Recruiter January 2013

January 2013

www.recruiter.co.uk

BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE FOR RECRUITMENT AND RESOURCING PROFESSIONALS

Oliver James Associates The financial services recruiter is top p of our FAST 50 chart, which lists the fastest-growing g gp privately y owned staffing companies in the UK MATTHEW JEFFERY Will 2013 turn out to be the Year of the Executioner?

See what our Blogger with Bite has to say

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SEE THE 2013 RANKINGS INSIDE!

THE CHALLENGE

INDUSTRY INSIGHTS

Vertex Solutions set up an assessment day to find test development engineers for Imagination Technologies

Resourcing lessons of London 2012 from Paul Modley, the former head of recruitment at LOCOG

Recruitment Matters 08/01/2013 16:27

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Contents 40

28

And what an amazing start to 2013 with the publication of our latest FAST 50 league table of the 50 fastest-growing, privately-owned UK recruitment companies!

Produced in association with mergers & acquisitions advisers Boxington Corporate Finance and supported by law firm Charles Russell, this edition of the FAST 50 reveals brilliant news: those driven, ambitious recruiters on the list achieved 39% average growth, even in a less than co-operative, shall we say, economic environment. Read all about the topranked company, Oliver James Associates from p28 and our overview analysis from p32. You’ll also want to see our breakout analyses of individual industry sector performance online at recruiter.co.uk As we enter 2013, temporary labour procurer de Poel has stirred an already bubbling pot of debate around recruitment-focused membership organisations by launching its own vision of such an operation...

Penna’s Julie Towers shares the current resourcing landscape as experienced by her operation… and we get in-house insight from Geronimo Inns, ITV and Paul Modley, former head of recruitment for the London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games.

Incidentally, Paul will elaborate on the themes in his article at our Smart Resourcing 2013 knowledge-sharing event on 28 February (www. smartresourcing2013.com). We hope to see you there!

NEWS 5

The “exceptional” performance of recruiters in the FAST 50 rankings 6

Scan here to get your own copy of Recruiter

Technology ‘squeeze’ As technology hands power to clients and candidates, are external service providers being eased out?

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FEATURES 28 COVER STORY Meet the founders and directors of Oliver James Associates, leader of Recruiter’s FAST 50 list 32 Recruiter FAST 50 2013 The fastest-growing recruitment firms in the UK which are defying all business expectations

ITV grad scheme, series 2 Feedback is key as the scheme gets its second intake

8 Tech & tools 10 Predictions for 2013 Professionals in the industry reveal what they expect will happen in the sector in the year ahead

ANALYSIS 12 News Analysis Is it time for a single trade body for the industry?

14 Sector Analysis Accountancy 17 Global Spotlight on India 12

DeeDee Doke, Editor

FAST 50 firms buffer the storms, emerging stronger

REGULARS 18 21 21 24

Soapbox Soundbites Letters/Web chat Trends Recruitment lessons from London 2012

26 The Challenge Vertex Solutions and Imagination Technologies 38 Movers & Shakers Industry moves 42 Bloggers with Bite

WHO’S HIRING? 39 Ruth Moran 48 ICS 41 Leveridge Partnership

EDITORIAL Editor: DeeDee Doke T: +44 (0)20 7880 7601 deedee.doke@recruiter.co.uk Senior reporter: Colin Cottell T: +44 (0)20 7880 7603 colin.cottell@recruiter.co.uk Reporter: Sam Burne James T: +44 (0)20 7880 7606 sam.burnejames@recruiter.co.uk Contributing writer: Sue Weekes Production editor: Vanessa Townsend T: +44 (0)20 7880 7602 vanessa.townsend@recruiter.co.uk Art editor: Adrian Taylor ADVERTISING Advertising director: Andy Daniel T: +44 (0)20 7880 7607 andy.daniel@recruiter.co.uk Display senior sales executive: Tom Culley T: +44 (0)20 7880 6205 tom.culley@recruiter.co.uk Recruitment sales executive: David Rix T: +44 (0)20 7880 7608 david.rix@ redactive.co.uk Fax +44 (0)20 7880 7553 PRODUCTION Deputy production manager: Kieran Tobin T: +44 (0)20 7880 6240 kieran.tobin@redactive.co.uk PUBLISHING Publishing director: Anne Sadler T: +44 (0)20 7880 6213 anne.sadler@redactive.co.uk RECRUITER AWARDS Events: Anja Rodford T: +44 (0)20 7880 7555 anja.rodford@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@alliance-media.co.uk • To purchase reprints or multiple copies of the magazine, contact Andy Daniel T: +44 (0)20 7880 7607

Total average net circulation between 1 July 2011 & 30 June 2012 – 17,838. Recruiter is also sent to all REC members R d ti M Redactive Media di Group 17-18 Britton Street London EC1M 5TP

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. © 2013 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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Topics include: how to influence key stakeholders, leadership skills, workforce analytics, lessons learnt from the 2012 Olympic Games, global talent acquisition

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10/01/2013 12:45

FAST 50 FIRMS BUFFER THE STORMS AND EMERGE STRONGER With the UK economy in the doldrums as austerity Britain began to bite in 2010 and 2011, this year’s Recruiter FAST 50 reveals that recruiters bravely faced down the economic headwinds buffeting the economy by deploying a variety of business strategies. The FAST 50, which presents the 50 fastest-growing private recruitment companies in the UK, is produced in association with mergers & acquisitions advisers Boxington Corporate Finance. Leading law firm Charles Russell is supporting the 2013 FAST 50.

new business opportunities, an example being change management, are beginning to pay off, he told Recruiter.

Chief operating officer of multi-sector recruiter Brightwork, Charles Turner, told Recruiter that the company’s growth can in large part be put down to its focus on its core market, the Scotch whisky industry, which

has continued to expand. From supplying predominantly blue-collar temps, Turner said the company had introduced complementary strands, including technical, professional and engineering, a lot of which has been permanent. “That has been a big driver for us,” said Turner. The company also moved into other high growth areas, such as social care and pre-school education, he added.

For Gordon Adam, chief executive and co-founder of IT and change management recruiter Head Resourcing, the top performing FAST 50 recruiter in 2012, which this year placed second, said it was a case of more of the same. “I think we had the formula pretty right,” he told Recruiter.

Adam continued: “The main thing is working together, and making sure everything is focused first on the customer and then on the staff by listening to them and supporting them. If you do that and continue to do that you won’t go far wrong,” said Adam.

COLIN COTTELL

CHART TOPPERS…

The directors of the top-ranked staffing company in Recruiter’s 2013 FAST 50 — Oliver James Associates — told Recruiter the achievement is recognition for the efforts of staff in overcoming the challenges of operating in the UK’s hard hit-financial services sector.

“We feel quite humbled by this achievement.

It is a big deal for us, but it is more important for the consultants in our business because it is a tough market, this gives everyone a real buzz,” Oliver Castle, one of financial services recruiter Oliver James Associates’ three founding directors, told Recruiter.

“They can go to their peer group, their competitors, their family and friends and say ‘you know what, we have been successful’’,” added Castle.

As a completely new entrant to the Recruiter FAST 50, the 50 fastest-growing private recruitment businesses in the UK, compiled by Boxington Corporate Finance, Oliver James Associates more than doubled its revenue in 2011 to £36.4m, propelling it to the top of this year’s ranking.

Fellow director, James Rogers, who along with Castle and Nick Godson founded Oliver James Associates in 2002, added: “The growth has been driven by the quality of the consultants we have. Three people [the three directors] can do very little; 90 people can achieve a great deal.”

Oliver James Associates initially focused on supplying accountants to insurance companies. However, since then it has branched out in other areas of financial services, and opened a number of offices overseas.

Castle says he hopes the achievement will have wider spin-off benefits.

“It is something we can talk about and hopefully it will attract people to the Oliver James Associates brand,” he said.

Winner of Best Banking/Financial Recruitment Agency at last year’s Recruiter Awards for Excellence, headline sponsored by Eploy, Oliver James Associates was also ranked fifth in Recruiter’s 2012 HOT 100 list of the UK’s most profitable recruiters, compiled by Agile Intelligence.

PHOTO: RICHARD HANSON

Given the economic backdrop, Tim Evans, managing director of Boxington, described the performance of those ranked in achieving an average growth rate of 39% as “exceptional”.

Andrew Speers, managing director of oil & gas recruiter Petroplan and FAST 50 new entrant, told Recruiter that one of the keys to the company’s success was its focus on providing a personal service to candidates.

“It is a candidate-led industry, and we are putting people into some pretty hostile environments,” he explained. Among the locations Petroplan places candidates are Iraq, Algeria, Angola and Azerbaijan.

Clients also expect contractors to arrive in the country and on site “well prepared and unencumbered” by problems such as visas or accommodation. He added that the level of service had been boosted by a decision made more than two years ago to open offices around the world.

Jonathan Nicholson, managing director of banking & finance recruiter Astbury Marsden, another new entrant in 2013 though it appeared as far back as the 2009 FAST 50 before dropping out of the rankings for three years, attributes the company’s growth to diversifying into international markets in their case by opening offices in Asia. In addition, efforts to upskill consultants so they can better develop

News

“We feel quite humbled by this achievement.

It’s a big deal for us”

FOR MORE NEWS AND COMMENTS GO ONLINE

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News

Random thoughts from recruiter.co.uk, Twitter and beyond…

“Starting your career with the Olympics means it’s very hard to find a job that gives you the same satisfaction” ISE MURPHY, A UPS GAMES INTERN

Events ARC Networking Event 22 January, London Chamber of Commerce, arc-org.net/ events

IOR presents ‘Recruiters!

Generate Leads Using Social Media’ 24 January, HSBC Corporate Banking Centre, Manchester theior.uk/events

An introduction to ‘Inclusive Recruitment’ 5 February, organised

by Inclusive Employers, Waterloo, London inclusiveemployers.co.uk

The Employment Agents Movement (TEAM) Conference 8 February, De Vere at Staverton Park, Northants jobsatteam.com

Recruitment Agency Expo 26-27 February, Olympia, London, recruitmentagencyexpo.com

Recruiter presents Smart Resourcing 2013, headline sponsored by Eploy 28 February, The King’s Fund, Cavendish Square, smartresourcing2013.com

Recruiter Awards for Excellence 2013, sponsored by Eploy 1 May, Grosvenor House Hotel, London, recruiterawards.co.uk

FOR MORE NEWS AND COMMENTS, GO ONLINE

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TECH ‘SQUEEZES’ BROKERS The role of broker for HR/recruitment service providers may have been “squeezed” as technology “hands power” to candidates and client — but direct employers still need external support for such expertise as resourcing innovation, according to Julie Towers, managing director of HR services firm Penna’s recruitment solutions.

Speaking to the Recruitment Society in December in London, Towers acknowledged that external providers of HR and resourcing services are under “increased pressure to be relevant and find its place in this changing market”.

In 2012, Towers said, providers recognised that the “technology revolution was here to stay, and would change for the better our world of work, and hand power to the candidate and client … and squeeze our role as broker”.

However, she said that her own business had recently experienced a 48% increase in requirements for mixed service solutions involving combinations of search, direct sourcing, selection, assessment and attraction to support large scale projects or to work “in partnership” alongside inhouse teams across private and public sector clients.

“Clients, regardless of their capability and capacity to deliver, in my view remain in need of innovation in resourcing, Julie Towers Norman Rose increased accuracy around ‘fit’ and improved engagement with candidates,” Towers said. “Whilst unemployment remains high and GDP [gross domestic product] is not moving in the right direction, the sourcing of talented individuals in specialist fields and leadership roles remains challenging, with our role remaining vital in these areas.”

She went on to say: “For those of us still going, we should be proud of the resilience and endeavour we have shown.”

Towers’ remarks were made at the Recruitment Society’s holiday gathering. Also at the December event, Norman Rose was announced as the organisation’s new executive director, following the decision of long-time chief executive Steve Huxham to step down.

DEEDEE DOKE

RRS LAUNCHES ACADEMY FOR RAW RECRUITS

INDIA MOVES ON

MIDLANDS recruiter Regional Recruitment •Services has launched a new recruitment

training academy. The first six trainees began the 12-week training programme, which includes four weeks’ on the job experience, earlier this month.

Michael Clapton, Regional Recruitment Services’ operations director, told Recruiter: “We want to have the best new talent in the recruitment industry.” Clapton says the new academy will help the company achieve its goal of being “the agency of choice” in each sector in which it operates.

The technical & engineering, industrial, sales and commercial sectors recruiter received 400 applications for the programme, said Clapton, from which 40 were selected for two initial assessments days. These were designed to identify individuals with the company’s “key behavioural traits” of tenacity, passion, emotional intelligence and attention to detail, he explained.

Clapton said the company intends to have four intakes of trainees a year, with the aim of increasing staff from 33 today to at least 50 by the end of 2013.

The vice president of the Indian Staffing Federation (ISF) has told Recruiter that the industry has “started moving in the right direction” towards staffing receiving more open acceptance from government as a valuable tool for competitive businesses.

Rituparna Chakraborty said: “Interestingly in India everyone acknowledges that staffing is an effective means of running a competitive and dynamic business, but mostly within closed doors.”

The ISF was launched in the summer of 2011, and Chakraborty said there was much room for growth and development in what is currently “an extremely fragmented market dominated largely by local ‘mom and pop’ shops”. She added that the governmental involvement will be key for the industry to secure progress in 2013, saying “the biggest challenge as of now is the legal and regulatory environment”.

“India has more than 100 labour laws, more than most other countries. Moreover, there is considerable overlapping of several statutory provisions. Variations in definition of words used in various labour laws causes a lot of confusion … basic terms such as ‘employed persons’ and ‘wages’ have been defined differently in the various labour laws. Hence, there is a need to move from multiple labour laws to a single labour code.”

• Turn to p17 for more on India in our Global Spotlight

COLIN COTTELL

SAM BURNE JAMES WWW.RECRUITER.CO.UK

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News

“Candidates will shop their offer around, the offer-tojoining ratio is significantly lower in India and in some other developing markets” MARIE MOYNIHAN, DELL RECRUITING CHIEF

“Most of the obvious and immediate [staffing] cuts are likely to have now been made”

“Employers are confident in their own businesses if not the economy as a whole”

CONFIDENCE FROM ASTBURY MARSDEN COO MARK CAMERON

REC CHIEF EXECUTIVE KEVIN GREEN FINDS FIRMS WARY

Contract News

GERONIMO’S PUNT ON NEW JOBS PAYS OFF IN HARD TIMES THE RECESSION is often given as a reason for •companies not taking a punt on new jobs, but at

London & Home Counties pub chain Geronimo Inns, it actually did just the opposite, the firm’s recruitment chief Ria Dannan has told Recruiter.

It was a question of “almost going to the front door [of the pubs] and saying what can we get excited about at a time of doom and gloom”, she told Recruiter. “Looking at our pubs we discovered we under used or under sold our function spaces… With the recession hitting, we had customers who still had money, we just had to give them an extra excuse to come into the pub.”

Marketing these rooms and booking them out were “really the sort of things within the pub initially always deemed to be the general manager’s role”, she said.

The company hired its first sales and events manager in April 2010, and then started hiring events co-ordinators internally that summer, with Dannan saying: “In some establishment that might have been the head waitress that had shown an interest and then taken that on as a role.”

The company recruited externally for some of these roles from 2011, especially “when the style of role became bigger and needed more sales-led experience”. For example, for the Geronimo property The Cow at Stratford, located less than a mile as the crow flies from the Olympic Stadium, where broadcast teams from major outlets such as the BBC and Sky converged during the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games.

Dannan said that the innovation of the new role has seen events sales turnover increase by 50%.

The firm, which was acquired by Young and Co’s Brewery in December 2010, now has 16 sales and events co-ordinators working across its 35 pubs.

SAM BURNE JAMES

FEEDBACK KEY AS ITV SCHEDULES GRAD SCHEME SERIES TWO Ongoing discussions with hiring managers and successful candidates from broadcaster ITV’s first-ever formal graduate programme will be key in moving forward to 2013’s second intake.

Ten graduates joined in commercial, corporate (finance and HR) and creative production roles in October 2012 following an April launch of the scheme.

Head of recruitment Catherine Schlieben told Recruiter the firm “will hope to be launching slightly earlier in March [2013]”, as April was slightly late for 2012, with final-year university students already pre-occupied with dissertations and revision.

As part of the planning process for 2013, January sees Schlieben speaking with the line managers who took on 2012 graduates, having already spoken individually with the grads themselves “from a very practical perspective on what they found and what we could improve”.

ITV has also analysed which sources the hires came from, she added. “What we’re doing from a recruitment and attraction perspective is looking at where they predominantly came from… for those who were offered a role, social media played a huge part,” she explained.

One piece of feedback from candidates tallied with Schlieben’s hopes for the scheme, she explained: “The key selling point for us — and fortunately the graduates said they got this and liked it — is that they are doing ‘real’ roles with real responsibilities; this is a real job that somebody else in the business does, who’s not on that graduate programme.”

Schlieben conceded that this can be problematic — she was unable to confirm which business areas may be added to this year’s stream, saying: “One of the downsides of having the graduates do ‘real’ jobs in this business is that headcount needs to be allocated to them, which can be a tricky conversation with finance sometimes.”

Having concrete benchmarks in place for 2013 contrasts with the approach of the start-up year. “First year was ‘let’s suck it and see’ — generally the culture at ITV is quite flexible and people were quite open to it,” Schlieben said. “But I wouldn’t say we went out and just said ‘give it a go’; there was a firm business plan.”

Alexander Mann: The RPO firm has renewed a contract to recruit for defence giant BAE Systems… Bersin: Professional services firm Deloitte has bought the talent and learning consultancy…

Directorbank: Private equity firm Rockpool Investment has initiated a strategic alliance with the specialist executive recruiter… Futurestep: The talent management firm has won a two-year RPO deal with Siemens France… Green Park: The executive and interim recruiter has signed a deal for Lloyds TSB financing…

Groupe CRIT: The French recruiter has taken over Iowa recruiter Visiont… GTI Recruiting Solutions: Car maker Peugeot Citroën has awarded the grad recruiter a three-year contract…

Hertfordshire County Council: The authority will recruit using a solution mixing talent management firm Lumesse and newspaper The Guardian… IOR: The trade body is offering ethics training in association with the Institute of Business Ethics… Kelly Services: The recruiter will partner with HR and talent software firm Cezanne… Korn/Ferry: Leadership solutions firm PDI Ninth House will be acquired by the recruitment group…

Randstad Sourceright: The RPO firm will recruit for financial firm Société Générale… Remploy: The disability employment services provider has partnered with Blind Veterans UK… Staffline: Temp agency GB Resourcing has been taken over by recruiter Staffline…

XING: The LinkedIn rival has partnered with Germany’s state employment agency

SAM BURNE JAMES

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Tech & tools

BOUNTY HUNTING FOR JOBS JOB BOUNTIES IS A NEW SITE OFFERING TO REWARD YOU FOR RECOMMENDING PEOPLE YOU KNOW new marketplace that financially rewards those who refer successful candidates for jobs is the latest web-based offering to try to disrupt the traditional recruitment model. Job Bounties, launched by entrepreneur James Uffindell, who is also founder of the members-only careers community, Bright Network, invites people to headhunt their friends and contacts for jobs posted on the site in return for a bounty.

Despite similar names, Job Bounties should not be confused with BountyJobs.

The latter offers bounties to headhunters and recruiters, and is a channel for employers to use headhunters more efficiently and transparently.

Chloë Daniel, chief operating officer of Job Bounties, told Recruiter that the site aims to reduce the time and cost associated with traditional recruiting, while maintaining quality of candidate. “Referrals are one of the most effective methods of recruitment,” she said. “We wanted to bring the power and virality of social networks and also bring more transparency to the marketplace.”

A survey carried out by Job Bounties at the end of last year found that two-fifths (41%) of people have found recent jobs through their personal networks compared with around a third (34%) through job advertisements on job boards and less than a 10th (8%) from an approach from professional recruiters.

The research, carried out among 1,700 people across the country, Chloë Daniel also found that more people secured the job they were happiest in through friends, family and their professional network than through recruitment services and specialists. “It shows your friends know you better than anyone else and so are in an excellent position to spot a suitable job for you,” said Daniel.

The recruiters and employers who post a job on the Job Bounties site set their own bounty but nothing is paid until a successful placement is made and the individual starts the job. Job Bounties earns its revenue from a 50% cut of the bounty (the referrer gets the full amount that has been advertised on the site as the commission has already been factored in). As well as via email, individuals can make their referrals direct from their Facebook network, and the next version of

A

th site the it (it iis currently tl still till iin b beta) t ) will ill allow ll them to do so from LinkedIn. “We’re already seeing people take jobs that have been posted on Job Bounties and putting them on their Facebook timeline and asking if anyone in their network is interested in them,” explained Daniel, who believes people will have different motivations for using the site. “There will be people who use it to recommend their friends for jobs but some people may be more commercially minded and use it as a tool for earning money and become ‘super-referrers’. We are already seeing this start to happen.”

Job Bounties launched at the end of last year. After only a month, 100 candidate referrals had been made and it was reportedly close to making its first placement. The core bounty markets initially are financial services, consulting, FMCG and retail, digital and marketing, and IT and software, with salaries ranging from £25k to £100k. Currently, the total value of bounties available in the marketplace is £175k. While it is focusing on London initially, Bounty Jobs will broaden out to offer a national service.

While in theory Job Bounties might cut recruitment agencies out of the equation, Daniel said that

a agencies i are among th the early l users, alongside direct recruiters, and SMEs in particular. “The exciting aspect for any recruiter or employer is that it is risk-free as they only pay when a candidate is successful,” she said. “And as they set the bounty, they pay what they think that position is worth to their company.”

The Job Bounties team claims it will ensure recruiters receive a high quality candidate from the service by manually checking CVs and applications, and only putting forward those candidates they think appropriate. Daniel said there was a major focus on candidate quality, and with this in mind one of its initial marketing drives will be aimed at the 14,000-strong Bright Network of students, whose members must have attended either a Times Top 20 or Russell Group university or have achieved at least AAB at A-level.

To drive up usage during the New Year, Job Bounties is doubling the bounties offered to referrers until the end of January. Out of those surveyed in its research, only 5% of people had received a financial reward for a job referral but a fifth of 18-34-year-olds would refer more people if they knew they would receive such a bounty.

Although it is early days, Job Bounties has generated considerable interest. Among those that sit on its board are the vice chairman and former chairman of accountancy software firm Sage, Michael Jackson and Zach Miles, a former chief executive of recruitment company Vedior.

“Some people may use it as a tool for earning money and become ‘superrefers’ ”

www.jobbounties.com SUE WEEKES

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Recruitment is in our DNA

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News

DIGEST

LOOKING AHEAD TO WHAT 2013 WILL BRING RECRUITMENT Looking ahead to the rest of the year, Recruiter asked a number of professionals from a wide spectrum of positions in the recruitment industry what they think will happen in the sector during 2013.

Gordon Adam, chief executive, Head Resourcing

pharma is difficult but inside these industries there is a skill shortage, which is putting candidates in a very strong position to pick and choose the right role for them.

Spencer Mehlman, MD & founder of notgoingtouni.co.uk, former MD & founder of specialist recruitment agency Special Agent

Because of the shortage of talent, opportunities still definitely exist for good niche permanent recruiters, but they will need to be more exclusive assignment driven or more candidate focused — not so good news for clients who should expect an increase in canvas calls. For example, “Hello, I’ve got a great .Net developer just on the market…”

More and more national brands and SMEs will launch apprenticeship schemes or school leaver programmes. Many larger brands will start to shrink their graduate programs in favour of the current alternatives.

Greg Allen, global head of resourcing, Lloyds Register

Dave Nerz, president, NPA Worldwide

NEETs [youths who are Not in Employment, Education or Training] are the ‘next now’. He who dares will win the decade. NEETs are the untapped resource talent for the next management generation of 2020. Designing potential measured assessment centres and training frameworks to deliver productive and motivated young talent will equip companies to deliver their strategies in the near futures.

In 2013 and beyond I believe we will see a continued stratification of the recruitment process. Candidate sourcing, recruiting, background checking, onboarding will be sold separately by different providers.

Specialists and price leaders will emerge in each layer. The bundled or end-to-end recruiting model will become less frequently applied because of the strength of performance and cost saving available from the best of category providers.

Alastair Blair, thePotentMix Economically, 2013 will continue to be tough. Recruiters will continue to take rec-marketing in-house, increasingly using a variety of specialist companies rather than hitching their wagon to a sole rec-ad supplier. The influence of rec ad agencies with the media will continue slowly to wane. More rationalisation/centralisation of rec-ad agencies is inevitable, albeit at a slower pace as there is little left to cut now. Will we see the first national paper go totally online?

Jon Dweck, managing director, Pod Talent A talent gap will appear between different firms — those that focus on potential when making hiring decisions will hire better people faster than those that focus on experience alone. International recruitment success will require agility from recruiters to switch from regular hot spots such as Asia-Pacific to less common zones (eg Africa). Agencies focusing on perm between £20-50k will bounce back strongly.

Denis Pennel, MD, Eurociett More than ever, labour market intermediaries will be needed to ensure a better and faster match between supply and demand in the workforce: while 26m EU citizens are looking for a job, 2m job vacancies remain unfilled at European level! To adapt to the new reality of work with increasingly individualised working conditions, proactive labour market policies as well as co-operation between public and private employment services must be successfully implemented. Here, the recruitment industry will have a central role.

Ann Pickering, HR director, O2 In 2013, I’d expect more businesses to take action to realise the full potential of the value of young people’s digital skills as well as the benefit that they can bring to the workforce, whether this is through offering young people new jobs, training, work experience or mentoring.

Sean Fahey, CEO, Vidcruiter I think that video recruitment in 2013 is going to continue to grow.

It’s still in its infancy stages, and a lot of companies don’t really understand it properly. It’s just a smarter way of doing business.

Mark Kelly, associate business manager, Computer Futures, Ireland and Recruiter Awards for Excellence 2012 ‘Recruiter of the Year’ Strategic trends will include the battle of the mobile devices, personal cloud, strategic Big Data and mobile payments leading the way in the coming year. The demand in mobile devices and Big Data has resulted in a skills gap in these areas, making it a fantastic time to be a software developer. The market in Ireland outside of IT and

Gordon Adam

10

RECRUITER

Greg Allen

JANUARY 2013

10-11_Recruit_Digest_jan12.indd Sec3:10

Alistair Blair

Dona Roche-Tarry, managing partner, European Board Services, CTPartners To attract top talent, companies are offering long-term incentives and bonuses paid out over a two- to three-year period. This type of ‘revolving’ payout has become the norm, which both ensures the executive is paid on performance but also helps to lock in top talent.

It is also expected that the majority of senior level remuneration will be performance driven both against individual, divisional and corporate targets.

Catherine Rush, head of talent, A&N Media Many organisations, like A&N Media, will want to fill a vast majority

Jon Dweck

Sean Fahey

Mark Kelly

WWW.RECRUITER.CO.UK

10/01/2013 15:36

DIGEST

News

%

66 Dave Nerz

Oliver Watson, UK managing director, PageGroup

Denis Pennel

Ann Pickering

Market conditions will remain unpredictable in 2013, so we will continue to see many organisations operating with very lean teams, replacing key people, but with little incremental hiring. Within our PageGroup UK business, 2012 was another strong year for career progression with more than 22% of our fee-earning workforce being promoted. I am confident that 2013 will provide equally rewarding promotion opportunities.

Bridget Wood, partner and head of recruitment sector group, Blake Lapthorn

Oliver Watson

Catherine Rush

Bridget Wood

2013 will be another eventful year for recruitment industry specific legal developments. The UK will consult on amending the Conduct Regulations. More recruiters and umbrellas will hit their staging dates for pensions auto-enrolment, potentially creating a fees imbalance in the industry. Tax avoidance will remain a priority for the government, including personal service companies having to pay employment income tax and NICs on payments received for services performed by deemed office-holders as well as deemed employees of clients under the IR35 legislation.

Percentage reflects share of visits to most visited sites Websites

Domain

Visits share

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20

www.linkedin.com www.indeed.co.uk www.reed.co.uk www.totaljobs.com uk.jobrapido.com www.jobs.nhs.uk www.tes.co.uk www.jobsite.co.uk www.cv-library.co.uk jobs.guardian.co.uk www.monster.co.uk jobsearch.direct.gov.uk www.jobisjob.co.uk www.simplyhired.co.uk www.reuters.efinancialcareers.co.uk www.jobs.ac.uk www.fish4.co.uk jobs.trovit.co.uk www.starnow.co.uk www.careerbuilder.co.uk

22.34% 8.51% 4.66% 3.51% 3.36% 2.83% 2.77% 2.17% 2.04% 1.52% 1.51% 1.04% 0.98% 0.76% 0.73% 0.64% 0.62% 0.57% 0.54% 0.53%

WWW.RECRUITER.CO.UK

10-11_Recruit_Digest_jan12.indd Sec3:11

MOST VIEWED JOBS ON OUR WEBSITE

1. Badenoch & Clark Recruitment consultant

2. Carlin Hall Financial

recruitment consultant – perms

3. Frazer Jones Internal

recruitment manager

4. Nigel Frank Danish/

Nordic speaking trainee recruitment consultant

5. Recruiter Republic Recruitment consultant

5

Experian Hitwise most popular websites employment and training sites — December 2012

LinkedIn Indeed UK reed.co.uk Totaljobs.com jobrapido UK NHS Jobs TES Connect Jobsite UK CV Library Guardian.co.uk Jobs Monster UK Direct Gov – Universal Jobmatch Job is Job United Kingdom Simply Hired Careers Centre – Reuters.co.uk jobs.ac.uk fish4jobs trovit UK Jobs Star Now UK Careerbuilder.co.uk

5

TOP

Dona Roche-Tarry

TOP

Spencer Mehlman

of vacancies with graduates. Not just any graduates though! Employers will be pickier as to the calibre of people they employ. Graduates will be assessed by what differentiates them from the masses; how social media and networking savvy they are; how do they demonstrate high energy and drive; and, most importantly, evidence of their innovative and creative potential ability.

of public sector employers are planning to hire over the coming months, according to the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development UK Labour Market Outlook report

MOST VIEWED ARTICLES ONLINE

1. Further details on

Tempo: Agencies to pay, hirers won’t

2. Faulkner to chair

newly launched Tempo

3. LinkedIn

endorsements can go both ways

4. Fastest-growing

recruiters revealed in January’s Recruiter

5. Former Swift

managers in Nigeria charged with conspiracy to corrupt

RECRUITER

JANUARY 2013

11

10/01/2013 15:36

News Analysis

CREDIT: DEPARTMENT FOR BUSINESS, INNOVATION AND SKILLS/FLICKR

SPEAKING WITH ONE VOICE: TIME FOR A LEAD ASSOCIATION?

I

Lord Heseltine’s report into what he calls a proliferation of trade bodies raises questions for the recruitment industry — especially as another membership body launched this month. Colin Cottell reports

t was a case of New Year, new recruitment industry membership body, as the second week in January saw temporary agency labour procurer de Poel launch Tempo.

The new organisation joins the Recruitment & Employment Confederation (REC), the Association of Professional Staffing Companies (APSCo), the Association of Recruitment Consultancies (ARC) and the Institute of Recruiters (IOR), whose roles to varying degrees, include representing the voice of the industry to government, as well as others* (see box, right) who clearly fall outside the trade body bracket.

The line between membership body and trade association can be blurred, but with Tempo chairman Keith Faulkner CBE telling Recruiter its brief includes “active engagement with, for instance, ministers and officials”, had the former deputy prime minister Lord Heseltine been looking on, his reaction would surely have been along the lines of ‘not another one’.

In his report ‘No Stone Unturned in Pursuit of Growth’ published in October, Heseltine criticises the way trade body representation works in the UK, arguing that in general it is “fragmented, duplicative and often poorly resourced”.

“The result is a proliferation of bodies of variable quality,” he says. With an estimated 3,500 trade bodies in the UK, Heseltine calls for the introduction of a lead association for each industry sector, nominated by government, through which it would channel all its engagements with the sector.

Heseltine may have his big idea for trade associations, but getting agreement on it from existing industry bodies is another matter all together. On the basis of views expressed to Recruiter, Heseltine’s proposal is likely to face stiff opposition.

APSCo chief executive Ann Swain says the trade body “cautiously supports” the concept of lead associations. And she contends that APSCo is “well placed, with the resource and existing government relationship to take on such a responsibility”. However,

12

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Key facts

from ‘No Stone Unturned in Pursuit of Growth’ The Trade Association Forum estimates there could be as many as 3,500 trade associations in the UK A condition of nomination for a lead trade association must be that it takes on responsibility for ensuring that the views of the entire sector are represented A second condition is that all trade associations in a particular sector work in a more strategic way, either through mergers, or new umbrella bodies Where there continues to be large numbers of trade associations government needs to enter into dialogue to see if so many are needed * Recruiter also contacted TEAM (The Employment Agents Movement), the Recruitment Society and the Independent Recruiting Group (IRG).

All three told Recruiter they weren’t trade associations

Swain warns of the danger that a lead association could lead to “homogenisation” unless all sectors of the industry are “involved in the debate”.

Kevin Green, chief executive of the REC, welcomes Heseltine’s idea to overcome “the proliferation of fragmented and duplicated trade associations by providing a co-ordinated voice for the industry”.

Green promises the REC “will work closely with the government and other trade associations in the buildup to establishing lead associations”.

However, Adrian Marlowe, chairman of ARC, warns that Heseltine is overlooking one key factor, “that any lead association will have a primary duty towards its members and not the other trade associations with which it is competing”. Marlow adds: “The resulting conflict of interest could be highly damaging to the interests of the sector.” He points out that having several independent trade associations allows for important campaigns that would not necessarily be supported by one large trade body.

Azmat Mohammed, director general of the IOR, contends that Heseltine has come up with a solution “for a problem that doesn’t exist”. He argues that the concept is flawed, promotes stagnation and is designed to suit government rather than the industry itself.

Tempo’s Faulkner, who served as REC chairman in the early Noughties, tells Recruiter: “I would think we would recognise that the main trade bodies is where the voice of the industry lies.”

However, he argues more doesn’t necessarily mean duplication, where bodies focus on particular areas, in Tempo’s case “learning, development and excellence”.

While trade bodies will undoubtedly have a say, it should be borne in mind that the government has yet to accept Heseltine’s recommendations. A spokesman for the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills tells Recruiter: “We will look to respond to the report in the coming months.” Should BIS seek the views of recruitment industry bodies with a brief to make representation to government about the need for a lead trade association they will find little agreement. While the larger trade bodies are more supportive — perhaps unsurprising given they have most to gain — the smaller and less established ones are fearful that it could lead to the marginalisation of their distinct voices.

Unless the major trade bodies can agree on who should have lead status, and until safeguards are introduced to ensure that a plurality of views within the sector continues to be represented, the current arrangements look like continuing for some time yet.

“We would recognise that the main trade bodies is where the voice of the industry lies”

Sign up for our daily news bulletins at www.recruiter.co.uk

WWW.RECRUITER.CO.UK

10/01/2013 12:34

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05/12/2012 11:39

Accountancy

Sector Analysis

Accountancy

Stakeholder Comment

PERSUADING THOSE IN JOBS TO MAKE A MOVE IS A MAJOR HURDLE FACING RECRUITERS IN THE SECTOR THIS YEAR, BUT THE MANY CHANGES IN TAX LEGISLATION IS BALANCING THIS PROBLEM

This year is looking brighter, particularly in some areas, for accountancy recruiters and accountants themselves so employers cannot be complacent about hanging on to and attracting the best talent.

Death and taxes are life’s only certainties. The former part not so much, but the latter is good for accountants, and accountancy recruiters.

“From a recruitment perspective as a firm we are still very actively in the market,” says Peter Wareham, head of experienced hire recruitment for accountancy firm PwC. “In the tax practice we’ve had a very busy year in the recruitment sense and that’s going to continue… there have been regulatory changes that will carry on delivering some very interesting work.”

Wareham also lists fields, many open to nonqualified accountants, in risk and regulatory change, and cyber crime and fraud, as definite opportunities for PwC moving into 2013, going on to single out Aberdeen as thriving thanks to oil & gas growth.

Demand for skills in Solvency II, an EU financial regulation for the insurance market, is “not as marked” as it was two or three years ago, Wareham adds.

Greg Parkinson, founder of Elevation Recruitment, says the Yorkshire region where he is based has seen “a distinct increase in the recruitment of commercial finance roles over the last few months”. Alongside this, application volumes have been rising across the profession,

“Whether we’re taking on a new graduate or anyone else across the business, the most important thing is attitude…

Everybody needs to be very good at team building and communicating with their peers — giving feedback.

It’s the same as the majority of fields; in terms of CPD [continuing professional development] you need to be on the ball because there’s so many things changing, so from a technical perspective you’re always going to need to update people.”

and he feels recruitment in this specialism “has changed considerably since the recession and has become a “buyer’s marketplace”.

But Sue Palmer, associate director, finance & accounting at recruiter Barclay Meade, warns against firms assuming this goes that far. Lots of candidates are involved in several job application processes simultaneously. “Some clients assume that if they make an offer, well of course that will be accepted, but that’s not the case,” she says.

Placing accountants in industry and commerce, Palmer is also concerned that while accountancy recruitment “is competitive for all parties who are involved”, some client firms’ recruitment processes simply aren’t “sharp enough”, specifically inflexible portal-driven processes that will not “lend itself to the competitiveness of the market”.

Cautiously optimistic moving into 2013, Palmer adds that bar these concerns “there has at least been a market… a market that’s been moving”, a highlight being “a definite rise in roles in health sector-related products, R&D [research & development] and services to the health sector”.

The market may be moving, but Sarah McKinty, owner of Belfast-based recruiter McKinty Associates, claims “accountants are even more risk averse now” than pre-recession, so she is spending a lot of time “working really hard to even get people to look at good opportunities”. She counters this with being pleased to predict that going forward there will be opportunities for her to make placements within insolvency — not, she adds, that this is the most joyous of specialisms to see booming.

Specialisms aside, Wareham at PwC and our other in-house recruiter (see Stakeholder Comment, right) agree that technical skillset is often a secondary concern. Says Wareham: “The real focus is for what we would call more broadly just consulting skills.” Finding “that really healthy blend” is the hardest part.

Greg Parkinson Founder, Elevation Recruitment “The clear threat for workers in the sector is going to be the competition to secure jobs. As the economy starts to recover there is likely to be an influx of ambitious accountancy professionals looking to move up the ladder after sitting tight in their current roles through the downturn.”

Peter Wareham Head of experienced hire recruitment, PwC “We are certainly very busy regionally, recruitment wise, at the moment; we’ve seen a good deal of activity in Scotland this year. The Scottish market has always been a market where we’ve had to be far more innovative in how we attract talent, because the local market can’t always support that… Meanwhile the supply of talent in the Midlands and the North, in broad brush strokes, is very good.”

SAM BURNE JAMES sam.burnejames@recruiter.co.uk

14

AVERAGE SALARIES

REED JOB INDEX ACCOUNTANCY

■ Jobs (000s)* ■ Applicants/job* ■ New CVs (000s)**

Finance director: £85,457 (▼£397 since 2012) Financial controller: £57,496 (▲£891) Internal auditor: £54,621 (▲£389) Management accountant : £40,399 (▼£732) All qualified accountancy roles: £49,606 (▼£902)

150 145 140 135

Q1

Q2

Q3 2012

RECRUITER

JANUARY 2013

14_Recruit_SectorAnalysis_jan 2013.indd Sec3:14

Q4

20.1

15.6

33.2

20.8

17.1

32.9

18.7

16.9

27.0

20.8

19.9

130 125 120

Jan Apr 2011

Jul

Oct

Jan

Apr

Jul

Oct

Dec 2012

REED.CO.UK

JOBS AND APPLICANTS

27.6

*TOTALJOBS BAROMETER **NEW CVS ON CV-LIBRARY

IN THE TAX PRACTICE WE’VE HAD A BUSY YEAR IN THE RECRUITMENT SENSE AND THAT’S GOING TO CONTINUE … REGULATORY CHANGES WILL DELIVER INTERESTING WORK

Jane Walker-Smith HR director, MHA MacIntyre Hudson

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10/01/2013 08:33

. / ) % %+ ) ) ' )/n% )% ' ') +)< . n- ) / ) ) ')%n ) %/n% ')n n) 7 !n '' %n) n % n '+!! %) ) % + +) ) !% ''< ( )+ ) - % )R n + ) n )3 n-n n n' % +!

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09/01/2013 13:52

REC.01.13.016.indd 2

10/01/2013 08:50

Market Indicators

Global Spotlight on India THE COUNTRY IS CERTAINLY A TOUGH NUT TO CRACK FOR EMPLOYERS AND RECRUITERS ALIKE, BUT IT IS TOO LARGE A MARKET TO BE WRITTEN OFF BY EITHER

key indicators

Yes, low wages make earning decent margin tough, and complaints that contracts and meetings are all too easily broken are widespread. But with a population of 1.24bn — that’s over a sixth of the global total — India cannot be ignored.

Marie Moynihan, vice president for global talent acquisition at computing giant Dell, tells Recruiter that globally, the company is trying to bring agency use “as close to zero as possible”. “There are some countries where we believe it’s going to be very challenging and I would say India is one of them… the talent pool [candidates] has a preference to have an agency represent them,” she says.

Another difference is lesser emphasis on social media. “It would be a much smaller percentage than in the US and in Europe,” Moynihan explains. As is the case globally, employee referral remains Dell’s largest hiring source in India, he adds.

Moynihan cautions that “it would tend to be the local agencies rather than the big names” that Dell works with in the country, and confirms that margins can be very low, typically around 8% for their volume recruitment.

But Robert Jan van de Kraats, an executive board member at recruitment group Randstad, who has India in his portfolio of countries, says the market, where they focus on “white collar volume recruitment, individual specialist recruitment and professional project-based staffing”, is “very important” to the group.

“Generic staffing is in an early stage of development, where currently it appears to be more a payrolling activity,” he adds. The staffing industry’s growth is

MANPOWER EMPLOYMENT OUTLOOK SURVEY FOR INDIA 60

■ Firms increasing headcount% ■ Firms decreasing headcount%

India boasted 17m LinkedIn members as of October 2012 — just one in 73 of the whole population, compared to over one in five in the US and one in six in the UK. The country is due to overtake China as the world’s most populated within 15 years.

Jobseekers in India are more likely to use overseas or international job sites (60%), search engines (53%) or national job sites (45%) than the global workforce as a whole (52%, 40% and 35% respectively), according to Intelligence Group research.

Just over half of the Indian labour force is employed within agriculture.

Currency: Indian Rupee (INR): INR 100 = £1.13 ($1.82)

demonstrated by the fact that the Indian Staffing Federation only launched in summer 2011.

Moynihan’s expectations that “India will go down the same road” as the West eventually — is shared by Oliver Turnbull, founder of digital recruiter Incite People, which established an Indian office in 2010.

“I think in the next 12-18 months you’ll see a huge drive in recruitment agency demand — and I think eventually you’ll see a huge drive for internal recruitment,” he says.

Incite People “won’t work for anything less than £2,000 in fees” in India, and Turnbull agrees with Moynihan’s view that the prestige of being represented by an agency aids business. “To be represented by a British company is a huge, huge thing [for candidates]… those things do really count,” he continues.

Incite People also offers a service called buildmyteam.co.uk, which handles not just recruitment but broader aspects of creating an Indian operation, including legalities, payroll and facilities.

Especially in the four major tech cities — Bangalore, Delhi, Hyderabad and Mumbai — facilities expenses are substantial. “What you find sometimes is that the actual office space is more expensive than the labour that sits at the desk… it’s comparable to the centre of London.”

Setting up is tough too. Turnbull describes a “huge checks and balances process… it’s a really long slog, something you’ve really got to commit to and really keep a shrewd eye on, otherwise you can spend a lot of time and not get anywhere”.

With that shrewd eye, the possibilities are tremendous.

SPONSORED BY

SAM BURNE JAMES sam.burnejames@recruiter.co.uk

INDIA VERSUS THE OTHER BRICS ■ Brazil ■ Russia ■ China ■ India 15 12

50

YEARLY GDP GROWTH

9

40

6

30

3 0

20

-3

10

-6 0

Q4 Q1 Q2 2010 2011

Q3

Q4

Q1 Q2 2012

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Q3

Q4

-9

2006

2007

2008

2009

2010

2011

2012

INTERNATIONAL MONETARY FUND (2012 DATA PREDICTED)

“Impossible!” “No way, you can’t do it”. These were the reactions of two successful UK IT recruiters upon hearing an upcoming Global Spotlight on India would investigate how agencies can make money in this daunting, behemoth of a market.

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17

10/01/2013 08:36

Opinion

Soapbox

Trading rights for shares

SOAP

DESPITE OPPOSITION IN RESPONSE TO ITS CONSULTATION, THE GOVERNMENT HAS CONFIRMED IT WILL PROCEED WITH ITS PROPOSALS TO CREATE ‘EMPLOYEE SHAREHOLDERS’ From April, recruitment agencies and inhouse recruiters can offer new joiners (and existing employees) shares worth between £2,000 and £50,000, which will be exempt from any capital gains tax on sale. In return, employees will give up their rights to unfair dismissal protection, redundancy payments and to request flexible working or time off for training. Employee shareholders wishing to return from maternity leave early must now give 16 weeks’ notice, rather than eight.

The controversial proposals are part of the government’s mission to cut red tape and employment rights, but are somewhat hamstrung because many UK employment rights are derived from EU law, which means they cannot be removed. The government’s timetable is ambitious, and questions will need to be resolved before April, including: • How will shares convert into actual cash value for departing employee shareholders?

• Will the rules differ depending upon the reason for the departure and length of service?

• Will shares be subject to an employment qualifying period?

• Will the employee shareholder have any control over the business?

While this scheme may work in a listed company where shares are bought and sold quite easily, it is harder to see how this might operate in private recruitment companies.

Many in-house corporate recruiters or recruitment agencies will be put off by the expected complexity of the new rules, unless they already routinely offer share schemes to employees.

Long-standing employees are unlikely to want to relinquish valuable unfair dismissal and redundancy pay rights to take a gamble on the value of their employer’s shares.

However, employers may find it easier to impose such contracts on jobseekers, particularly in the current market.

Although the plan will reduce the employment law burden on recruitment agencies and in-house recruiters, a High Court minority shareholder dispute is more complicated and costly than an unfair dismissal claim in the Employment Tribunal, and disgruntled ex-employees who cannot

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claim unfair dismissal may instead pursue other, more costly, claims such as discrimination.

The increased flexibility for employers may well create a less engaged and more transient workforce rather than the other way round.

Will the scheme bring benefits to recruitment? The employee shareholder business model — whereby all employees receive a meaningful stake in the business, creating a more engaged workforce — is well worth exploring in the recruitment sector, as it is in other sectors, but this plan appears to be a hasty shortcut to cutting employment rights. Unfair dismissal and redundancy rights now apply only after two years’ service, giving employers ample opportunity to decide whether the hire is working out, without having to award any shares. With the exception of entrepreneurial recruitment startups, it is unclear how diluting employment rights will encourage employers to recruit and stimulate economic growth.

JENNIFER MILLINS is an associate in the employment

department at law firm Mishcon de Reya

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07/11/2012 11:50

World-class hospitality at a world-class venue A strong client relationship is essential in any business. At Club Wembley we understand the importance of offering hospitality that’s second to none.

Whether it’s entertaining prospective clients on match days, treating business associates to a concert, or board members using it for meetings on non-event days, Club Wembley can offer businesses some impressive hospitality options.

We’re confident our calendar of events will inspire any client or partner.

In 2013 they will be able to enjoy a diverse range of world-class events, such as England’s forthcoming World Cup 2014 qualifiers, two NFL International Series games, The FA Cup Final, England taking on Brazil and the Republic of Ireland in two big International Friendlies and a host of A-list music events to name just a few.* And in addition to taking in some of the most sought after events of the year, Club Wembley members are also offered the chance to indulge in several exclusive experiences, including the chance to play on the pitch or watch the England team train.

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REC.01.13.020.indd 2

10/01/2013 08:34

Opinion

Web chat

Soundbites

“What are your New Year resolutions for yourself personally or for your business?”

Nick Vaughan Director, Hamlyn Williams

Faulkner to chair Tempo JANUARY 2013 •Yet7another money making scheme for de Poel to sell at board level

which will have zero benefit for agencies and clients!

How long before de Poel make membership mandatory to all agencies that have already been beaten down by them on margins, whilst clients claim ethical status so long as they can point the finger at de Poel when someone high enough up the food chain actually takes notice of the additional cost and time of using de Poel’s so called niche software which pretty much every agency has now?

Wake UP people. De Poel are nothing more than overblown promises and the ability for customers to distance themselves from blame as the legislation being forced onto the industry actually encourages people to cut corners!

Jason Stephenson

Tempo: agencies pay, hirers won’t JANUARY 2013 •I’ve8seen over recent months that both ARC [Association of

Recruitment Companies] and the REC [Recruitment & Employment Confederation] have had concerns over the upcoming launch of Tempo by de Poel — for very valid reasons. We (The Independent Recruiting Group) have simply just sat back to wait and see what happens nearer the official launch...

As I’ve said before about the existing professional bodies - we all have an equal right to operate. As long as you continue to provide excellent value to your members in return for the membership fees you charge (whatever the cost may be), then you will have a strong future.

Members will vote with their feet. With Tempo added to the offering, there is now an even better choice for agencies should they wish to align themselves with a professional body, or consider an alternative to the one they are already members of.

Tempo have something different to offer its members, compared to the other professional bodies out there (ours included).

Whether those benefits are worth the money they are charging for membership is open for debate.

Either way, I wish Keith and his team at Tempo the very best of luck for the future!

Sean O’Donoghue, founder of the IRG So now we have ARC, REC and APSCo [Association of Professional Staffing Companies] and Tempo? We are a profession of about 100,000 in the UK and our voice is not heard effectively enough as it is. Will another professional body just disunite this industry further?

Stefan Ciecierski Will Tempo campaign to remove unfair to agencies ‘pay when paid’ contracts?

Tom Atkinson • For further commentary on the future of industry trade bodies and associations, see News Analysis, p12

WWW.RECRUITER.CO.UK

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Going through the New Year resolutions, Hamlyn Williams have put together some clear goals that we are looking to achieve. We will be looking to maintain our headcount growth of 200% for the year and will be continuing to invest in our staff training, and have put together a clear career progression strategy that has detailed promotion competencies, so that there is transparency across the company for promotion criteria. One of the greatest milestones is that we will have an international office by Q4 2013, which will be diversifying our business across corporate governance from a geographical point of view.

Greg Parkinson Joint managing director, Elevation Recruitment

My main professional resolution is to build on the huge success we’ve achieved in 2012. We’ve already got some exciting projects for January, including the opening of our new offices in Leeds, appointing several new recruits and the launch of a dedicated HR network in Sheffield. So I’m hoping that by this time next year we’ll be toasting another successful 12 months. My personal resolutions include spending more time with my wife and sixmonth-old son, Seth, and making more time to relax with friends — and a few games of golf too!”

Rob Searle Sales director, CareerStructure.com

Like many businesses, our focus for 2013 will be looking at ways we can deliver growth in a tough climate. The nature of recruitment means that our business is impacted by the strength of our customers, which is not necessarily something we can control.

Advising our clients on which industries, roles and skills are in demand, and where to source candidates that can fulfil these roles, is (at a very basic level) how we can support our clients in making recruitment decisions that will help them grow their businesses. Going hand in hand with this is a focus on supporting and encouraging our staff, so that they’re motivated and engaged to deliver this customer service.

IF YOU HAVE A LETTER OR WOULD LIKE TO BE A CONTRIBUTOR TO SOUNDBITES, EMAIL...

VANESSA.TOWNSEND@RECRUITER.CO.UK

RECRUITER

JANUARY 2013

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For an insight into your next Recruitment CRM join our webinar www.voyagersoftware.com/events On your laptop | On your Server | On the Cloud | On your terms 0800 Support + Software Upgrades as standard + Free Online Training Clinics + Free Account Management

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Recruitment Matters Issue 11 January 2013

Trade Association of the Year

What’s inside 2 The Intelligence

Two new REC reports outline the changing face of recruitment and Recruitment Index Benchmarking’s Chris Ansell discusses margin pressures

3 REC Talk

Exciting year: There were many memorable events during 2012, including the Business Brains On Tour roadshow in the autumn. This year is set to be even busier and REC members are urged to make the most of their membership. See centre pages.

Now members take new compliance test The REC’s determination to raise the bar for standards of professionalism within the industry moves another step forward this month as existing members begin taking the online compliance test introduced last summer.

Members must pass the test every two years to retain their membership and have three attempts in six months to succeed.

Recruiters wishing to join the REC for the first time have been sitting the test since July, with 115 passing and 13 failing, as RM went to press. Angie Nicholls, head of consultancy and compliance delivery, helped design the test and she supports recruiters worried about the multiple choice questions.

“There is guidance available to assist with the legal and technical elements and a

training test which members can take first to see how the exam is laid out and which areas they need to work on before they begin the real one,” she says.

She adds that the areas recruiters tend to fail most on relate to health and safety and elements of the REC’s Code of Professional Practice covering business ethics.

“It is natural to be nervous before taking this test but the questions relate to every day work in a recruitment business. There are no tricks and we are there to help members.”

One member that has already passed the test is SixTwoFive which serves the technology, media and digital industries.

“You have a 24-hour window to complete the test and can pause whenever you like. The advice and support makes the whole process straightforward,” says managing director David Preston (left). “You can repeat the practice exam as many times as you like and the results explain where you went wrong and direct you to further reading.”

Tom Hadley grades the Coalition’s performance so far and Kevin Green says the industry is proving its resilience in difficult times

4-5

Membership news

Are you making the most of your REC membership?

6Business Matters

Meet the REC’s Legal Helpline team and discover why many members are outsourcing their back office processes

Institute of 7 Recruitment Professionals RM meets two of the IRP 2012 Award Winners, Christopher Clark and Jeff Brooks

and 8 Facilities training Why not hold your London meetings at the REC’s new offices?

www.rec.uk.com RM p1_JAN-A.indd 23

08/01/2013 12:22

REC Research

the intelligence Fig 1: Annual Change in NDR

Recruitment’s changing times Roger Tweedy reveals how two new reports from the Industry Research Unit will keep recruiters ahead of the game in 2013 Recruiters are naturally curious about what the future might hold and the prospects for temporary and permanent staffing.

Some of the answers can be found in two new documents now available free to members.

The ‘Back to the Future’ Working Paper reviews how the industry has evolved in the last decade. It tracks the rise of employer branding and the migration of recruitment advertising online as employers turned away from traditional print media towards commercial job boards in the search for active talent.

The recession changed many of the dynamics of the UK labour market as employers unexpectedly hoarded skilled workers, social media opened up new channels to passive talent and job boards responded with professional networking apps such as BeKnown.

Identifying trends The Paper uses robust analysis of past trends to build a new understanding of the future and how these trends are likely to play out. It identifies eight critical trends the REC believes will shape recruitment up to 2020 and beyond.

One of the starkest findings was that the number of recruitment businesses fell by 11% in 2011. Weak economic growth, margin pressure, technological advancement and new channels to market have driven this period of consolidation which is likely to continue.

The other important document members should get their hands on is ‘Recruitment 2022 – The Effect of Social Media and Technology

2 Recruitment Matters January 2013

RM_02_JAN-A.indd Sec1:24

(net disposable revenue)

20%

on Future Recruitment’. It was commissioned by the REC’s Technology Sector Group and examines key strands from ‘Back to the Future’ in more depth.

The report is based on detailed interviews with more than 30 leading industry experts and practitioners.

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• You can follow Roger on Twitter @Tweedy_REC

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Role of technology Jeff Brooks, chairman, REC Technology Sector Group, says key aspects of this research are the continuing move towards freelance/ contract careers and the growth in part-time working. He also feels that technology will continue to refine the attraction and selection process, with automated screening and testing becoming routine.

Technology will enable recruitment to be acknowledged as the most important HR process.

The Working Paper will be shared with the HR community and anyone intrigued to know how technology is re-shaping the recruitment industry and employment, from crowd-sourcing to the gathering of data on your company’s output across social media.

Both reports are available from the REC’s online research bookshop: http://www.rec.uk.com/research/ bookshop.

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Margin squeeze puts pressure on NDR In previous editions of Recruitment Matters I have commented on how recruiters are seeing downward pressure on net disposable revenue.

Figure 1 reveals that throughout 2012 median NDR has been lower than at the same time a year ago. So why are recruiters seeing a declining NDR ?

I have commented for some time that annual revenue growth for recruiters has been very low. Indeed it has averaged less than 1% for the last 8 months.

Recruiters have seen a significant fall in NDR margin in 2012, declining from 25.6% at the end of 2011 to 22.5% in October.

It is the combination of flat revenues and declining profitability of those margins that is leading to a fall in NDR. However, some recruiters are still doing well. Figure 2 shows NDR growth for the lower quartile, median and upper quartile recruiter.

The best performing 25% of recruiters are growing NDR at nearly 15% from last year – a very creditable performance in the current economic climate.

• 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 08/01/2013 12:23

Leading the Industry

2013 – A campaigning odyssey This year presents more external challenges for the industry and the government must do more to deliver on jobs and growth, says director of policy and professional services Tom Hadley

The View

Our policy priorities for 2013 include: • An effective review of the Conduct Regulations. The aim is to streamline current requirements – especially those covering business to business arrangements – while ensuring effective enforcement.

• To protect our flexible labour market. For example, by ensuring that IR35 taxation rules for contractors are clear and workable, and by taking forward the recommendations of our Flexible Work Commission.

• Delivering greater clarity on tax rules, especially with regards to travel and subsistence schemes and VAT charges in specific sectors. There must be a level playing field for all recruitment businesses.

• To promote sustainable procurement policy. We want a balance between cost control priorities and the quality and safety of supply.

• Accelerating progress on youth employment. This must involve embedding employability within the curriculum and developing an effective career guidance network. Harnessing the expertise of recruitment will ensure schemes such as the Youth Contract and apprenticeships make a real impact.

• Driving the skills agenda. We need action on skills and immigration policy to address the lack of suitable candidates in key sectors which is a barrier to growth.

In many areas the government has recognised the need for tangible action. Projects such as reviewing the Conduct Regulations, simplifying CRB checks and creating fiscal incentives for employers to take on young people can improve our labour market.

However, our overall assessment is that government has talked a good game but has not delivered in enough key areas. Over the rest of this parliament we will be working closely with key departments to drive progress.

Given the fragile economy, the UK’s jobs market performed incredibly well last year.

While temp billings were down in the first quarter, permanent hiring remained strong. After a period of stability in the summer – with the Olympics having less of an impact than forecast – the recruitment market picked up with a level of demand not seen for two years.

Employer confidence is back.

We have record employment and although there are stubborn levels of unemployment that will be hard to shift, the signs are the total number of people in work will rise throughout 2013.

The recruitment industry has proved its resilience. The market grew by 4.3% (to £25.7bn) in 2011/12, driven by continuing demand for flexible staffing and growth in interim, contractor and temporary workers.

Margins are still under pressure, candidates are harder to find and social media means corporates are doing more recruitment themselves. Yet recruiters who stay ahead of the game will still grow.

There is a bright future for those recruiters that respond to this changing landscape, understand the needs of their clients and the aspirations of their candidates. ‘An inch wide and a mile deep’ is the mantra I repeat to small and medium-sized recruiters as the model that will allow them to differentiate themselves.

Last year was a good one for the REC which was recognised as the UK’s best Trade Association and we held the best ever Ciett global recruitment conference.

We are not going to rest on our laurels. We will up our game with renewed energy to provide you with even more information, support and guidance than ever before. We will also fight on your behalf to ensure the regulatory and economic environment you operate in is as conducive as possible.

Please look at your membership handbook to ensure you are taking full advantage of everything the REC has to offer in 2013. All our research is now free, more content is available via webinars and social media, and this year we are completely overhauling our website.

And watch out for our Apprenticeships in recruitment, new kinds of events in your area and make sure you have taken your online compliance test.

This is going to be an exciting year for the UK recruitment industry.

• Follow Tom Hadley on twitter @HadleysComment

• Get live updates via twitter @kevingreenrec

Our recent report on the government’s progress in the first half of this parliament gave the coalition five out of 10.

As well as looking back, our ‘Creating Opportunities and Jobs’ report identifies practical measures to make a real difference during the rest of this parliament.

This forward-looking manifesto will inform our work with government and opposition parties in 2013.

www.rec.uk.com RM_03_JAN-A.indd 25

Recruitment Matters January 2013 3

08/01/2013 12:23

Membership news

Making the most of your membership The REC has a comprehensive range of services and benefits to help recruiters develop their talent and grow their businesses, but some members are missing out

Research proves its value The REC’s research analysing the health of the jobs market as well as the recruitment industry is one of the most valuable tools available to members.

Head of the REC’s Industry Research Unit, Roger Tweedy, says the research supports recruiters with their business planning and preparation for tender documents where specific sector and market knowledge is essential.

“Our research is also used to give members access to best practice. They can see what the top consultants and managers in the industry are doing and can benchmark their own performance,” says Tweedy. “We work with leading market research firms, academics and think-tanks, as well as stakeholder partners such the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) and CIPD.” The research is powerful collateral when talking to existing and potential clients and is used to challenge perceptions about recruitment and particular industry sectors.

From this year all research is free for members and the most popular surveys include JobsOutlook based on a monthly survey of employers. It shows what impact the economy is having on short-term hiring intentions for permanent and temporary workers.

Other popular research projects include the Working Papers. New publications include ‘Back to the Future’ which provides insight into how the UK recruitment market will develop over the next 10 years.

“Members are losing a competitive advantage by not accessing this free research resource to retain and gain clients,” says Tweedy.

HR services company Randstad’s market intelligence manager Andy Pashley says the REC’s quantitative research is particularly helpful to gauge the size of particular markets.

“It complements and supplements the research we do internally so it is a powerful partnership,” he says.

“The Working Papers help our senior managers to get a feel for what is happening in the industry to assist our strategy planning. All members need to be outward looking and see what is happening in the wider employment market.”

4 Recruitment Matters January 2013

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T

he REC’s director of member services, Anita Holbrow (below), says that for many agencies membership is bought as an insurance policy for when they need help with a particular area of their business such as AWR or pensions auto-enrolment.

Her mission for 2013 is to ensure all agencies make more use of their subscription and use some of the many services outlined on these pages. “We want them to look at what is on offer every day to help them expand their business,” she says.

Corporate membership assists agencies to become business compliant, while involvement in the Institute of Recruitment Professionals (IRP) recognises the work of individuals within agencies and minimises risks to clients.

“There is also the REC’s Recruitment Business Academy which has all the tools an agency needs to provide the best possible service to clients and candidates,” says Holbrow.

The Recruitment Business Academy is a suite of tailored services including mentor support, training and qualifications. “One

www.rec.uk.com 08/01/2013 12:23

IRP is an HR tool

Sector success

Corporate members are seeing the benefit of involving their staff in the many initiatives run by the Institute of Recruitment Practioners (IRP).

The IRP has become a core component of many members’ HR strategy, allowing recruiters to differentiate themselves, retain talent, celebrate their staff’s achievements and keep them motivated. Corporate members now receive up to three complimentary memberships.

The IRP Advocacy Programme is a way for REC corporate members to demonstrate professionalism through promoting the benefits of IRP membership to clients, candidates and staff. Some Advocates believe so strongly in IRP they invest in membership for their staff.

“IRP involvement helps members to generate new business because they have access to the logo and client tool kit, it improves their consultants’ careers and the company’s professionalism and there are tangible benefits including discounts at about 500 retailers and brands,” says IRP head Richard Charnock (right).

The benefits are currently being reviewed and the IRP website will be revamped soon to make it easier to navigate.

“This is a very exciting year for the IRP as recruitment is recognised as a professional industry and we see the first Advanced and Higher Level Apprenticeships,” says Charnock.

The REC has 18 Sector Groups ensuring members stay at the forefront of their profession by making them aware of what is happening in their specific market.

The groups provide an opportunity to network with others in a particular industry and to share ideas and concerns.

Sheron Cummins (left) is managing director of Advance Drivers, and a member of the Drivers Sector Group which works with The Vehicle and Operator Services Agency and the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency. “REC membership gives you credibility and a code of conduct that everyone can work to as clients demand more for their money,” says Cummins.

“We use the REC’s legal helpline for advice on areas such as the Working Time Directive, AWR and pensions.”

She says the sector group meetings allow companies of the same size to discuss how they are interpreting different regulations and debate hot industry issues such as Driver’s Negligence Insurance and the cost of fuel. “If you share concerns you can often find a common solution.”

Charlotte Rafferty (left), managing director at Solo Plus, has been a member of the Education Sector Group for more than 10 years.

“It is important to listen to the opinion of others in your sector and to keep up-to-date with what is going on in your industry. The new Academies Programme is a big change for education agencies and we need to be able to plan for our business,” she says. “In 2013 I can see a lot of debate at our sector meetings around teacher training.”

member came to us because they wanted to move into a different industry sector and we were able to offer the relevant training they needed.”

During 2013 the REC is putting even more resources into contacting members to explain the full portfolio of membership services. There will be additional visits

and presentations in the regions by account managers with business planning workshops and events relating to the REC’s valued research.

“Our message to members is come and talk to us about your business needs and let us guide you. You might be surprised by how the REC can help.”

Take your partners Many third-party companies see the advantages of working with members and the REC Business Partner Services programme provides agencies with exclusive special offers, introductory deals and discounts.

The REC has partnerships in key business areas including insurance, design and print, facilities and outsourced services, finance and accounting, IT, software, tax and office space. Members can also access market insight from the partners.

“All the affiliations we have in place are based on member need and can save recruiters thousands of pounds a year,” says head of brand partnerships Chris Howard (pictured above).

In November flexible workplace provider Regus joined the partner programme. REC members now have access to more than 1,300 business centres around the world and 160 in the UK through the Regus Gold Businessworld Card.

“Virtual offices provide recruiters with a prestigious business address and access to office and meeting room space,” says Regus’s UK communications manager Henry Collinge. “Regus staff answer the phone in the recruiter’s name and in the local language, connect calls anywhere in the world, take and relay messages per a customer’s requirements, handle incoming and outgoing faxes confidentially, and forward and collect mail.”

www.rec.uk.com RM_4-5_JAN-A.indd 27

Recruitment Matters January 2013 5

08/01/2013 12:24

Legal Update

Legal Helpline provides members with peace of mind The REC’s Legal Helpline is part of the REC’s legal team and receives about 60 calls a day from members looking for advice on different legislation affecting the recruitment industry.

The number of calls varies throughout the year, with peaks whenever significant law changes are announced, such as pension auto-enrolment or the Agency Workers Regulations 2010 (AWR).

“The most common queries tend to be about temporary workers and holiday, charging transfer and introduction fees to clients, statutory payments such as sick pay and maternity pay and general issues around limited company contractors and umbrella companies,” says Caroline North, one of four legal advisors on the Helpline.

“Pensions auto-enrolment will be a big area for us this year and the government is consulting on various pieces of employment legislation as part of its Red Tape Challenge.”

Legal advisor Emily Janson says when details of AWR were first released the legal team were receiving up to 100 calls a day. “This has been a popular topic for months but there are many different areas within the recruitment, employment and commercial areas of law that we support members with.”

Zoe Rogers-Wright has been a legal

Here to help (clockwise from top left): Caroline North, Chris Cuckney, Emily Janson and Zoe Rogers-Wright advisor on the Helpline for two and a half years and says she is busiest in the middle of the week. “We can be on the phone for anything from 10 minutes to 40 minutes depending on the query,” she says. “This is certainly a part of recruiters’ corporate membership that they really value.”

Chris Cuckney has been a legal advisor for a year and he has learned a lot about

the recruitment industry during his first 12 months. He said: “Members often call us when they are in distress or facing difficult HR issues. Often members that call want us to confirm what they already think is correct regarding a piece of employment law – we give them peace of mind.

“However we also give advice to members that is often hard for them to hear, particularly when we have to offer correction and guidance on their interpretation of the law or their actions.”

Business development Back office boost Many recruiters outsource different back office processes to make the temp side of their business more efficient.

Since May 2000 REC business partner New Millennia Group has helped recruiters manage their cashflow by funding the entire transaction process relating to temporary workers. It pays workers, invoices clients and pays agency margins every week.

Business development manager Paul O’Rourke (pictured) says in recent years more consultants have taken the leap into running their own business.

“Much of our work is with start-up temp agencies and we emphasise to them the importance of having credit insurance

6 Recruitment Matters January 2013

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and signed terms and conditions so they are working in a compliant and commercially-viable way,” he says.

New Millennia Group also helps recruiters reduce their overheads, especially in their first three years of trading. However, O’Rourke says temporary agencies face some big challenges in 2013, including RTI (Real Time Information) being implemented by HMRC. “Recruiters must have payroll software which meets the requirements of RTI so submissions of the individuals they are paying are sent in real time to HMRC when a payment is made,” he says. “Pension reform is also adding pressure to agencies working on tight margins.”

www.rec.uk.com 08/01/2013 12:24

Inspiration

Behind the scenes at the Institute of Recruitment Professionals

Celebrating success In the first of a series of interviews with the 2012 IRP Awards winners, we meet Recruiter of the Year and Permanent Consultant of the Year Christopher Clark, and Jeff Brooks, who picked up the Lifetime Achievement honour Christopher Clark from agency Redlaw has been in recruitment for four years and an IRP member since 2010. He specialises in Private Practice Legal Recruitment.

What’s the best thing about being an IRP award winner?

Feeling proud of the recognition I Christopher Clark received for all the hard work I’ve put in.

Top tip to anyone hoping to get on next year’s shortlist?

Do the best job you can for candidates and clients – and remember to ask for recommendations when you have to.

Has winning boosted your business?

Yes, we received calls from clients that we’ve never dealt with asking us to work with them exclusively – it couldn’t get better than that.

What makes recruitment one of the best industries to work in?

It is completely meritocratic. If you work hard consistently you will do well. That’s the beauty of it.

“We received calls from clients asking us to work for them exclusively” What reputation does the industry have and does it need to change?

The industry is still seen as being slightly unprofessional, without a thought to long-term careers. The REC/IRP is helping to change this.

What do your colleagues not know about you?

I used to race 100cc go-karts in the British University Karting Championships Which one person do you believe has made the biggest positive impact on the recruitment industry?

James Caan on Dragon’s Den. His input has resulted in good publicity for the industry.

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

www.rec.uk.com RM_07_JAN-A.indd 29

Jeff Brooks from Primesourcing Ltd has 28 years’ experience in recruitment, is heavily involved in the REC and has been an IRP member since 2004. His specialism is IT. How surprised were you to be honoured?

Jeff Brooks I had an inkling but I didn’t dwell on it – it was nice to think I might receive an award.

What are the biggest changes you have seen in the industry?

The internet was a game changer – the speed of communication and therefore recruitment increased dramatically but we lost something of the personal touch.

What qualities do you need to be recognised in this way?

You need staying power and an ability to adapt to new technologies and ways of working. You also need to develop relationships and networks.

What does being a member of the REC/IRP mean to you?

Sharing ideas and tips with your peers helps you grow as a recruiter and a rounded business person.

What makes recruitment one of the best industries to work in?

It is pretty uncomplicated – you find a role, understand it properly and find suitable candidates; it’s all about communication and relationships and is immensely satisfying.

What do you think are the biggest challenges facing recruiters?

You must provide a personal service within the social media ‘noise’, find great candidates from hundreds available and build enduring relationships rather than CV posting.

What reputation does the industry have and does it need to change?

There will always be those that think they can make a fast buck, but the agencies that think they can cut corners will be quickly be found out.

If you had not been a recruiter what would you have been?

I wanted to be an actor and I should have given that a go.

Recruitment Matters January 2013 7

08/01/2013 12:25

Facilities and training

Meeting in London? Look no further Members can now take advantage of the excellent room facilities at the REC’s new premises in London for meetings, conferences and training courses.

The fully-equipped rooms in Stamford Street are a 10-minute walk from Waterloo or Blackfriars stations and supported by the REC’s experienced facilities team, with refreshments available.

“We now have eight meeting rooms rather than three in a central London location and are pleased to offer them to our members for hire,” says facilities manager Lucy Clarke. “There are rooms to suit any size of meeting, from a two-person interview in the Business Lounge to an impressive boardroom space for a company meeting.”

The rooms: • The Business Lounge can accommodate four people • The AV Room has room for up to six people with laptop and screen • The Eileen Simpson Room can hold eight people in a formal table layout with laptop

• The Training Room can accommodate 12 people in an ‘E’ shape layout with laptop and screens • Boardroom 1 can seat up to 24 people in boardroom style and up to 50 in theatre style with laptop and screen • Boardroom 2 can hold 12 people boardroom style and 20 theatre style with laptop and screen • Boardrooms 1 and 2, when combined, have a capacity of 36 (boardroom) and 80 (theatre) with laptop and screen Tea, coffee and lunch can be provided and there is free wireless internet access. The rooms can be hired MondayFriday from 9am-5.30pm.

Room charges start from a day rate of £170 (or £136 for

an REC corporate member) for the business lounge, to up to £1,100 (£880) for the combined boardroom space.

Half-day rates are also available.

For more information contact the facilities team: facilities@ rec.uk.com or visit www. rec.uk.com/aboutrec/ recroombooking.

Training boost Get your company on the right track in 2013 with the REC’s training programme to boost sales, qualifications and improve staff motivation and retention.

Profitable Candidate Management (London 5 March and 19 June) This session reveals the tips and techniques for getting the best out of your existing database to improve candidate attraction and referral rates. There is also advice on using social media, writing better adverts and building stronger relationships.

Creative Marketing on a Shoestring (London 11 April, 20 June and 10 September) Recruiters can follow cost-effective marketing campaign strategies to ensure they get the most from their marketing budget. This course also covers the importance of the company brand, and how and when to use social media to build an online presence.

Fundamentals of Finance for Recruitment Managers (London 23 April and 8 October) Budgeting and forecasting are complex areas, especially for new managers and senior consultants recently given budgetary responsibilities. This course demystifies financial measures, terminology and ratios.

Visit www.rec.uk.com/training to download the 2013 training calendar with a full listing of all courses, dates and prices, or call 020 7009 2100.

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

8 Recruitment Matters January 2013

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Membership Department: Membership: 020 7009 2144, Customer Services: 020 7009 2148 Publishers: Redactive Publishing Ltd, 17 Britton Street, London EC1M 5TP. Tel: 020 7880 6200. www.redactive.co.uk Publisher: Anne Sadler. anne.sadler@redactive.co.uk Tel: 020 7880 6213 Consulting Editor: Liz Banks liz.banks@rec.uk.com Editorial: Editor: Steve Hemsley. steve.hemsley@redactive.co.uk. Production Editor: Vanessa Townsend Production: Deputy Production Manager: Kieran Tobin. kieran.tobin@redactive.co.uk Tel: 020 7880 6240 Printing: Printed by Southernprint © 2013 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.

www.rec.uk.com 08/01/2013 12:26

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Insight

Recruitment lessons from London 2012 WHAT LEARNINGS CAN WE TAKE AWAY FROM THE LONDON 2012 RECRUITMENT PROGRAMME? Over four months have passed since the end of the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games. It’s great to hear people still speaking about their experiences of the Games and how it inspired them to do things differently.

But what can we as recruiters learn from what we achieved at LOCOG (London Organising Committee for the Olympic Games & Paralympic Games) in recruiting a paid workforce of around 8,500 employees over a relatively short period of time? Some of these key learnings can be applied to organisations across all sectors.

At an early stage of the programme, when we established our resourcing strategy, we recognised that the Olympic brand was going to be a huge enabler in our recruitment programme. However, we still acknowledged that we had to carefully define our employer brand and value propositions so that potential hires knew what was expected of them and understood what it would be like to work on the Games.

We also broke this down to the distinct phases of the project’s evolution, as the proposition for someone joining LOCOG five years out was going to be very different to someone’s journey being recruited for a Games role, three months out from the start of the Games themselves.

We also made a strategic decision at the outset to partner with a recruitment process outsourcing (RPO) provider, rather than building our own function. After a lengthy commercial tendering process, Adecco was appointed as our official recruitment services sponsor. While Adecco had a track record in working on previous Games, they had not delivered full RPO scope across such a wide spectrum of recruitment with other organising committees.

It proved to be very challenging to get the deal to work for both organisations; the key success factor was in developing a true partnership approach, enabling us to work through the difficult issues, recognising Adecco’s two distinct roles as a key sponsor of the Games, as well as a critical delivery partner. We achieved this by having direct input and support from our chief executives and where necessary we pushed and challenged Adecco to create and develop new ways of working (often at their own cost).

When London successfully won its bid to host the Games in 2005, we made key commitments

to young people and to diversity & inclusion. In recruitment we worked closely with the local communities to develop an employment and skills strategy to deliver maximum opportunities to local residents across the six host boroughs (Greenwich, Hackney, Newham, Tower Hamlets, Waltham Forest and Barking & Dagenham).

We targeted those that were currently unemployed in these communities. Recognising that youth unemployment was a particular challenge for the host borough communities we set up an apprenticeship programme, with four cohorts recruited over our lifetime. This programme enabled us to put young people at the heart of everything that we did.

The nature of our workforce growth profile meant that we had to recruit most of our paid workforce in the last six months. A forensic approach to workforce planning and detailed workforce budget analysis was a significant enabler to our recruitment planning. We began the volume recruitment campaigns (for our Games time roles) 12 months out from the start of the Games, so that we were able to confirm people into roles at an early stage. This also required us to develop a compelling communications and engagement plan to help us to retain and motivate those that we were employing in advance. For instance, we held four large-scale engagement events in February 2012 for all new recruits. We also sent out monthly engagement newsletters so that the new recruits knew what to expect month by month on the countdown to the Games.

The focus here has been on recruitment for LOCOG direct employment; however, it is relevant to refer to the failure of G4S’s Games time recruitment plan. My personal assessment as to the major issue with their recruitment process was down to a fundamental breakdown in communications and engagement across their entire recruitment programme. The management information provided to us indicated that they sourced sufficient numbers at the start of the pipeline, but they failed to effectively manage them going through the various recruitment, training, screening and accreditation stages.

Much of the post Games focus is being directed at venues, ongoing sport participation and economic legacy, but let’s not ignore what the recruitment sector can take away from the success of the Olympics recruitment programme.

Power Points Does your employer brand convey what it’s like to work for your organisation and what is expected of your new hires to be successful? Test this out with recent hires Wherever your organisation is based you should have a local employment proposition in your recruitment strategy, working in partnership with Jobcentre Plus and the local council’s job brokerage schemes Achieving diversity & inclusion in your recruitment plans doesn’t just happen — you need CEO support and clear, measurable plans across all strands of diversity Have a range of programmes to support youth. Apprenticeships are a great enabler; work with your local communities and public sector delivery partners

PAUL MODLEY IS FORMER HEAD OF RECRUITMENT AT LOCOG. HE WILL SPEAK AT RECRUITER’S SMART RESOURCING 2013 CONFERENCE, HEADLINE SPONSORED BY EPLOY, ON 28 FEBRUARY. VISIT WWW. SMARTRESOURCING2013.COM

Share your insight and blue-sky thinking. Contact the editor: deedee.doke@recruiter.co.uk

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10/01/2013 08:37

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11/01/2013 08:08

The Challenge

Vertex finds code breakers with Imagination Rajesh* ImaginationTechnologies

VERTEX SOLUTIONS ORGANISED AN ASSESSMENT DAY FOR IMAGINATION TECHNOLOGIES TO FIND THE ‘RARE ANIMAL’ THAT IS A TEST DEVELOPMENT ENGINEER

THE CHALLENGE In the hi-tech world of IT multimedia and communications technologies, the role of the test development engineer requires a unique — thus rare — combination of skills. Filling four of these positions was proving problematic to say the least for global software firm Imagination Technologies, which provides IT solutions for mobiles phones, tablets, networks and electronic companies.

Rajesh*, software and QA [quality assurance] manager at Imagination, had been on the lookout for the roles for several months. “As we keep on growing, we’re always on the lookout for fresh engineering talent,” he told Recruiter. He explained that test development engineers needed to be better or at least equal to the person who wrote the code in the first place and then be able to think outside the box to break the code. “They need to be ahead of the curve to test the code, to look at the product and ask ‘what if this happens?’’,” he said. He added that suitable candidates needed to be “devious enough” to think in this manner.

“Recruitment needs to evolve otherwise we’ll be taken out of the equation” MARK BEARD

North London recruitment consultancy Vertex Solutions was one of the agencies on Imagination’s preferred suppliers list (PSL), specialising in recruiting niche, high-end positions.

Managing director Mark Beard told Recruiter that as part of the PSL, Vertex had been involved in looking for candidates for the roles. “What Rajesh wanted were design/development engineering skills in the test space — almost programmers but happy doing QA work. A rare animal,” he added.

In the industry QA work is often seen, erroneously in Beard’s view, as a lesser career path.

“We needed to get through to candidates who actually saw through this perception,” he said.

“We would not be fulfilling our role as a partner if we had walked away from this difficult assignment.”

Imagination’s account manager Aaron Stevens and his team decided that the problem wasn’t being solved by the usual PSL path.

Beard emphasised the scarcity of such candidates. The ability to write software and get into people’s codes takes a certain psychology, Beard added.

Direct advertising wasn’t getting the importance of the role across. “We needed to change our approach,” Stevens explained.

THE SOLUTION Even when Vertex found suitable candidates, the long time-to-hire aspect meant that they were losing them to other companies. Vertex pitched the concept of an assessment day

Key Lessons Both Mark Beard and Imagination’s Rajesh said that the format of the assessment day made it a very long day. Rajesh said Imagination could have provided the test codes beforehand, and Beard agreed: “We could still have achieved the same results if it was condensed into a shorter day”

to Rajesh, who seemed to like the idea. Vertex had been working with Imagination for about 15 years and Rajesh had personally worked with the recruiter for five years, so he trusted Vertex to come up with a suitable qualified shortlist for the day.

So Vertex used its executive search methodology to generate more than 30 candidates. This was then honed down to an ideal candidate shortlist of 10 through detailed technical screenings and software programming tests.

Rajesh and two colleagues joined Stevens and his team at the assessment day, which began at 8am. Following presentations about the day by Stevens, and the future of Imagination Technologies and where it was heading given

by Rajesh, the candidates sat down together with a number of technical assignments, devised

by Imagination, which involved

Mark Beard Vertex Solutions

reviewing code and problem solving. Rajesh said the tests were designed to give the candidates a problem and see how they solved it. “We were looking for the process, not necessarily the right answer,” he explained. “We looked for the logical approach in the breakdown — did they ask the right questions or have the openness to start all over again?” As well as the tests, candidates were shown around Imagination’s ‘gadget room’, which “increased their enthusiasm” about their future work, Beard pointed out.

Eight of the candidates went through to the afternoon, where they had a face-to-face interview and looked through everyone’s solutions to stimulate a lively discussion. At the end of a long day, by 7pm Rajesh had chosen four of the candidates. Two of the others were passed on to other hiring managers. Rajesh told Recruiter: “We’re trying to make a good hire — not just close a position. We try and put in place a career development plan for candidates when they’re offered a role and see how can we use a candidate elsewhere in the business.”

The process was deemed such a success that Vertex is already offering an assessment day as a service to more of its clients. The recruitment landscape has shifted dramatically, Beard explained.

Clients need different solutions, he said, concluding: “Recruitment needs to evolve otherwise we’ll be taken out of the equation.” * Imagination Technologies does not give the surname of employees as company policy

Would you like to be involved in The Challenge? Contact Vanessa Townsend at vanessa.townsend@recruiter.co.uk

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Profile

Oliver James Associates COLIN COTTELL MET THE DIRECTORS OF RECRUITER’S TOP-RANKED FAST 50 COMPANY With financial services enjoying a torrid time in recent years, you might not expect the top-ranked company in this year’s Recruiter FAST 50 — the 50 fastest-growing private staffing companies in the UK, produced in association with mergers & acquisitions advisers Boxington Corporate Finance — to be a specialist in this sector.

Yet remarkably, that is where Oliver James Associates (OJA) finds itself following a stellar performance in 2011, which saw its revenue more then double to £36m.

Meeting OJA’s three founding directors — Oliver Castle, Nick Godson and James Rogers — in a fashionable Manchester restaurant before Christmas, it’s easy to wonder how it is that a company operating in this hard-hit sector, and especially one that didn’t even appear in last year’s FAST 50, is now top of the pile.

Within a few minutes it’s obvious that anyone looking for a magic formula for rapid growth is likely to be disappointed. If anything, the firm’s success is testament to those old-fashioned virtues of patience, long-term thinking and careful planning. Indeed, Castle notes: “It’s an irony that we are in the FAST 50 and that we have grown so rapidly because we are anything but gamblers….”

As with many recruiters, OJA’s origins lie within the founders’ conviction that they could do things better. “I felt that insurance was a marketplace where you had some of the world’s largest firms but they constantly struggled to fill vacancies because no one was able to provide them with quality candidates,” says Castle, who previously worked as a senior consultant at accountancy recruiter FSS. Spotting the opportunity in the market, Castle jumped ship, joining up with Rogers and Godson to establish OJA in 2002.

Originally focusing on supplying insurance firms with “high quality accountancy candidates”, Godson says OJA was able to take advantage of competitors’ “relative neglect” of their insurance clients in putting forward candidates with banking rather than insurance backgrounds. “It is a simple strategy and it worked,” says Castle. So much so indeed, that within two years the firm had begun to move into other areas of insurance, such as actuarial, risk and compliance.

In recent years the firm has expanded into banking, hedge funds and asset management, and expanded internationally, establishing offices in Germany, Switzerland, Hong Kong and Ireland. In 2011 it recorded revenues of £36.4m, more than double the £17.6m in 2010. In the same period average headcount increased from 45 to 74, and it has since risen to 93.

This is set to grow further with the company “probably looking to treble it UK headcount”, according to Castle.

OJA’s clients are a veritable Who’s Who of financial services including industry stalwarts, such as Swiss Re, Invesco, Aviva, HSBC and Goldman Sachs.

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Despite its expansion into other areas of financial services, insurance remains the bedrock of the business, accounting for 80-85% of revenue, while revenue from overseas operations amounted to just over £1m in 2011.

While growth has gathered pace, the directors are keen to explain that far from being frenetic it has always been controlled, measured and planned. It is very much a step-by-step approach, explains Castle. “We have always concentrated on having super successful teams within a set discipline before trying to take on a new discipline,” he says.

“We like to concentrate on one thing at a time, and not to get too greedy, really,” adds Rogers, explaining that having opened in Hong Kong in late 2011 the firm will only move into a further new geographical area once that office is profitable.

It has also been integral to the firm’s success, notes Godson, that despite the downturn in financial services, it has continued to specialise in areas where skills are in high demand and candidates in short supply.

“Everything that we recruit for is very awkward; if it was easy everyone would be able to do it,” he adds with some relish. He says the firm’s consultants have taken advantage of this by focusing on candidate generation, targeting only the top 10-20% of candidates.

As the conversation continues, Castle points to the depth of specialist knowledge in OJA’s core market of insurance with 81 consultants working in this sector alone. By comparison, he says “a search firm might have one or two”.

But perhaps what is most striking about OJA is its focus on the long term. This is apparent, for example, in the firm’s emphasis on building and sustaining longterm relationships with candidates and clients. “It is not like we have reinvented the wheel,” explains Godson.

Be that as it may, but as Godson himself points out it is those relationships built up over, in many cases, five or six years that are now bearing fruit, with many consultants effectively managing the careers of financial services professionals. Similarly, many candidates who OJA placed earlier in their careers are now clients.

This emphasis is also apparent in the directors’ recognition that becoming a fully-fledged vertical market specialist is not something that can be rushed, but can take one to two years. “It’s about not putting a timescale on consultants that they have six months to bring in this amount of money. We realise the need

SECRET OF SUCCESS “I want to be known as a company where people enjoy their work, not a hireand-fire business.

It is important they stay with us so they are developed into successful business people in their own right” James Rogers

CV OLIVER CASTLE 2002 — present Oliver James Associates, director and co-founder

1999-2002 FSS, senior consultant

1998-1999 David Chorley Associates, consultant

NICK GODSON 2002 — present OJA, director and co-founder Previously worked at Deloitte as a chartered accountant

JAMES ROGERS 2002 — present OJA, director and co-founder

2001-02 CRM — e-Business, head of contract

1997-2001 NICK GODSON’S PHILOSOPHY:

IT IS IMPORTANT TO REMAIN PROFITABLE AND TO MAINTAIN THE SAME QUALITY, AND IF YOU ACHIEVE THOSE TWO THINGS SUCCESS WILL FOLLOW

Progressive Recruitment, senior consultant and manager

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10/01/2013 12:37

PHOTOGRAPHY: RICHARD HANSON

Profile

The directors of Oliver James Associates, from left to right: Oliver Castle, James Rogers and Nick Godson

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10/01/2013 08:42

Profile

to understand the market, our clientsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; cultures and our candidates, and that takes time.â&#x20AC;?

Similarly, Castle says there is recognition that it will take about 18 months from inception before they can expect to see a return from the Hong Kong ofďŹ ce, while in the saturated market of investment banking it will take â&#x20AC;&#x153;two to three years to break down the doorsâ&#x20AC;?.

The approach also extends to whom the ďŹ rm hires. â&#x20AC;&#x153;We want to take on board those people who realise that you canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t be up and running and making money in three to six months.â&#x20AC;?

If any further evidence of OJAâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s long-term approach is needed it comes from the ďŹ rmâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s response to the downturn in ďŹ nancial services, which began in 2007.

Far from cutting back, the ďŹ rm has done â&#x20AC;&#x153;the polar oppositeâ&#x20AC;? says Castle, by moving into retail, and investment banking and asset management. â&#x20AC;&#x153;We have always had a long-term vision, we are not interested in short-term goals, but are looking to be in the market for a considerable time,â&#x20AC;? he adds.

The three directors have clearly been the driving force behind the company, with Castle and Rogers being next-door neighbours as children going back a long way, also spending years working together building strong bonds of trust. But that said all three are keen to highlight that it is the companyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s consultants and not themselves that are integral to the ďŹ rmâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s success.

For Godson, it all starts with selection. As he points out â&#x20AC;&#x153;from the outsetâ&#x20AC;? OJA has insisted on bringing on board only those that are â&#x20AC;&#x153;a cut above the rest of their peer groupâ&#x20AC;?, who have ďŹ rmly decided that recruitment

KEY FACTS 2002 Oliver James Associates founded 2011 Opens in Hong Kong FINANCIALS

2010 ÂŁ17.6m turnover, 45 staff, ÂŁ1.51m proďŹ t before tax 2011 ÂŁ36.4m turnover, 74 staff, ÂŁ2.61m proďŹ t before tax 2012* ÂŁ45m turnover * Projected

is their career. â&#x20AC;&#x153;It is a very steady approach, not just putting a lot of bums on seats, or recruiting a lot of graduates and seeing who succeeds,â&#x20AC;? he adds. â&#x20AC;&#x153;The important thing is that the directors donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t sit in glass houses,â&#x20AC;? says Castle. â&#x20AC;&#x153;We make ourselves very available so the consultants can learn directly from us and from our experiences, and this also helps us gain their trust and loyalty,â&#x20AC;? adds Godson.

Rogers stresses the importance of recognising that each consultant is different, each with their individual strengths and weaknesses. And he pinpoints how giving everyone in the company a voice has contributed to the ďŹ rmâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s success. â&#x20AC;&#x153;We speak to everyone in the business; it is not about us making decisions, it is about everybody making decisions,â&#x20AC;? he says, citing how OJAâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s move into Hong Kong was triggered by the desire of one consultant, Jonny Plews, to work in Asia.

Castle agrees that the downturn in ďŹ nancial services has made things â&#x20AC;&#x153;remarkably toughâ&#x20AC;?. â&#x20AC;&#x153;No doubt about it everybody has been a little less successful than we would have expected,â&#x20AC;? he says. However, he adds: â&#x20AC;&#x153;Thankfully we have very strong foundations based on staff that have been there for many years. This has created a huge amount of loyalty and trust, so we have been able to look at solutions rather than accept the problems in the market, and try to up our performance.â&#x20AC;?

While loyalty, trust and working harder may not be the trendiest business buzz words around, OJAâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s achievement in topping this yearâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s FAST 50 despite tough conditions suggest that such old-fashioned virtues are still hard to beat.

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Recruiter FAST 50 2013

Defying all expectations

COMPILED BY

his year’s Recruiter FAST 50 rankings are testament to the recruitment sector’s unrivalled ability to defy the underlying economic conditions. While the UK and much of the world economy at best bumped along the bottom, these UK recruiters showed they had what it takes not only to grow, but more impressively still to do so at a faster rate than those companies in the Recruiter FAST 50 12 months ago.

T

While the traditional view is that the prosperity of the recruitment sector is linked to that of the wider economy and the economic cycle, these 50 recruiters successfully managed to challenge the validity of this relationship, growing their revenue by 39% on average, compared with 26% last year.

Outperforming the economy Recruiter’s FAST 50, produced in association with mergers & acquisitions advisers Boxington Corporate Finance, ranks the fastest-growing private recruitment businesses in the UK (see Methodology box, below). Tim Evans,

RECRUITERS APPEARING IN AT LEAST THREE CONSECUTIVE YEARS OF THE FAST 50 RANK

2011 RANKING

COMPANY

SECTOR

9 16 30 32 33 38 40

31 12 37 45 30 19 6

ID Medical Fircroft Engineering Services Henderson Scott Red Commerce Recruit 121 International Whitehall Resources Global Medics

Healthcare Oil & gas IT, Finance IT (SAP) IT (SAP) IT (SAP) Healthcare

Seven of this year’s FAST 50 show that strong growth need not be a flash in the plan, but can be sustained, by appearing in the FAST 50 rankings for at least three consecutive years, of which one, IT (SAP) recruiter Red Commerce, managed five consecutive years.

Mark Kingston, senior executive at Boxington Corporate Finance, who helped compile the FAST 50, says: “These businesses have clearly invested in systems, methodology and most importantly people to sustain very impressive growth over a three-year period of challenging recruitment markets … it’s a fantastic performance.”

Boxington’s managing director, says that given the economic backdrop, “the overriding theme for the FAST 50 is defying expectations”.

He tells Recruiter: “What we see is an overall growth rate of 39%, which is up by about 50% on last year.” And reflecting on the overall performance of this year’s FAST 50, Evans continues: “It is a reminder that recruitment is a sector that performs

METHODOLOGY The Recruiter FAST 50 prepared by Boxington Corporate Finance lists the fastest-growing private recruitment businesses in the UK according to compound annual sales growth rate as measured over each entrant’s most recent three-year financial reporting period.

CRITERIA FOR INCLUSION: The FAST 50 assesses temporary and/or permanent recruitment companies which are registered in the UK as private, independent and unquoted companies. This category includes private companies that are co-owned by Private Equity. All companies considered for inclusion must achieve a level of annual sales of £5m or above in each of their last three financial years.

EXCLUSIONS: Companies that have filed abbreviated accounts at Companies House without disclosing audited sales are excluded from the FAST 50 due to the absence of independently validated sales. Unaudited management accounts are not accepted as proof of sales. Companies that serve the recruitment sector through the provision of IT, payroll, administrative or other services also do not quality.

DATA COLLECTION METHODS: Qualifying companies are automatically identified through several research methods including the analysis of sector information from Companies House, financial databases, press coverage and other research. Entry submissions are not therefore required, although any firm which believes that it may not be automatically assessed in the 2014 FAST 50 is invited to contact Boxington Corporate Finance. Please email fast50@ boxington.co.uk

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better than most industry sectors, and certainly above the economy, which has been broadly flat in the same period.”

Indeed, he adds: “Of the five FAST 50 lists to date, this is one of the highest growth rates, and given the economic backdrop could be the most exceptional.”

Sustaining growth This year’s FAST 50 also illustrates the enduring strength of a number of established players to prosper even in the most trying circumstances for the UK and parts of the global economy.

A total of seven recruiters have managed to sustain their growth over three consecutive years or more, indicating that fast growth need not necessarily be a one-off phenomenon (see box above). Pride of place must go to IT (SAP) recruiter Red Commerce, which appears in the list for the fifth consecutive year. “Combining growth and consistency — that is the Holy Grail,” adds Evans, who praises Red Commerce’s performance as “super exceptional”.

Evans says that at 23, the number of recruiters remaining in the FAST 50 from the previous year “has probably never been higher”. In 2012, the figure was 18, in 2011 it was 17 and in 2010 it was 20.

Evans says that the most prominent illustration of the sector’s ability to defy expectations is provided by the strong representation of financial services recruiters.

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10/01/2013 08:45

Recruiter FAST 50 2013

CRISIS? WHAT CRISIS? THE ENTRANTS IN THIS YEAR’S FAST 50 HAVE PROVED TO THE REST OF THE UK’S INDUSTRIES THAT AMBITION, DRIVE AND LONG-TERM THINKING ARE KEY FACTORS IN OUTPERFORMING THE REST OF THE ECONOMY. COLIN COTTELL REPORTS

Despite financial services going through a torrid time in recent years, the number of financial services recruiters has risen from two to six, or 12% of the total.

And most impressively, it is niche financial services recruiter, and new entrant to boot, Oliver James Associates that sits proudly at the top of this year’s rankings after more than doubling its revenue to £36.4m in 2011, from £17.6m in 2010 (for more on Oliver James Associates, see Profile, pp28-30).

“What this means is that many more established players are finding themselves better positioned to drive growth,” says Evans, who contends by way of explanation that both the client and candidate are seeking “the reassurance factor by going with more established players”.

Evans continues: “People are playing safe, I think, and some of the more established players have benefited from that.”

Tougher to enter The flip side, according to Evans, is that it “appears to be harder for new entrants to make it into the FAST 50”. This is surprising, he adds, pointing out that this is different to previous years. However, he suggests that it could be explained in part by the lower levels of capital available to fund new enterprises.

While the number of new entrants compared with a year ago has fallen from 32 to 27, Evans notes that the same phenomenon of established players gaining ground may be at work. As he points out many who have entered the table this year are not in fact “brand new entrants at all”, but are also sizeable “established players” who dropped out of the FAST 50 in 2011, having also been in the rankings in years previous to that.

Evans points to the financial services sector as evidence for this, referring to recruiters, “many of who we already know”, including Astbury Marsden, Goodman Masson and Sheffield Haworth.

“These are not the biggest businesses in the world,” says Evans, but “relative to the FAST 50”, he adds, “they are the more established and sizeable entrants”.

Among other recruiters to fall into this

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FINANCE: 12% OF FAST 50 2013 MEMBERS FAST 50 2013 Rank Company 1 5 7 19 28 35

Oliver James Associates Astbury Marsden McGregor Boyall Associates Leathwaite Goodman Masson Sheffield Haworth

Five out of the six recruiters (the exception being Goodman Masson) have an international footprint, with an office in either Hong Kong or Singapore or in both

HEALTHCARE: 6% OF FAST 50 2013 MEMBERS FAST 50 2013 Rank Company 4 9 40

Pathology Group ID Medical Global Medics

Representation of healthcare recruiters in the FAST 50 has fallen by half to three compared with six in last year’s FAST 50

INDUSTRIAL, LOGISTICS AND CONSTRUCTION: 16% OF FAST 50 2013 MEMBERS FAST 50 2013 Rank Company 3 10 13 17 34 36 44 45

Ship Shape Resources Transline Resource Group Linear Recruitment Templine Assist Recruitment OSR Recruitment Extrastaff The Best Connection

Sustained growth is difficult to achieve in one of the more fragmented sub-sectors of recruitment

‘returner group’ are Pathology Group, the top-ranked recruiter in the 2011 FAST 50, and oil & gas recruiter Fircroft Engineering Services (ranked 30th two years ago).

Evans suggests that there is also a link between the size of companies in the FAST 50 and their growth strategy, with medium-sized firms and the larger enterprises taking a different approach.

While the former have been able to take marketshare by retrenching to “safer domestic markets” the latter, notably NES Global Talent and Air Energi, have focused on international expansion. “The medium-sized firms have come back, the

larger ones have pushed forward,” he says in summary.

It is notable that over a number of years both NES Global Talent and Air Energi have proved attractive to private equity, with both attracting new private equity backers in late 2012.

Organic growth Another noticeable change from previous years is that growth has been organic rather than by acquisition. Evans says this is symptomatic of a weak M&A market.

“This is probably a more representative table of pure growth as it is less distorted by the impact of acquisitions,” he says.

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Recruiter FAST 50 2013

COMPILED BY

34

RANK

2012 RANKING

COMPANY

SECTOR

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50

1 8 38 13 26 31 4 15 12 21 48 34 35 22 2 37 45 30 19 6 41 50 17 -

Oliver James Associates Head Resourcing Ship Shape Resources Pathology Group Astbury Marsden Brightwork McGregor Boyall Associates Cornwallis Elt ID Medical Transline Resource Group Cititec Bright Purple Resourcing Linear Recruitment Fusion People Kin-Tec Fircroft Engineering Services Templine E-Resourcing Leathwaite Redrock Consulting Encore Personnel Petroplan Faststream Shilton Sharpe Quarry Timothy James Consulting People Source Amoria Bond Goodman Masson NES Global Talent Henderson Scott Tangent International Red Commerce Recruit 121 International Assist Recruitment Sheffield Haworth OSR Recruitment Carlton Resource Solutions Whitehall Resources Green Park Interim & Executive Search Global Medics Air Energi IT Skillfinder Dutton International Extrastaff The Best Connection Bailey Employment Services Kinetic Resource Solutions Group Investigo First Recruitment Group

Finance IT, change Construction Healthcare Banking & finance Multi-sector Finance Technology, change, operations Healthcare Industrial, driving, supply chain IT IT, finance Construction Multi-sector Oil & gas, energy, pharma Oil & gas Logistics, industrial IT, telecoms Executive search finance IT, telecoms Multi-sector Oil & gas Shipping, oil & gas, mining, logistics Legal Multi-sector IT, engineering IT, banking, oil & gas Finance Technical, engineering IT, finance ICT, telecoms, construction & design, legal IT (SAP) IT (SAP) Industrial, commercial Finance Commercial, industrial, hospitality, agriculture Multi-sector IT (SAP) Multi-sector Healthcare Oil & gas IT Multi-sector Driving, industrial Industrial, logistics Multi-sector Engineering, manufacturing, technical IT, change IT, change, finance Multi-sector

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Recruiter FAST 50 2013

COMPOUND ANNUAL GROWTH RATE %

LATEST YEAR

REVENUE £000S

WEBSITE

134.32% 127.21% 68.53% 58.15% 54.66% 54.61% 52.09% 51.45% 48.82% 46.24% 45.53% 45.27% 45.18% 41.00% 40.26% 40.14% 38.00% 37.42% 35.38% 34.70% 33.75% 33.55% 32.36% 31.68% 31.65% 31.05% 30.83% 30.26% 30.18% 30.12% 30.03% 29.48% 28.80% 28.70% 28.27% 27.90% 27.54% 27.36% 26.67% 26.40% 25.35% 25.29% 24.28% 24.10% 23.61% 23.55% 22.52% 21.96% 21.29% 21.28%

2011 2011 2011 2011 2011 2011 2011 2011 2011 2011 2011 2012 2011 2011 2012 2011 2011 2012 2011 2011 2011 2011 2012 2011 2011 2012 2011 2011 2011 2011 2012 2012 2011 2011 2011 2012 2011 2012 2011 2011 2011 2012 2011 2011 2011 2011 2012 2011 2011 2011

36.46 46.42 30.40 36.01 26.35 26.26 49.19 19.21 41.16 54.35 60.92 39.30 19.48 76.99 42.47 551.16 31.85 10.11 16.66 19.96 24.98 87.90 20.25 12.17 17.32 8.59 14.15 29.26 517.75 14.84 37.64 78.14 28.39 15.48 16.97 12.39 17.10 19.29 21.64 17.73 209.44 11.41 28.25 14.81 169.33 9.95 29.74 134.82 42.43 75.93

www.ojassociates.com www.headresourcing.com www.shipshaperesources.com www.pathologygroup.co.uk www.astburymarsden.com www.brightworkltd.com www.mcgregor-boyall.com www.cornwalliselt.com www.id-medical.com www.resource-transline.co.uk www.cititec.com www.brightpurple.co.uk www.linearrecruitment.co.uk www.fusionpeople.com www.kin-tec.com www.fircroft.com www.templinerecruitment.co.uk www.e-resourcing.co.uk www.leathwaite.com www.redrockconsulting.co.uk www.encorepersonnel.co.uk www.petroplan.com www.faststream.com www.ssq.com www.timothyjamesconsulting.com www.peoplesource.co.uk www.amoriabond.com www.goodmanmasson.com www.nesglobaltalent.com www.hscott.co.uk www.tanint.com www.redcommerce.com www.recruit121.com www.assist-recruitment.co.uk www.sheffieldhaworth.com www.osr-recruitment.co.uk www.carltonrs.com www.whitehallresources.co.uk www.green-park.co.uk www.globalmedics.com www.airenergi.com www.it-skillfinder.co.uk www.duttoninternational.com www.extrastaff.com www.thebestconnection.co.uk www.baileyemploy.co.uk www.kinetic-plc.co.uk www.rsg-plc.com www.investigo.co.uk www.firstrecruitmentgroup.com

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Recruiter FAST 50 2013

COMPILED BY

IT: 24% OF FAST 50 2013 MEMBERS FAST 50 2013 Rank Company 2 8 11 18 20 26 32 33 38 42 48 49

Head Resourcing Cornwallis Elt Cititec E-Resourcing Redrock Consulting People Source Red Commerce Recruit 121 International Whitehall Resources IT Skillfinder Resource Solutions Group Investigo

What stands out is the number of recruiters that provide staff with expertise in enterprise resource planning software (SAP, Oracle, Microsoft) — widely used in large organisations

While there have been a number of significant changes in this year’s FAST 50, some things have remained broadly in line with previous years. This is the certainly the case when considering the split between niche and multi-sector recruiters, Evans contends.

As he explains: “Across the FAST 50 growth has been realised by sector specialists to drive sales or by the multisector players, and as in most years, we continue to see growth from both approaches.”

Evans notes that niche players tend to have higher growth rates than those companies that operate across a number of sectors, but again he says this “is consistent with most years”.

Public sector drop MULTI-SECTOR: 26% OF FAST 50 2013 MEMBERS FAST 50 2013 Rank Company 6 12 14 21 25 27 30 31 37 39 43 46 50

Brightwork Bright Purple Resourcing Fusion People Encore Personnel Timothy James Consulting Amoria Bond Henderson Scott Tangent International Carlton Resource Solutions Green Park Interim & Executive Search Dutton International Bailey Employment Services First Recruitment Group

There are true multi-sector recruiters, such as Bailey Employment Services, that covers a wide range of sectors and others, such as Amoria Bond, that focus on a small number

OIL & GAS, TECHNICAL AND ENGINEERING: 14% OF FAST 50 2013 MEMBERS FAST 50 2013 Rank Company 15 16 22 23 29 41

Kin-Tec Fircroft Engineering Services Petroplan Faststream NES Global Talent Air Energi

47

Kinetic

Oil & gas, technical and engineering continues to be a strong sector for recruiters in this year’s FAST 50 list

36

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Another aspect of this year’s FAST 50 that is unlikely to come as a surprise is the negligible number of public sector recruiters (with the notable exception of healthcare recruiters). This does not necessarily mean that public sector recruiters are struggling, Evans suggests, but more likely that with consolidation having taken place in the sector “the larger players are not generating the 40% growth rates needed to get into the FAST 50”.

Looking ahead to next year’s FAST 50, Evans says that unless the economy improves, he expects to see more of the same. “No one knows for certain what will happen, but while the world continues the way it is, these trends will continue.”

If Evans is right, then another year of recruiters defying expectations could be on the cards.

About Boxington: Boxington is a sell-side M&A house specialising in the international Human Capital & Recruitment sector and advising private and private equity owners of business with operating profits of £2-20m. www.boxington.co.uk

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Movers & Shakers

Sponsored by Jark Ventures

ACCREATE EXECUTIVE SEARCH: •Caroline Baldwin joins as practice

DIRECTOR PROMOTIONS AT RANDSTAD

leader for commercial functions in Ireland at the search firm.

• AMROP: The executive search firm has taken on new consultants Tim Kemp and Bernard Perry in London, as well as Anne de la Rochelbrochard in Paris and Pavel Stejskal in Prague.

Recruitment group Randstad has promoted four operations directors to managing director-level roles in its UK businesses.

After eight years with the company, Ruth Jacobs (top left) becomes MD at Randstad Business Support. Having been with the company since 2010, Seb O’Connell (top right) takes on the role of MD at recruitment process outsourcing and managed services provision arm Randstad Sourceright.

Jenny Rollinson (bottom left) takes on the same role at Randstad Education. She joined the group in 1997, the same year that Vicky Short (bottom right) joined. Short steps up to lead both Randstad Care and Randstad Student Worker Support, having taken over the management of Randstad Care last year.

LEGAL: The legal recruiter •hasBCL taken on senior associate

Joanne Lack.

•

BLUE PELICAN: New senior consultants Pippa Hutchinson and Alexander Korbeck have joined the technology and pharma divisions respectively at the recruitment specialist.

80% OF ALL OUR MANAGEMENT APPOINTMENTS ARE MADE INTERNALLY. RANDSTAD HAS A PROGRESSIVE CULTURE, NURTURING TALENT AND ACKNOWLEDGING AND REWARDING SUCCESS JOS SCHUT, UK HR DIRECTOR, RANDSTAD

• BT: After 34 years with the company, high profile HR figure Caroline Waters has stepped down as the telecoms giant’s director of people and policy.

•

COOPER LOMAZ: Steve Cook

and Ben Olive have joined the multi-sector recruiter’s global energy team.

EAMES CONSULTING: The •professional recruiter has

promoted Daniel Warwick to director of its Singapore office.

• GLOBAL PROJECT PARTNERS: The executive, middle management and engineering recruiter has appointed John Bradshaw as chief strategy and development officer.

•

GREEN PARK: The interim

and executive search agency has taken on Roger Russell as director to lead its search arm.

•

HARVEY NASH: The recruitment and outsourcing group will move senior independent nonexecutive director Julie Baddeley to the role of non-exec chair at its 2013 AGM. Fellow non-exec Ian Davis will add the word ‘senior’ to his job title.

KELLY SERVICES: Carl T •Camden, president and chief

executive of the recruiter, has been appointed co-chair of US non-profit policy organisation the Committee for Economic

Development (CED). Also, David Elcock will lead Kelly’s specialist accountancy and finance brand Toner Graham as branch manager in the Birmingham office.

MACILDOWIE: David •McDermott has joined the

recruiter to specialise in partqualified accountancy roles.

•

NETWORK RAIL: Adrian Thomas is to leave his role as head of resourcing at the authority responsible for the UK rail network in February.

NWM SOLUTIONS: Tony Keel has •joined the contractor services

Alan Agnew has •beenPHILIPS: appointed head of talent acquisition ASEAN [Association of South East Asian Nations] & Pacific at the global electronics company.

• POD TALENT: The newlylaunched supply chain, manufacturing and procurement recruiter has taken on Lucy Morgan as a partner.

•

SEC RECRUITMENT: Andy Haynes joins the recruitment group as associate director within its IT division.

firm as a regional director.

• SPENCER OGDEN: Jamie Cork has joined the global energy

PAGE EXECUTIVE: The •PageGroup firm has appointed

recruiter as country manager in charge of the newly-opened Dubai office.

Antony Marchant to the position of director in charge of the marketing and communications team.

•

PEDERSEN & PARTNERS: Laurent Pinna joins as regional principal in South-East Asia and Branka Kuzmanovic as a consultant in Croatia at the executive search firm.

•

TEMPO: Keith Faulkner CBE

RECRUITER

JANUARY 2013

46_Recruiter_movers_jan13.indd Sec3:46

A selection of vacancies from recruiter.co.uk

Carlin Hall Recruitment consultant £25k basic, excellent OTE Coventry

Oakleaf Partnership Senior consultant 6-9 months full-time contract Reading, Berkshire

Recruiter Republic Recruitment consultant £25k-£30k + comms Engineering Cambridgeshire

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

do you want to

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YOUR OWN

RECRUITMENT

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chairs the new professional membership group for the recruitment industry.

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ZINC RESOURCING: The recruitment consultancy has appointed former senior civil servant Paul Speller in the role of director.

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

38

Your next move?

Your business - YOUR BRAND Contact David Simons on

07900 263043 dsimons@jark.co.uk

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Appointments www.recruiter.co.uk

All Directors have in excess of 10 years direct experience in their individual fields.

A number of unadvertised vacancies at all levels are available so it is always worth a confidential conversation.

A confidential initial enquiry line (8am-8pm Monday-Friday) on 0113 2460062

View the latest jobs at www.recruiter.co.uk

To place your advertisement E: david.rix@redactive.co.uk or T: 020 7880 7608

Ruth Moran Consulting is now entering its 14th year of trading.

An impressive network of long established client relationships across the UK.

For further information please contact:

We offer tailored recruitment solutions to all clients both in terms of opportunity and cultural fit.

Ruth Moran, Managing Director Sales & Marketing, IT, Legal, Accountancy, HR, Executive Search and Selection/Senior Appointments.

Email: ruth@ruthmoran.co.uk 0113 2460062/07970 840061

Lucy Spencer, Director

Leeds Office: 10 Butts Court, Leeds LS1 5JS T: 0113 246 0062

Technical Engineering, Construction, Oil &Gas, Scientific.

Email lucy@ruthmoran.co.uk 0113 2460062/07805 687550

Manchester Office: The Chancery, 58 Spring Gardens Manchester M2 1EW T: 0161 228 2666

Commercial, Driving and Industrial, Social Care, Healthcare/Medical, Education.

Email: neil@ruthmoran.co.uk 0113 2460062/07971 094450

The Recruiters’ Recruiter REC.01.13.047.indd 2 RUTHMORAN_FP2013.indd 36

Neil Prestwich, Director

For current updates or to register online log on to our website on www.ruthmoran.co.uk

RECRUITMENT AGENCY

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your perfect role find it by following this link

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Recruitment Consultant Central London Overview

Recruitment Consultant Training

We are looking for a Recruitment Consultant / Salespeople with experience, drive and tenacity. Leverage Partnership is based in Mayfair, London, specialising in the Oil industry. We are one of the fastest growing companies in the UK with growth of over 300% every year in the last four years.

Our company offers great career potential, with a supportive management team. We work in a dynamic and sociable environment where success is expected. You will be working a full 360 recruitment cycle from day one and have the support of everyone on the sales floor, from consultants and team leader to director level.

Leverage operate in a number of vertical markets within the upstream oil and gas industry. Experience or knowledge of the Oil and Gas industry is useful but not essential; what is more important is a track record of delivering in a B2B sales or recruitment environment, and experience of building rapport and strong relationships in order to gain repeat business and win client accounts.

Incentives

This is a job for ambitious people looking to excel in one of the most exciting areas of recruitment, for a forward thinking and fast growing business. We offer competitive basic salaries with an industry leading commission structure, which is uncapped.

Earnings for top performers can well exceed 6 figures.

If you would like to be a Recruitment Consultant for one of the most exciting companies in the UK , and one of the most respected specialist recruiters, in a fast paced environment, with the chance to earn huge money, this could be the job for you.

Our commission structure is the best in the industry and we offer regular incentives and bonuses including holidays, nights out, and the opportunity to fast track your career into management.

Future We are looking to expand internationally this year, initially establishing an office in Singapore, followed by Australia and the US. This is the most exciting time for Leverage since inception, and we need top, motivated people to drive us further! We need future top consultants, team leaders and Directors to drive us forward. Fancy opening an international office with us in 2014?

Interviews are immediate. If you think this role might be for you, please send your CV to alex.perry@levpartnership.co.uk

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Bloggers with Bite

2013 – THE YEAR OF THE EXECUTIONER This year it’s time for recruitment ‘executioners’ to come to the fore: the leaders, the doers

L

ast year was the year many talked about doing it. However, 2013 is the year of the ‘executioner’; the year recruitment comes of age and the ‘implementers’ take the spotlight.

It is clear there is a seismic shift in recruiting. But what can we expect in 2013?

Economy: Based on economic forecasts, 2013 looks a challenging year. Expect limited recruitment budgets especially for employment brand, marketing and technological solutions. But this does not mean we can’t innovate and break the status quo.

‘Back to basics’: Getting ‘back to basics’ will be a priority for recruiters, particularly in the field of candidate experience — the elephant in the room for many, who too often rely on a standard bounce-back email to appease applicants, then leave the CV to rot and fester on the database. Social media and Glassdoor [website enabling candidates to get an insider’s look into a company] will highlight horror stories in 2013, embarrassing companies into action. Personalisation of candidate communication will be a key focus.

Talent pool: Those with the experience we need will be in shorter supply. New skills will be needed as companies embrace the cloud, move to mobile and adopt more flexible strategies.

Talent greed continues apace, as we see hunger for bigger salaries, talent disloyalty escalates and the average job move is less than every two years.

Mobile: This will finally emerge as a dominant recruitment channel. LinkedIn will light the touch paper and allow jobseekers to apply over mobile by attaching their LinkedIn profile.

Communities: Leading firms will aggressively map top talent at their

Matthew Jeffery is head of EMEA talent acquisition and global talent brand at Autodesk.

competitors and seek to engage those candidates into their community. ‘Crowdsourcing’ of both ideas but also community candidate referrals will ignite.

Employment brand differentiation/disruptive marketing: How do we get noticed? How do we differentiate ourselves from competitors? Companies will look to new and inventive ways to market themselves and get the visibility they crave. This year will see the advent of augmented reality into recruitment marketing/communication, driven into the mainstream consciousness by mobile phones and the new video games machines, the Xbox 720 and the PlayStation 4.

Gamification: This comes to the fore. The growing realisation that recruitment communication is generally dull will see greater emphasis on ‘engaging’, repeat visit content, seeing redesigns of career sites and messaging on social media sites, learning from the principles of ‘gamification’.

LinkedIn: Talent Pipeline, apply via mobile and new profiles will see it dominate the recruitment space.

Expect more technological solutions: It is clear recruiters are unhappy with their recruitment databases, coupled with all the buzz around social media and employment branding, hence attracting the quick buck brigade ready to sell the latest recruiting snake oil or magic bullet to desperate recruitment leaders.

Big data: Companies will be analysing data more than ever, especially DNA footprints in the cloud to get to understand their talent and its habits/behavioural/ psychological trends. Online candidate assessments will become more common. More applicants for high volume jobs will be required to complete brief but effective online technical knowledge and skills assessment tests.

‘Taxi for bad recruiters’: The spotlight will fall on recruitment leaders who fail to deliver, don’t have a formal strategy, don’t build communities, don’t embrace social media, don’t nurture employment brands, don’t embrace mobile, don’t direct source, and a taxi will be called to move them on. This will help gain our profession greater credibility so that we’re not seen as HR’s poorer cousin.

So 2013 provides real opportunities for our profession. The question is: are you an executioner/ leader or are you happy to just talk the talk?

It is clear there is a seismic shift in recruiting. But what can we expect in 2013?

What do you think? Tell us at recruiter.editorial@redactive.co.uk

TO POST YOUR COMMENTS, GO ONLINE

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