters to learn how to take their businesses to the next level. “In these sessions I’ll be talking about market trends, outlining which sectors are growing and where you should be positioning your business. I’m also going to be talking about some of our policy activity and how we’re working with our members to try and influence government,” he says. “At the core of this event will be the ‘7 secrets of a successful recruitment entrepreneur’ report, which talks about lessons you can learn from industry leaders and how to apply these within your business; so then your business scales up, makes more profit and is more successful over the next few years.” For more information about the Scale Up campaign, visit www.rec.uk.com/scaleup

Thinking about training? Upskill your staff with the Recruitment Business Academy The Recruitment Business Academy (RBA) is one of the most respected and widely recognised training providers in the recruitment industry. We make our aim very clear: to understand you and your business and to provide the support you need. Whether you are looking for a short, sharp sales improvement session, need to improve team motivation or require a senior-level leadership programme, we can provide training to help you. Our training programmes are available at various locations around the UK and we can even deliver them at your ofﬁces. If you would like to discuss the Recruitment Business Academy training offer in more detail, visit www.rec.uk.com/rba

Course coming up Recruitment Law – Understanding the Essentials

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Keep your finger on the pulse with the REC’s Corporate Blog When big employment news hits, you want strong insight from the best in the industry. The REC’s policy and research experts offer regular analysis of everything in the recruitment market. From legal issues to sector updates, the REC offers compelling insight that doesn’t skimp on details. For a point of view you can trust, visit www.rec.uk.com/blog

Seven secrets of a successful recruitment entrepreneur The last few years have been extremely difficult for the recruitment industry, but as we enter 2015 we forecast significant market growth. Individuals are becoming more confident and are more likely to change roles, skills and talent shortages persist, and starting salaries are increasing. For recruiters, directors and owners who want to grow their business, the next few years will provide an exciting opportunity

to achieve scale. Competition will remain fierce. Entrepreneurs will need more than a good sales staff to succeed. Those seeking to scale up their organisation will need to find ways to improve their profitability – as margins remain under pressure – by demonstrating value to clients while remaining compliant and operationally robust. ‘7 Secrets of a successful recruitment

Recruitment Matters The official magazine of The Recruitment & Employment Confederation Dorset House, 1st Floor, 27-45 Stamford Street, London SE1 9NT Tel: 020 7009 2100 www.rec.uk.com

8 Recruitment Matters March 2015

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entrepreneur’ is part of the REC’s ‘Seven secrets of success’ series. This series is a practical guide offering advice and information from leaders within the industry. This report identiﬁes practical lessons from successful recruitment entrepreneurs, as well as from inﬂuential individuals within other industries. To download the report, visit www.rec.uk.com/7secrets

Membership Department: Membership: 020 7009 2100. Customer Services: 020 7009 2100 Publishers: Redactive Publishing Ltd, 17 Britton Street, London EC1M 5TP. Tel: 020 7880 6200. www.redactive.co.uk Publisher: Aaron Nicholls aaron.nicholls@redactive.co.uk Tel: 020 7880 8547 Editorial: Editor Michael Oliver michael.oliver@redactive.co.uk Tel: 020 7009 2173. Production Editor: Vanessa Townsend Production: Production Executive: Rachel Young. rachel.young@redactive.co.uk Tel: 020 7880 6209 Printing: Printed by Woodford Litho © 2015 Recruitment Matters. Although every effort is made to ensure accuracy, neither REC, Redactive Publishing Ltd nor the authors can accept liability for errors or omissions. Views expressed in the magazine are not necessarily those of the REC or Redactive Publishing Ltd. No responsibility can be accepted for unsolicited manuscripts or transparencies. No reproduction in whole or part without written permission.

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Insight

Project manage recruitment for best chance of success Dangers of the 25th step Once the new hire comes onboard, the 25th step comes into play, with its own critical danger points: your new hire could either fail to perform or leave of their own accord. Common ways that organisations cause new employees to fail to perform and leave include: • Failing to fully support the candidate and his/her family • Lack of effective onboarding • Failing to provide support to meet/ exploit the employee’s potential • Failing to adapt/grow the role to match the employee’s strengths and capabilities • Failing to recognise and reward achievements

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POOR PROJECT MANAGEMENT IS OFTEN THE MAIN CAUSE OF RECRUITMENT FAILURES, SAYS DR JOHN JEBB, MANAGING DIRECTOR OF TALENT MANAGEMENT INNOVATION CONSULTANTS, ACCRETIS What does ‘recruitment failure’ mean? For recruitment agencies this often means their candidate has not been appointed. For HR or internal resourcers, a recruitment failure occurs if they don’t appoint a person to the role. For the senior hiring authority, such as a head of department or higher, a recruitment failure can also occur if the person appointed doesn’t perform to expectations and has to be removed or replaced. Whatever the viewpoint, something will have gone wrong or been omitted earlier in the process to cause this failure. To ensure success on all counts, a formalised path of critical points should be set out to designate each step that must be taken in the recruitment process. Even if in hindsight, the project was practically impossible from the outset, the ultimate

breakdown resulted from failing to define realistic and workable criteria for each recruitment effort. Too often, recruiter training focuses on ‘candidate control’ and ‘client control’, and largely neglects to address effective process control. This is where the introduction of a project manager comes in. Most project managers would say that their job is to control the process from ‘cradle to grave’, or ‘womb to tomb’. At any rate, in terms of recruiting business-critical talent, it is vitally important that an expert who understands the fine detail of what is required at every stage is involved right from the project’s conception — meaning a project manager. Effective project management requires a strong compliance focus and an unerring attention to detail. On the other hand, advanced resourcing needs a more flexible

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Insight

approach and a relatively high degree of creativity. These different skill sets are practically polar opposites, therefore it is best to have different people filling the different roles. However, they must be appreciative of each other’s operational needs and be capable of forging a good working partnership to ensure success. If such expertise of both types isn’t involved, then there is a serious risk of the project criteria being unrealistic and unachievable or the wrong processes and resources being employed. In our research, we have identified 25 critical steps throughout the recruitment cycle. The first step requires the real business needs and future objectives to be fully defined. However, many failures can be traced back to the fact that the job and person specifications are typically based on the previous incumbent and their past duties rather than identifying the new and/or additional skills and attributes that are required for future success. Just how common is recruitment failure when considering business-critical positions and why should we worry about it? Well, 28.6% of recruitment projects investigated during our ‘mystery shopper’ trials failed completely and a further 51.8% were seriously flawed, requiring the processes to be repeated or changed in order to secure a placement. In the 2013 CIPD [Chartered Institute of Personnel & Development] Resourcing Survey, three-fifths of HR manager respondents stated that they experienced recruitment ‘difficulties’ particularly for managers/specialists. However, recruiters can prevent such issues by applying

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Keep those plates spinning Think of successful talent acquisition as a project management exercise — and a recruitment failing as failing to manage the project. Take stock of the steps you must take to successfully identify, assess and bring new talent into an organisation, and you will find that at least 25 major stages, each containing critical control points, are involved. This is regardless of the recruitment method being used — whether it’s advertising, internal resourcing, engaging a recruitment agency or commissioning a full talent/executive search process, among others. At each and every stage several things can go wrong, resulting from errors, omissions, bad judgment and incorrect assumptions. Some will block progress completely and some are likely to generate additional problems further down the line. All are likely to cause or contribute to a recruitment failure. However, three major common situations can have a major impact throughout the process: • Bad project management Each identified step involves at least one critical control point. Failing to complete each step effectively can cause serious issues. Bad project management will lead to omissions, errors and oversights or even missing out a step completely. Good project management streamlines the process. • Wrong people involved in the process Having the wrong people involved can cause problems at every stage. The wrong person at any stage is any player who does not understand, or is not fully capable of carrying out, the critical requirements at that stage, or who acts as a barrier in any way to acquiring the best talent available. • Poor communication Lack of, or poor, communication between stakeholders, and particularly with candidates, has been cited as a major cause of recruitment failings.

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Insight

The 25 steps of talent acquisition Step 1. Define the real business need and future objectives

Step 10. Engage most appropriate resources

Step 11. Step 2. Identify the target markets/talent Benchmark, agree and write position and locations person specifications Step 12. Step 3. Market research and prospect Sign off to recruit for the role as specified identification Step 4. Assign project manager

Step 13. Marketing to prospects

Step 5. Identify the appropriate demographic(s) to target

Step 14. Candidate engagement

Step 6. Identify best recruitment strategy Step 7. Develop business case and budget Step 8. Sign off for strategy and budget Step 9. Create project map and timescale

‘root cause’ and ‘reverse brainstorming’ techniques. During facilitated brainstorming workshops, we identified over 120 common reasons for process failure, all of which can be overcome or avoided by effectively project managing the critical path, applying best practice to talent acquisition and improved training.

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Step 15. Decision on which candidates to progress Step 16. Selling the opportunity and gaining candidate buy-in and agreement to progress

Step 18. Background checks Step 19. Interview arrangements Step 20. Interviewing, assessment & debriefing (multi-stage) Step 21. Final decision and formulating the offer Step 22. Acceptance Step 23. References Step 24. Candidate starts Step 25. Candidate stays and performs to expectations

Step 17. SKUBA (Skills Knowledge Understanding Behaviours Attributes)-based screening and filtering of candidates (process continues through to offer stage)

All the business leaders involved in the brainstorming exercises said that in their organisations, the process has to have failed completely before a change of strategy would be considered, thus wasting a lot of time and money. The 25-step process we devised (see above), by highlighting control points, allows for flexibility with control and generates the capability for intervention if blockages or obstacles occur. By following the outputs of the workshop exercises, they were surprised that by monitoring activity at each step they could identify issues and predict failings much earlier, so that corrective action could be taken and/or different processes adopted. Many stakeholders, particularly the business leaders and internal resourcers, have expressed their concern that the number of steps involved could lead to a substantial increase in recruitment costs and time to hire. However, by estimating the full economic costs of the probable processes and factoring in the average recruitment failure rates, the return on investment was likely to be greater in all cases where a project

manager would be appointed and greater quality control exerted. Currently, time-to-hire reductions are often the result of cutting corners which introduces greater failure rates. Project managing the critical path process enables a switch to measuring the gold standard of recruitment metrics, quality of hire. DR JOHN JEBB IS MANAGING DIRECTOR, ACCRETIS. THE REPORT ‘EMERGING BEST PRACTICE IN TALENT ACQUISITION’ IS AVAILABLE FROM HTTP://HIRING-INNOVATION.COM

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The Challenge

Rethink engineers global talent for Skype Matt Jordan Account manager

WHEN SKYPE WAS LOOKING FOR A MANAGED SERVICE PARTNER TO HELP IT FIND A POOL OF TALENTED TECHNICAL BROADCAST ENGINEERS AROUND THE GLOBE, RETHINK TALENT MANAGEMENT ANSWERED THE CALL

THE CHALLENGE If you were to say the word Skype, for most of us this would conjure up face-to-face meetings on a PC or laptop with colleagues in another ofﬁce location or a quick catch-up at the weekend with Uncle John on the other side of the world. Yet as well as connecting individuals, for about eight years now telecommunications company Skype has been offering live online interviewing technology to the media — to global broadcasters including the BBC, Sky, ABC and CNN. Matt Jordan, senior technical account manager, broadcast & ﬁlm at Microsoft-owned Skype in San Francisco in the US, told Recruiter that since 2007, Skype’s global expansion enabled media partners to use Skype online in broadcasting — Skype in Media. The company’s studio-grade

“It has been challenging but there’s been clear milestones” MELISSA HARRISON-CROWLEY

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software, Skype TX, means that broadcasters can have access to high-quality audio and video, linking to on-the-ground coverage around the world but without the intrusion of pop-ups or notiﬁcations. Video calls can be seamlessly integrated into any production, free of transmission costs and not constrained by geography. All that was needed was engineers with expertise in media and broadcasting. “In 2008 we started to grow a team — just a handful of players,” Jordan said. “By 2012 we had reached a critical mass. Our media partners asked us to do live training. At that point we only had a handful of technical Skype engineers. We couldn’t do it all in-house.” With the real challenge being to “ﬁnd talent we could trust”, Jordan realised Skype needed to partner with a global resourcing company to help support Skype in Media. “We needed a resourcing partner to help bring special skills to our table,” he told Recruiter.

THE SOLUTION Working across the Americas, EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa) and Asia Paciﬁc, Rethink Talent Management stood out as an ideal ﬁt to solve Skype’s talent issues. Rethink’s global account director Melissa Harrison-Crowley decided that

to find multiple-skilled broadcast engineers who could be upskilled in the specific technical requirements for the project, the best approach would be to first find out what ‘good’ would look like. “We started off with interviews within the freelance community to identify what the best candidates would look like,” she told Recruiter. Using Rethink’s global network, as well as making use of the partnership approach of Skype’s connections with local talent through social media, LinkedIn and Twitter, Harrison-Crowley found a flexible, scalable pool of skilled broadcast engineers in multiple geographies, including Brazil, Denmark, France, India, Indonesia and the US. Following a candidate vetting procedure, Rethink flew out with the candidates to Skype’s Palo Alto headquarters in California. “All the candidates had real experience in their field and the excitement to learn about Skype TX,” Jordan explained. And Harrison-Crowley added: “Rethink [recruited] engineers engaged with other engineers [in their countries], to such an extent that a Brazilian is now a Skype ambassador.” To keep the talent pool fresh as well as flexible, Rethink created a workforce plan for the Rethink-Skype engineer community to match up with Skype’s changing demand. A SharePoint website was created

Melissa HarrisonCrowley Global account director

to update and ensure the engineers were fully trained in any new aspects of the Skype TX technology platform. Jordan said the aim was to support more events. “We’re not a traditional broadcaster. For example, we might need a production team to be on-site for a festival or live event.” And Rethink is integral to helping Skype to do more for its clients. Rethink has created a real-time, online scheduling tool that can be accessed wherever the engineers are, through their mobile phones, tablet devices or laptops — making the support fully mobile. Harrison-Crowley said: “It has been challenging — undertaking a global recruitment campaign of freelancers — but there’s been clear milestones; we’ve always been open and honest. Trust and engagement is incredibly important.” The end-to-end talent management programme has also brought results in the diversity sphere. “We’re very proud to showcase Skype’s inclusion,” Jordan said appreciatively. “We’ve got engineers of every ethnicity, and both sexes working in the ﬁeld.” The partnership deﬁnitely seems to be working well. Jordan told Recruiter: “Thanks to Rethink, I’ve been able to say ‘yes’ to more events — to do more than I’ve thought possible. Melissa and her team are a joy to work with. The recruitment never slips.”

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Profile

Danny Harmer

PHOTOGRAPHY: PETER SEARLE

COLIN COTTELL SPOKE WITH THE CHIEF PEOPLE OFFICER AT ONE OF THE NEWEST BANKS ON THE BLOCK, METRO BANK

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Helping an elderly person across the road is not the most obvious qualification for a career in banking. But for Danny Harmer, chief people officer at Metro Bank, these are the individuals this thrusting and ambitious bank is looking to hire. Speaking to Recruiter at the bank’s offices in London’s Holborn, Harmer recounts a story of how a colleague took a photograph of another colleague helping an elderly lady across the road, before posting it on the bank’s internal social network. “That’s so Metro,” says Harmer. In Metro Bank parlance, those with a genuine desire “to surprise and delight others” have what it calls the M factor. “We don’t think you can learn that. We think you either have it or you don’t,” she says. “We want smart people who really care about customers, and enjoy smiling and making people’s days better, all wrapped up in some passion… From day one, everyone we have hired has been hired on that basis, to join the revolution [to change banking] and to help build Metro Bank.”

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Launched in the UK in 2010, one of the new breed of ‘challenger banks’ championed by the government as a way of introducing more competition to the UK’s banking sector, Metro Bank has grown rapidly to 32 branches (or stores as it calls them), and 1,600 staff. It expects to take on 500 staff, called colleagues, in 2015. But that is just the start. Metro Bank’s vision is for up to 200 stores, and 5,000 colleagues by 2020. For the UK’s banking sector that has been bedevilled by a lack of public trust following the credit crunch and misselling scandals, Metro Bank promises a new approach that puts the customer first. However, Metro Bank’s approach hasn’t just appeared out of thin air. Its customer service ethos is based on that championed by chairman and founder Vernon Hill, when he founded Commerce Bank in the US in the 1970s. Hill’s book Fans not Customers spells it out. After a career spent in a number of the UK’s older and more traditional high street banks and building societies, Harmer, who moved into HR around 12 years ago, appears energised and excited by her role. After

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Profile

PHILOSOPHY OF RECRUITMENT “An honest, open and two-way conversation with candidates. The right job is out there for everybody”

toying with the idea of joining in 2009, but feeling the timing wasn’t quite right, she joined Metro Bank in 2012. “It’s fantastic to be part of something that is growing so brilliantly,” she says. With her energy, zest and ready smile, Harmer embodies the traits about which she is so clearly passionate. Those with the M factor might superficially appear easy to spot, perhaps even for the layman, but Harmer and her team have gone to a lot of thought and effort to design and implement a selection and recruitment process that consistently delivers people “who smile and are friendly and warm”. There are several stages to the process, Harmer explains. First a five-minute online questionnaire that establishes how flexible people are prepared to be — for example, about the hours they work. A traffic light system of Green — yes, you are our type, Amber — maybe, and Red — probably not, grades applicants. There then follows a longer online application, where candidate are asked to give examples of when they surprised and delighted people. “It’s the sort of person who realises that someone has dropped their wallet on the train, jumps off and therefore misses the train themselves,” says Harmer. Successful candidates then do a telephone interview, where interviewers look for evidence that the candidate has done some research into the bank, as well as that all important “zest” combined with “a lot of passion, and a bit of positivity and brightness”. If they are just looking for a job, they really shouldn’t come to us because we are passionate about what we do.” The final stage is the M factor assessment day. Harmer says M factor candidates are those whose natural tendency when mixing with Metro Bank’s recruiters is to “smile, say ‘hello’ and shake hands”.

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METRO BANK Launched in UK

2010 Number of branches 32 Number of staff

1,600 ‘2020 vision’ for 5,000 staff and up to 200 stores Number of customers

500,000 Open 362 days a year Terminology Stores not

branches Fans not customers Colleagues not staff

If the M factor sounds more like something from a well-known TV talent show than an integral part of hiring people for the serious business of dealing with other’s people’s money, Harmer acknowledges that Metro Bank is not every candidate’s cup of tea. For some, she says the realisation they’re not just applying for a job in a bank, but “joining the revolution” to change banking can be a bit overwhelming. “We know it’s not for everybody. It can be a little bit Marmite,” she says. “Sometimes when I am interviewing, I say ‘Look, if you are thinking — I am not sure, this sounds a bit crazy, is she for real — please don’t come, because I am for real’. Potentially, it is a little crazy, but we really care about it. If you are going to look at it with one eyebrow raised, you probably won’t enjoy it, and if you don’t enjoy it here, it’s a hard place to be.” Throughout the process for store staff and some other operational roles, Harmer says Metro Bank’s recruiters follow the mantra: Hire for attitude, train for skill. “It might well be that the candidate knows nothing about banking,” says Harmer. But with the right attitude and that M factor, it doesn’t matter. “We can train you to understand how a direct debit works, but if someone doesn’t smile, they don’t smile. You are either a smiler or you are not.” However, Harmer holds no truck with the view that British people’s traditional reticence to embrace a customer service ethos, when compared with other countries, particularly the US, makes finding people with the M factor more difficult. “There are people in Great Britain who smile,” she says. “This will come as a shock to the great British public, but I can assure you that there is a large pool of people, who smile and are friendly and helpful.”

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Profile

SECRET OF SUCCESS “I just love what I do. I think people see that, and therefore, they follow… Passion goes a long way”

Being a young bank that has not had time to develop its own people, especially for specialist and more senior roles, Harmer says Metro Bank sometimes has to hire staff from other banks. But even these candidates are expected to meet the same criteria. Receptionists greeting candidates are often asked ‘Was the candidate nice to you?’ “A candidate can behave really well in an interview, but how are they with a receptionist?” adds Harmer. Similarly, candidates for local director roles are asked for examples of how they surprised and delighted a customer. “If they say they can’t remember, they probably shouldn’t be here,” says Harmer. Harmer says that very few new joiners to its stores have previous banking experience. But far from bemoaning this, Harmer says that being the new kid on the British banking block has definite advantages. “We have no legacy issues, so our culture is really clear and strong and simple. We talk about everybody being amazing, and we can set out how we expect people to behave.” In contrast, Harmer says older banks that decide to change their vision and approach, for example, to focus more on customer service, have the disadvantage of being stuck with the legacy of having staff who are no longer “a good fit”. But far from just talking about everybody being amazing, Metro Bank has taken the idea of cultural fit even further, by using ‘amazing’ — AMAZE — as an acronym for the type of behaviours it expects. For example, A stands for ‘Attend to every detail’; M for

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CV: DANNY HARMER Chief people ofﬁcer, Metro Bank

2012-present Various HR director roles, Barclays

2010-12 Senior HR roles, and regional director, Lloyds Banking Group

2009-10 HR and management roles, Halifax/ HBOS

1992-2009

‘Make every wrong right’, E for ‘Exceed expectations’ and so on. During the selection process, candidates can expect to answer questions about each element of the acronym. For example, for the first A: “How important is accuracy, and give us an example of how you spotted an error and corrected it?” Harmer explains. Harmer emphasises the importance of helping candidates themselves to come to the right decision. “It’s a two-way process, where we try to be as clear about what the job is, what it is like to work here, and what is great and what isn’t so great, so that actually candidates almost self-select in or out.” For Harmer, the recruitment function has a wider purpose than simply meeting the bank’s immediate need to fill vacancies. That purpose is to help build Metro Bank’s brand, through creating what it calls ‘fans’ — what other banks call customers. “We want candidates to recommend to friends and family that they come to us as a customer, and potentially that they think about coming to us as a colleague, if they think they are a great fit.” This is why the candidate experience “has to be amazing”, she says. This means giving all candidates, whether they have been successful or not, “clear, fair, straightforward feedback, so that they feel looked after and informed. The process is about setting people up to win”, she continues. For Harmer and Metro Bank, the benefits of being considerate to others clearly works both ways.

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11/02/2015 17:10

Specialist stafﬁng software

Hays is a global business operating across 33 countries and communication between our 8,000 consultants, candidates and clients via the internet is a key business issue.

multi-lingual capabilities, sophisticated integration options, and social media enablement combined with scalability through a web-based The latest Adapt system brings us

Steve Weston | Group Technology Director | Hays

delivery model. This provides a platform to enable business options that historically could never be imagined, let alone realised…

one global process but retain the ﬂexibility to adjust for local functionality and data requirements. We chose Bond because they had We wanted the ability to deﬁne best practice through

the ability to conﬁgure and integrate to our other systems and to scale to our size with their Adapt platform. We are now seeing beneﬁts of our investment where we have deployed. As we continue the further rollout, I expect to see extensive cost savings and productivity improvements over additional deployments. Jonas Prising | President ManpowerGroup Americas

Global Vision Connecting people and processes everywhere. Chosen by the world’s leading recruitment organisations for its multi-lingual and multi-cultural capabilities, Adapt enables global businesses to connect their ofﬁces and streamline operations via an intuitive cloud platform – revolutionising the world of recruitment. Feature rich specialist recruitment software, Bond Adapt, is 100% conﬁgurable and fully scalable for effective global deployment. By managing the entire placement cycle, Adapt improves productivity, providing global organisations with the right tools to maximise their business performance.

E sales@bond.co.uk

One world. One future. Bond International Software www.bondinternationalsoftware.com

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Sourcing tools

Tools to engage IT’S ALL VERY WELL HAVING THE LATEST TOOLS TO IDENTIFY AND FIND CANDIDATES, BUT AS SUE WEEKES DISCOVERS, YOU NEED TO ENGAGE WITH THEM AND KEEP THEM INTERESTED Increasingly, the discipline of sourcing within recruitment is seen as far more than finding talent. Most companies don’t consider a candidate “sourced” unless the sourcer or recruiter has verified that they are “qualified, interested and available for the position being discussed”, according to a survey conducted by the online sourcing community website SourceCon.com. “It’s now very easy to find the names of potential candidates. The new challenge is to get a candidate to engage and interact with you,” says Jeremy Roberts, editor of SourceCon.com. “I hope to see more tools that will bridge the gap between candidate identification and engagement.” Roberts isn’t alone in identifying this disconnect. Holly Fawcett, digital marketing manager at recruitment training company Social Talent, believes tools must become more candidate-facing. “Some aggregators cut off the candidate who is blissfully ignorant that their details are held on these sites,” she says. “When candidates are alerted to the fact that people are looking for them, that could become rather jarring.” And she believes the power this gives to the candidate would be no bad thing for hungry sourcers: “Once they become aware of their worth,” Fawcett says of these candidates, “they are perhaps more likely to feel like changing jobs.” Some developers are already addressing this gap. Andy Sumner, managing director of Monster UK, which acquired talent search engine TalentBin last year and launched it in the UK in October, says the product features built-in tools that make it easier to communicate and engage with people. “As a recruiter you need to stand out with these

Andy Sumner

IKON

Jill Duthie

hard-to-find people and the way to make your approach resonate is to interact with them where they spend their time,” he says. “So if a developer spends a lot of time on StackOverflow, TalentBin allows you to message them via StackOverflow. If the person responds, it links back to the TalentBin back office so it’s easier for the recruiter to manage and track.” With recruiters linked 24/7 via their smartphones it is debatable as to whether any further technology is required for the communication and engagement of the process. The Global Sourcing Survey 2014, carried out by recruitment process outsourcing (RPO) firm Alexander Mann Solutions (AMS) and Social Talent, suggests otherwise though. Staggeringly, just 6% of resourcers pick up the telephone because of the proliferation of social tools.

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Nick Greenston, head of resourcing augmentation at AMS, says such tools provide recruiters with a way of “hiding” and, if they want to engage with passive candidates in particular, they have to get back on their phones. The survey also revealed that most sourcers only hear back from 20-40% of passive candidates — so clearly many are failing to make the right approach. “You’ve got to build trust, talk to them about things other than jobs and cultivate the relationship,” says Greenston. That said, he believes more online tools will be developed to aid communication. Greenston also predicts greater use of existing private networking tools such as Yammer. Overall though, whether for sourcing or engagement, Greenston reckons recruiters need to get better at using the tools they have.

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“Ninety-six per cent of sourcers around the world use LinkedIn but how well they use it and how deeply is a different thing,” he says.

Sourcing skills For hard-to-fill roles such as those in the technology sector, the focus for recruiters is still very much on building good sourcing skills. IT-specific search engines can help find these people but Fawcett says the real challenge is when you have to pull skillsets together to find, for instance, a top sales manager for an IT business. “We don’t believe a machine can beat a human brain but we need to train our humans better,” Fawcett says. “The skill level of sourcing in the UK has come on in leaps and bounds but there is still some way to go.”

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Sourcing tools

Social Talent offers a Black Belt in Internet Recruiting (those qualified can call themselves Sourcing Ninjas) and it recently launched a new free tool for sourcing called SourceHub. This helps recruiters build powerful Boolean search strings that can be run across professional and social networks. Boolean searches allow users to combine keywords with operating words such as AND, NOT and OR to produce relevant results. “It takes the principles of what we teach, such as listing everything required to get an interview, and building out all the different ways of saying those things in a search string,” says Fawcett. “Remember that candidates say things in the most weird and wonderful ways. The number of times we see misspellings such as ‘pubic’ relations officer instead of ‘public’, and you have to take that into account in your sourcing strategy.” Since the launch three months ago, Fawcett reports that 15,000 members are using SourceHub on a daily basis. Recruiters can sign up at source.socialtalent.co. The Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) was one of the first organisations in the UK to set up a dedicated direct sourcing business function and last year sent some of the team on Social Talent’s courses. “They were already using some the techniques in their everyday work but the hints and tricks they learn are really valuable and are enabling us to carry out some really good quality Boolean searches and x-raying,” says Jill Duthie, head of sourcing UK and Europe at RBS. “This was a significant part of our upskilling strategy last year and we now have everyone to a certain benchmark in terms of sourcing skills.”

Talent community RBS is also creating talent communities to help address skills shortages in areas such as technology and auditing. “These areas are as challenging as ever and the good people are getting umpteen emails a day on LinkedIn,” she says. “We want to build out our talent communities so we make sure we stay in touch with warm candidates.” Duthie says RBS has also started to look at specialist online communities for tech talent such as StackOverflow and has been involved in trialling other sourcing tools. RBS is also leveraging the use of LinkedIn’s analytics around specific skillsets. “It means you can take a concise one-page document to the hiring manager and show who’s in the market to back-up what you are saying. We’ve found this to be hugely powerful in the business,” Duthie says. LinkedIn reports that its data analytics are increasingly being used by recruiters, and last October it announced the availability of 4,500 free-todownload talent pool reports in specific areas ranging from ‘Europe Java developers’ to ‘Netherlands quality assurance testers’ and ‘Germany manufacturing mechanical engineers’. Meanwhile, at its Talent Connect event in London last November, it announced two forthcoming product developments: a one-click tool to provide insight on top companies, geographies, experience and education on the talent pool from which you are recruiting; and another that highlights individuals

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who are the best fit for a company, as well as for a particular job, based on analysis of their profiles. LinkedIn remains the dominant sourcing tool by a long way and is likely to hold on to this position for some time. Facebook at Work is currently being piloted by some organisations but hasn’t yet excited the sourcing community. An analysis of the networks searched via SourceHub between midnight and 9.39am the following morning, revealed there were 20,312 searches on LinkedIn with a general Google search for CVs coming second at only 3,838. “LinkedIn searches are roughly five times that of any other search,” says Fawcett, adding that an overreliance on LinkedIn means recruiters often overlook other networks where talent may reside. “Obviously recruiters will go for low-hanging fruit but look at the entire market and all the networks not just where you are comfortable.”

Holly Fawcett

New tools LinkedIn’s dominance certainly isn’t discouraging development by others though. Later this year Monster will launch a new tool for use within Twitter called Social Job Ads. Sumner describes it as “a oneto-many passive candidate tool” because it lets a recruiter send a job ad to the Twitter feed of specific potential candidates based on career attributes such as occupation or industry type. “It means the recruiter doesn’t have to conduct individual searches and casts a big net,” he says. Meanwhile, it recently added ‘design’ as the next job sector for TalentBin. To date, technology has been the obvious choice for those developing aggregators because technology professionals have more online hangouts than other professions. Ben Ritchie, founder of technical skills search engine TrendyCoders, which also has a peer-review element built into its results, says geographical rather than sector expansion is the next obvious move for the company but believes its product is one of a wave of tools changing the sourcing landscape. “If you are looking for one of the newer tech roles in an area like ‘machine learning’, you can’t just rely on degree,” he says. “And a traditional Boolean search won’t tell you how respected a person is by their peers in the same way we can.” When SourceCon Spring opens its doors later this month, there looks to be no shortage of tools to check out that will excite the sourcing community. Looking ahead, as well as more people aggregators and plug-ins to help find candidates across the web, Roberts expects search capabilities to improve within applicant tracking systems and other databases. “There will be tools that will start to help us identify candidates hidden within these databases,” he says, but once again he returns to the importance of what happens after identification. “To increase engagement, talent acquisition professionals need to have good contact information and to know how to pique a candidate’s interest in the first phone call or message.”

Nick Greenston

• Sourcing conference SourceCon Spring will be held in Seattle, US, on 24-25 March. Visit events.ere.net/ehome/springsourcecon/home

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PLAN YOUR NEXT MOVE

on the move

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RECRUITER

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Are you in recruitment? Do you want a fresh challenge? Search Consultancy is growing its team of experts in Sussex with a recruitment drive of its own. Check out the great opportunities available at the companyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Brighton and Gatwick/Crawley VMĂ&#x201E;JLZ >OL[OLY `V\ÂťYL SVVRPUN MVY H YLJY\P[TLU[ JVUZ\S[HU[ VY H THUHNLYPHS YVSL [OLYL HYL H YHUNL VM VWWVY[\UP[PLZ H]HPSHISL >OH[ÂťZ TVYL HZ :LHYJO PZ H T\S[P ZLJ[VY ZWLJPHSPZ[ JV]LYPUN PUK\Z[YPLZ `V\ÂťSS OH]L [OL JOHUJL [V KL]LSVW `V\Y ZRPSSZ PU `V\Y JOVZLU HYLH VM L_WLY[PZL +LIIPL *HZ^LSS :LHYJO *VUZ\S[HUJ`ÂťZ 4+ MVY ,UNSHUK ZHPK! â&#x20AC;&#x153;We want to hear from candidates with drive, enthusiasm, passion and the desire to be truly exceptional. â&#x20AC;&#x153;We recently enjoyed one of our most successful years and want to build on this Z\JJLZZ I` IYPUNPUN PU UL^ [HSLU[ [V VUL VM V\Y SVUNLZ[ LZ[HISPZOLK VMĂ&#x201E;JLZ PU *YH^SL` .H[^PJR HZ ^LSS HZ VUL VM V\Y UL^LZ[ VMĂ&#x201E;JLZ PU )YPNO[VU â&#x20AC;&#x153;We want recruitment consultants who have the skills to get results for our prestigious client base and our talented jobseekers, and managers who will form a key part of our national team and cement our position as a market leader. â&#x20AC;&#x153;In return we offer competitive salaries, expert training, the opportunity to earn \UJHWWLK JVTTPZZPVU HUK H NVVK ILULĂ&#x201E;[Z WHJRHNL Âš :\JJLZZM\S JHUKPKH[LZ ^PSS IL QVPUPUN H [Y\S` NYLH[ JVTWHU` [V ^VYR MVY Âś HUK P[ OHZ [OL HJJVSHKLZ [V WYV]L P[ :LHYJO WSHJLK [O PU [OL :\UKH` ;PTLZ ÂşTop 100 Companies to Work ForÂť YHURPUNZ PU HUK ZJVVWLK ÂşBest Large Company To Work Forâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; at the 0UZ[P[\[L VM 9LJY\P[TLU[ 7YVMLZZPVUHSZ (^HYKZ PU 0M `V\ ^HU[ [V [HRL `V\Y JHYLLY [V [OL UL_[ SL]LS JHSS Peter Barry on 0113 308 8066 for an informal chat or send your CV to internalrecruitment@search.co.uk 40

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DECEMBER 2014/JANUARY 2015

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12/02/2015 11:49

Movers & Shakers

ASSOCIATION OF EXECUTIVE •SEARCH CONSULTANTS (AESC):

•

Your next move?

NOTTMATCHES UP WITH JOBMATCHER.COM

Ineke Arts, Paul Benson, Kate Bullis and Alan Kaplan join AESC’s global board. BCL LEGAL: Georgina Inson

A selection of vacancies from recruiter.co.uk

Richard Nott joins the online recruitment site as global sales director. He was previously website director at Totaljobs Group. He is also a former sales director of technology and IT recruitment job board CWJobs, part of Totaljobs.

and Tracy Harris join the legal recruiter as senior associates. Paul Deeley joins •theBULLHORN: global recruitment software provider as chief ﬁnancial ofﬁcer.

•

CIELO: Seb O’Connell joins the talent consulting and recruitment process outsourcing (RPO) organisation as managing director, Europe.

Ruella James Recruitment consultant HR sector Basic to £40k, OTE £65k+ London Send Resourcing Home-based flexible recruitment opportunities for the experienced recruiter £comms only, up to 80% South-West

• EAMES CONSULTING GROUP:

Kelly Fordham joins the international search and selection ﬁrm as associate director of the new ﬁnance division.

•joins the technical recruiter as ELOCO: Jennifer Washbrook

senior consultant to lead the commercial catering team.

•

EXECUTIVES ONLINE: Chris

O’Connell joins the executive search and interim management company as MD.

•

KINGS RECRUITMENT: Kevin

Stabler has joined as strategic director at the Yorkshire recto-rec agency owned by his wife Lynne. FERRY: Caroline Jellinck •joinsKORN the global executive search

ﬁrm as senior client partner and member of its global technology, board and CEO services practice.

•

joins the interim and executive search specialist as non-exec director.

•

NOVA CONTRACTING: Philip Thomas joins the contracting specialist as business development manager.

recruiter as director.

digital recruiter as non-executive chairman.

GRAYS EXECUTIVE SEARCH: •Phillip Machell joins the interim

• MEDILINK CONSULTING: Amir Malik joins the healthcare

• NOW EDUCATION: Marissa Wort joins the education recruiter as

search division as MD.

recruiter as director of its new executive search division.

principal consultant.

ENERGY RESOURCES: •IanGRANITE Melville joins the energy

• HASSON ASSOCIATES:

Stephanie Richards joins the specialist recruiter as senior associate. INTERCONTINENTAL HOTELS •GROUP: Simon Sharkey joins as

director, global talent acquisition. INTERIM MANAGEMENT •ASSOCIATION: Richard Clifford

joins the representative body’s executive committee. SOLUTIONS GROUP: •LeeGLOBETEC Rayner joins the international

executive search ﬁrm as board director.

•Carmody joins the global stafﬁng KELLY SERVICES: Brian

ﬁrm as national sales manager, Ireland.

BUSINESS SUPPORT: •TheMERIDIAN Altrincham-based recruiter

has appointed three to its board: Tina Cork, operations director, health business unit; Richard Ewing, ops director, construction business unit; Andrew Pettingill, MD, ofﬁce & professional and industrial business unit. It has also appointed Steve Jeffers as HR director.

•Natasha Cleeve joins the senior

MCLEAN INTERIM MANAGEMENT:

interim recruiter as partner.

•

NAKAMA: Asia Paciﬁc MD and board director Rob Shefﬁeld takes on the role of CEO for the APAC operations. Josephine Garniss joins as a director and MD, Singapore.

For more jobs, people moves and career advice go to • recruiter.co.uk/jobs • inhouserecruiterjobs.co.uk • internationalrecruiterjobs. com

•

NOW CAREERS: Lee Gallier joins the accounting, ﬁnance, construction and professional services recruiter as ﬁnance manager.

LA FOSSE ASSOCIATES: Jonathan •McKay joins the technology and

Pro-Recruitment Group Tax, legal, financial sectors Healthcare £28k-£38k City of London

NORRIE JOHNSTON RECRUITMENT: Jackie Edwards

•

PAGEGROUP: The global specialist recruiter has promoted Bev Nicholas to regional talent director. PEDERSEN & PARTNERS: •Laurence Maheo joins the

international executive search organisation as client partner and head of technology practice for France. Alexander Wilhelm joins as client partner in Germany. Paul Inman joins as principal in the Czech Republic. Pasi Harttunen joins as principal in Estonia. Kaspars Kaulinš joins as principal in Latvia. POD TALENT: Caroline •Crotty joins the supply chain,

procurement, logistics and manufacturing recruiter as head of search.

SHEFFIELD HAWORTH: Elizabeth •Roberts joins the global executive

search ﬁrm as MD and head of its interim practice in London.

•

SPENCER OGDEN: The global energy recruiter has promoted Brad Lewington to EMEA [Europe, Middle East and Africa] director. Kristen Zeilerbauer also joins the company as MD in London.

•

THE HIGHFIELD COMPANY: Jason Silk joins the global construction, oil & gas and engineering recruiter as operations director.

•

UNITING AMBITION: Simon Whittle, Matthew Burling and Trevor Molloy join the recruitment consultancy as, respectively, head of technology and ecommerce recruitment, head of marketing recruitment and contract delivery manager. VINE RESOURCES: Louise •Chapman joins the telecoms

recruiter as account manager.

Email people moves for use online and in print, including a short biography, to recruiter.editorial@redactive.co.uk

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MARCH 2015

12/02/2015 14:24

Bloggers with Bite

WHAT WILL RECRUITMENT BE LIKE IN 10 YEARS? There may well be lots of differences in 2025 but, as the phrase has it, generally plus ça change… picked up another team’s call by accident. Consultants will all be their own brands (much like the US real estate industry) and they will be What’sApping their candidates and clients. #YOLO! [You only live once — just in case you’re still not in the Twitter world.]

ow recruitment has changed over the past 10 years! But while a lot has changed, even more has stayed the same. (Stay with me; there’s a list coming soon.) What will recruitment look like in 2025? To keep it nice and simple for our key performance indicator (KPI)-driven recruitment brains, here are two lists (I warned you):

Top five things that will be the same in 2025 1. ‘Right to represent’ issues “I sent him first”… “But I spoke to him first”… Stick Albert Einstein, Stephen Hawking and Warren Buffett in a room together and they couldn’t figure this one out. And we wonder why recuiters sometimes have a bad name.

Top ﬁve things that will be obsolete in 2025 1. CVs Can you imagine a [Microsoft] Word CV in 2025? I mean it is 2015, and still no one has worked out how to import and position images how they want. I can imagine Bill Gates trying to insert the Microsoft logo and swearing to himself. I still get the odd paper CV sent in. In fact, the paper CV has come full circle and is kind of retro — I quite like it. Can’t imagine it being ‘ﬂavour of the month’ in 2025 though.

2. Terrible excuses from candidates pulling out of interviews In 2025 there will still be cold, miserable mornings, and candidates will still get crowbarred into jobs they don’t actually like. “My car got hit by an articulated truck that jack-knifed on the M25, and no it won’t be on the news, and yes I miraculously survived”. Hang on — this is a separate blog all to itself. Answers on a post card for worst excuses please.

2. Out of office replies There won’t be an office to be out of, and even if there is, you will not escape. Not when you have an iPhone 12 or a Samsung Universe. Bet some hilarious scamp still manages to let everyone know they are on a sunny beach though. 3. Face-to-face interviews There will be some enhanced version of Skype. Maybe full body, maybe interactive, surely enough for you to have complete confidence in presenting your candidate to your client right? However, what it won’t enable you to do is smell. 4. KPIs and targets Gen A won’t like KPIs. (Don’t worry, Old Skool recruiters: KPIs will re-appear in my article Why recruitment went to the dogs in 2025.) 5. Landlines No more wasted time spent spelling out a candidate name, reconfirming post codes before realising 10 minutes later you

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3. Banks will still charge £25 for a CHAPS [Clearing House Automated Payment System] payment Despite the fact that technology will no doubt exist where banks can execute trades in nanoseconds, we will still have to fork out £25 to give our contractor a same-day payment. Matt Churchward is a director of The Green Recruitment Company

4. Clients not paying on time Technology will be available in 2025 that will make it impossible for invoices to go astray or for same-day payments not to be made. But prompt payment still won’t happen (that CHAPS payment from No 3 rearing its ugly head). Despite chasing and sending reminders we will still get a dog-eared cheque in the post for the slightly incorrect amount and well overdue. 5. No one will know what an RPO [recruitment process outsourcing organisation] really is. Nothing to add.

Despite chasing we will still get a dog-eared cheque in the post for the incorrect amount and well overdue What would you like to have a rant about? Tell us at recruiter.editorial@redactive.co.uk

In April: Charlotte Harris, global HR director, talks innovation at Regus WWW.RECRUITER.CO.UK

11/02/2015 10:37

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60%

OF CEOS

LISTED INNOVATION AS THEIR COMPANY’S PRIMARY FOCUS.

YET, 93% USE THE SAME SOCIAL NETWORK FOR HIRING.

LACK OF

47%OF THE

TECHNICAL SKILLS

IS THE #1 REASON EMPLOYERS HAVE TROUBLE FILLING JOBS. MEANING THE NERDS HAVE EVEN MORE POWER THAN WE THOUGHT.

WORKFORCE

PLANS TO LOOK FOR A

NEW JOB

THIS YEAR.

WHICH, BY HUMAN

NATURE, MAKES THE

OTHER 53% INTRODUCING

MORE ATTRACTIVE TO YOUR BUSINESS.

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1. PWC Global CEO Pulse Survey, 2013; 2. ManPower Talent Shortage Survey, 2013; 3. Investors in People, Dec 2013 - http://www.investorsinpeople.co.uk/press

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