Recruiter June 2013 by Redactive Media Group

June 2013

www.recruiter.co.uk

BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE FOR RECRUITMENT AND RESOURCING PROFESSIONALS

Penta blazes trails Recruiterr spoke p with Penta co-founder Paul Clark and managing g g director Jamie Sobrany y about p pushing g the frontiers of recruitment MANAGING AGENCY WORKERS WITH THIS ISSUE: RECRUITER’S SUPPLEMENT SPOTLIGHTS TRENDS, DILEMMAS AND SOLUTIONS FOR RECRUITERS AND EMPLOYERS

NEW EQUALITY STANDARD LAUNCHED Has the time finally come for a national benchmark?

INCORPORATING 01_Recruit_june13_Cover.indd 1

FINANCING GROWTH

MATTHEW JEFFERY

Do’s and don’ts of securing finance for recruitment growth

Are employers and recruiters alike turning a blind eye to a lost generation of future talent?

Recruitment Matters 05/06/2013 13:52

Perfect. You have roles that are vacant. We have readers who arenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t.

Talk to the best candidates, talk to us Call 0203 353 3401 or email jobs@guardian.co.uk

web print tablet mobile

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Contents 32

HM Revenue & Customs has shown impeccable timing by issuing its consultation on offshore intermediaries around the same time as we publish our ‘Managing agency workers 2013’ supplement! It looks as though Recruiter’s request for clarity on PAYE and NIC considerations has been taken seriously. (We smile.) The deadline is 8 August for input to the consultation, which can be accessed via the gov.uk website at www.gov.uk/government/consultations/offshoreemployment-intermediaries. Look for new legislation in this highly controversial area to apply with effect from 6 April 2014. Providing the legislation clears the heavily muddied waters, it can only be good news for an industry that sometimes resembles the Wild West with its ‘no barriers, no boundaries, no rules’ operating environment. There’s lots of business intelligence to soak up in this issue of Recruiter, from a warning on the use of analytics to new research by The Forum for In-house Recruitment Managers (The FIRM). Our profile of Paul Clark and Jamie Sobrany of Recruiter Award winners (sponsored by Eploy) Penta Consulting reveals the many challenges of succeeding abroad. We also give you the latest news on the recently launched National Equality Standard, which is expected to enter the marketplace in the autumn. Don’t miss our infographic round-up of the latest Osborne Clark/Recruiter M&A Barometer report. We hope this infographic presentation will make the findings easier and quicker to digest. Enjoy what looks like will be a busy, sunny June. And stay in touch with the recruitment industry news you need to know Monday thro through Friday on recruiter.co.uk

NEWS 5

A new National Equality Standard has been developed for business 6

DeeD k Edi DeeDee D Doke, Editor

Qatar: no open goal The 2022 World Cup may seem an ideal opportunity for recruiters but the challenges are great

Interims turned off by new payroll arrangements Civil Service skills shortages could be on the rise

8 Tech & tools 10 Special Report FIRM ﬁndings highlight in-house concerns

ANALYSIS 12 News Analysis Osborne Clarke/Recruiter M&A Barometer — results from the survey 14 Sector Analysis Oil & Gas 17 Global Spotlight on Brazil 12

Scan here to get your own copy of Recruiter

Ernst & Young launches UK equality standard

FEATURES 28 COVER STORY Penta Consulting’s co-founder Paul Clark and managing director Jamie Sobrany 32 Financing growth Securing green shoots of growth for recruitment consultancies

REGULARS 19 21 21 24

Soapbox Soundbites Letters Insight Social media may be the big trend in recruiting, but how effective are certain channels and how do you measure it?

26 The Challenge Working Links, Scope and The Whitehouse Hotel in Llandudno, North Wales 38 Movers & Shakers Industry moves 42 Bloggers with Bite

WHO’S HIRING? 39 Ruth Moran 41 JPA

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 sales executive: Jasmine Pengelly T: +44 (0)20 7880 6205 jasmine.pengelly@recruiter.co.uk Recruitment advertising: John Seaman +44 (0)20 7880 8541 john.seaman@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: Juliette Bond T: +44 (0)20 7324 2771 juliette.bond@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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News

ERNST & YOUNG LEADS DRIVE TO SET UK EQUALITY STANDARD Ernst & Young (E&Y) has launched a new National Equality Standard (NES) developed ‘by business for business’ that is expected to go to market in early autumn. Led by a former director of diversity for the London Development Agency, the NES initiative currently operates as an E&Y subsidiary with a number of sponsors and a board. Achieving the standard will involve a detailed assessment and the payment of a fee based on company size. A pilot of the standard is still underway and portions of it are still to be finalised, although a launch dinner was held in May at the British Museum. The standard’s chief executive officer Arun Batra told Recruiter: “We are probably 90% there but we are very keen to ensure that we let the pilot process run its course and, before we go live, have agreed on the final set of criteria.” He went on to say: “We have got to be entirely satisfied that we’ve got it right. There will be some very contentious issues that we will be auditing against, such as equal pay. We want to ensure that our assessors will know the right sort of questions to ask, and, more importantly, that the benchmark for success is correct.”

The NES marks the newest effort to standardise and assess organisations’ equality practices, a consideration that has increasingly become important to those seeking to do business with public sector organisations in Arun Batra particular. The UK’s six equality strands are race, gender, disability, age, religion & belief, and sexual orientation. Gareth Headley, spokesman for ClearKit which advises organisations on recruitment and disability issues leading to the ClearAssured certification, described the NES to Recruiter as “a fairly broad sweep of actions” to cover all of the equality strands. Companies requiring specialist help for specific strands would still use specialist services of, for example, ClearKit for disability, he said. Of the NES, he said: “We say ‘great, excellent’.” Batra said, “This is the first time that businesses have come together and said, look, we need to set the standards for ourselves. I think that’s something to really celebrate.” DEEDEE DOKE deedee.doke@recruiter.co.uk

HOT ENOUGH? ARE YOU hot enough to make •Recruiter’s HOT 100 2013 — the

definitive list of the UK’s most profitable recruiters? If your business’s gross profit is at least £1.5m, you have at least 20 employees, and your gross profit per employee is at least £40k, you may qualify for a place on Recruiter’s HOT 100 2013. In November, Recruiter will publish our HOT 100, listing the UK recruitment companies with the greatest gross profit per employee. Leading research company Agile Intelligence will undertake the research and analysis for the report. If you believe your company might qualify, send your latest available audited accounts (no older than 2012) to sued@ theagilitybusiness.com by 31 July.

CEB: NO ANALYTICS FOR ANALYTICS’ SAKE ANALYTICS ARE high on the priority list •in talent resourcing and recruiting circles in

2013, but too many organisations are “doing analytics for analytics’ sake”, according to Jean Martin, executive director of the human resources practice of CEB’s (formerly Corporate Executive Board) Corporate Leadership Council. Worse, less than 10% of global HR leaders believe that proliferation of data churned out by analytics are bringing back signiﬁcant returns on investment, a CEB survey has shown. And as one senior HR executive commented in the survey: ”There’s a lot of data out there, but not a lot of information.” CEB’s recent survey, ‘The Analytics Era: Transforming HR’s Impact on the Business’, examined HR’s analytic capabilities in 150

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companies and benchmarked talent outcomes, employee engagement and performance, goal alignment and cultural agility. What researchers found was that many were pursuing “what we call Jean Martin ‘the curve of sophistication’ — a sense of the smarter the analytics and the psychology, the stronger the outcomes”, Martin told Recruiter in an exclusive interview. “The ﬁrst teaching point is, don’t do analytics for analytics’ sake.” However, Martin said, “that’s a waste of time. Becoming more sophisticated in itself does not lead to better talent outcomes, particularly in places like recruiting where you can have the most advanced assessment tools in the world. But if they’re poorly aligned with

your strategy, you’re not going to get there.” She explained that organisations experiencing the best outcomes in analytics use were those who invested “real hard work” in aligning analytics with the business strategy. “You have to understand where the business is headed and what the actual goal is, and then reverse engineer into what the analytic question is,” she said. “Analytics is not about data. It’s about questions. The key is asking the right questions,” Martin emphasised. In recruiting, a starting point would be examining what is needed to be accomplished from the business’s point of view. For instance, what are the business’s goals in recruiting that year, what does recruiting need to accomplish to meet the recruitment goals and what that would mean for what should be measured. “Most people think of analytics as this magic box of cool data that they can now leverage in this era of ‘big data’, and they forget it’s the business back work that we have to do.” DEEDEE DOKE

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News

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

“I think today to hire an engineer in Brazil it’s much more expensive than in the US or in Europe” FOR MORE FROM FUTURESTEP’S ROBERTO SPURI ON BRAZIL, SEE P17

Recruitment law events, organised by the Institute of Recruiters 19 June, Bristol and Southampton; 26 June, London; 27 June, Taunton and Birmingham theior.org.uk/events

London HR Connection, speaker CIPD’s Peter Cheese 19 June, London londonhr.org/eventshome. php

CIPD Recruitment Conference and Exhibition, HR Software Show 19-20 June, London cipd.co.uk/cande

#rcnvs Social and Mobile Recruiting 20 June, London eventbrite.co.uk/ event/4735131907

People Related Measures, one-day workshop organised by the HR Society

Recruiters hoping to take advantage of a possible bonanza in Qatar in the years leading up to the 2022 World Cup will face a tougher challenge than that faced by recruiters in the Gulf state up to now. That is the view of Paul Clark, chief executive officer of Penta Consulting, winner of the Best International Recruitment Agency Award at the recent Recruiter Awards for Excellence, sponsored by Eploy. Penta has been doing business in Qatar since 2007, where it operates as a limited liability company, its business sponsor being a member of the Qatari ruling royal family. Clark told Recruiter: “As the market matures, for anybody going to trade there, there will be a lot more hoops to jump through than when we first got involved.” Jamie Sobrany,

Penta pioneers: co-founder Paul Clark (l) and MD Jamie Sobrany

managing director of the firm, added: “All round there will be tighter regulation on what you do and how you do it.” This will include greater restrictions on the number of foreign companies allowed into the country, as a result of pressure from the media in Qatar, he predicted. “There will be a bit more bias towards Qatari organisations, so that if you are already there you are established and you can

trade. If you are not [already operating in Qatar] you’ll have to have a joint venture or be able to invest in an organisation in Qatar. “For us, all I can see is a benefit because we are established, and we have been for a number of years. It will be a boom market for us to be able to capitalise on.” • For more on the inside story behind Penta’s international success, see pp28-30. COLIN COTTELL colin.cottell@recruiter.co.uk

27 June, London hrsociety.co.uk/events

JAPAN: LAND OF THE RECRUITING GIANTS

London HR Summit, organised by Forum Events

JAPANESE RECRUITMENT giants must not be taken lightly as they expand overseas, the Asia-Pacific managing director of energy and earth sciences recruiter EarthStream Global has said. Kevin Gibson told Recruiter: “People underestimate Japanese recruitment firms — they’re so big and they’ve got so many resources.” He described having his staff move on to jobs with such firms, and then feed back to him reactions such as “wow, they’re so much more strategic”. Speaking to Recruiter as EarthStream opened its first Japan office in Tokyo last month, he noted that Japanese recruiters are starting to make inroads into going into international markets, in particular high-margin white collar recruitment sectors. Demonstrating the muscle of Japanese firms, last September, Japan’s Recruit Co acquired global job site Indeed, saying it was aiming to become the world’s “number one global integrated HR service provider”. Recruit has over 22,000 staff across its brands, compared with the three largest staffing firms globally: Adecco, which has 31,000; Manpower with 30,000; and Randstad — 29,000. According to the 2013 annual report from Ciett, the international confederation of private employment agencies, in 2011 Japan had the second-highest number of private employment agencies in any one country at 20,000, behind China’s 56,000, and accounted for 17% of total global industry sales, second only to the US’s 23%. Gibson, who lived in Japan for eight years leading the local operation of recruiter Robert Walters, said that movement in the other direction is also easier. “It’s not as strange and exotic as it used to be,” he said, while the ever-increasing use of English makes it more accessible than previously for overseas workers such as the contractors EarthStream will be looking to bring in to the market. And while the Yen is not as strong as it has been, the exchange rate still makes for attractive pay packets, he added.

10 July, London forumevents.co.uk

Social Media in Recruitment and Mobile Recruitment Conference, organised by Web Based Recruitment 11 July, London web-based-recruitment.com

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QATAR: NO OPEN GOAL FOR RECRUITERS NEW TO REGION

PETER SEARLE

Events

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•

SAM BURNE JAMES

sam.burnejames@recruiter.co.uk

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News

“A lot of private equity firms are attracted to the oil & gas sector” GARY TIPPER, MANAGING PARTNER, PALATINE PRIVATE EQUITY — SEE P12 AND P14 FOR MORE

“We’re the only industry I know where no supplier owns or controls their inventory. Our product can opt out … You don’t have that with a widget” JOHN HEALY, TALENT STRATEGIST, KELLY SERVICES

“I will not rest until there is a white woman playing cricket for India” COMEDIAN HARDEEP SINGH KOHLI AT NATIONAL EQUALITY LAUNCH (SEE P5)

INTERIMS ‘TURN OFF’ WARNING Plans to meet talent deficits within the Civil Service by buying in key skills could fail unless interims are allowed the flexibility to be paid off the government payroll, according to interim providers. The plan, ‘Meeting the Challenge of Change’, published in April, said that meeting the current skills gap will require it “to buy in more people with the particular skills we are missing”. Gaps included digital, project management and business skills. David Weir, public sector practice director at Penna Executive, said that buying in skills was a great opportunity for interims. However, he warned that any requirement for them to go on the government payroll would be “a threat” to the success of the plan. The pressure to force contractors onto the government payroll increased following a 2012 Treasury review into the use of off-payroll arrangements across the public sector. This found 2,400 individuals earning over £58.2k being paid offpayroll with many using personal service companies. A Treasury spokesperson told Recruiter: “The review’s guidance required departments and their arm’s length bodies to move key officials onto payroll and has awarded them the power to terminate

contracts for offpayroll workers earning in excess of £58.2k who are not able to explain their tax arrangements.” Yet, according to Weir, were this David Hunter (l) and David Weir to be implemented, “many interims would walk away to other sectors”. David Hunter, a public sector specialist at Interim Partners, said that despite the political resistance against going to the market for “so-called expensive interims”, the Civil Service was “going to have to go outside”. “It’s already a challenge to attract interims into the public sector, and anything that impacts on that is going to make things harder,” he added. However, a Treasury spokesperson gave no indication that the government is prepared to soften its stance: “The Treasury and Cabinet Office are currently reviewing departments’ compliance with the guidance and will impose financial sanctions where this has not been the case.” Earlier this month, the Cabinet Office announced a 65% reduction in spending on consultants across Whitehall since 2010. COLIN COTTELL

RESERVE MORE NOTICE IDENTIFY FIRM RISKS TREBLING THE period of notice to •employers whose staff are going

•

on operations with Britain’s military reserve forces is vital to ensure that more reservists are hired. Tim Corry, director of SaBRE, an organisation that helps employers hire reservists, told Recruiter that Tim Corry the current 28 days notice ahead of mobilisation for up to six months at a time is “not enough” when employers are hiring replacement staff, who may also be on four weeks’ notice. Corry’s comments come ahead of a government White Paper due to be published by early July. There is pressure on the government to make changes to encourage more employers to hire Britain’s reservists if the Territorial Army (TA) is to hit its trained strength of 30,000 by 2018, and 35,000 across all three services by 2020. The TA is currently 19,000-strong. Earlier this year, a Federation of Small Business survey found that 48% of employers favoured two or three months’ notice, while 30% wanted help in ﬁnding replacement staff. A Ministry of Defence spokesperson told Recruiter: “We will set out our plans in the Reserves White Paper due to be published later this year.”

IN-HOUSE RECRUITERS can make themselves “a bit more useful” by using their expertise to identify risks to their employers’ business strategy, members of the FIRM (Forum for In-House Recruitment Managers) have heard. Nick Kemsley, co-director of Henley Business School’s Centre for HR Excellence, told attendees at a FIRM event in London that they were ideally placed to manage the risks of their organisation’s people strategy and to align it with the business strategy. Using the example of the employer brand as a risk to business strategy, Kemsley explained how recruiters could use their expertise to ensure that it [employer brand] contributed to meeting the skills needs that were driven by that business strategy. “We may need to change our employer brand, supplier and systems,” said Kemsley. “Are we feeding back our knowledge to help decision makers to deﬁne a strategy?” For example, he asked: “Does the CEO know how difﬁcult it is to recruit in Southern Europe?” Strategic workforce planning could help identify the critical gaps faced by an organisation, said Kemsley, but recruiters had to be aware that it wouldn’t always produce “ nice neat numbers”. It was more likely to provide “a lot of ‘what ifs’”, said Kemsley, and this required recruiters to have “tolerance of ambiguity”.

COLIN COTTELL

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Contract News abrs: The UK specialist recruiter will acquire executive recruiter Carmichael Fisher Singapore... AMS: Talent management firm Alexander Mann Solutions is working with IT services firm Atos North America… Assist Recruitment: Staffing firm Top Gear Recruitment has been acquired by Assist… BIE Group: The executive recruiter has completed a management buy-out from The Cornhill Partnership… Burns Carlton: The search firm has acquired a stake in recruiters Simply Executive Search… Consort Group: Specialist recruitment firm JP Banking Solutions has been bought by London-based recruiter… CTPartners: The global executive search firm has acquired London-based search firm Augmentium Consulting… Futurestep: BNY Mellon Wealth Management has engaged the talent and recruitment firm to fill 100 roles across North America… IOR: The Institute of Recruiters has signed a discounting deal with job boards Jobsite and reed.co.uk… Network Recruitment Partnership: The recruiter, part of the Pertemps Network Group, has acquired recruitment agency BJD Group… Parity Group: The IT recruiter will switch its shares from the main London Stock Exchange to the Alternative Investment Market… PeopleScout: The US veteran hiring specialist has signed a five-year deal with retail giant Walmart… SAP: The global tech giant has announced a partnership with social enterprise Specialisterne (see also p42)

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News

Tech & tools

IDENTIFYING THE INFLUENCERS hose recruiting in the technology sector can make use of a new tool that rates an individual’s influence and expertise. The Influence Graph has been developed by WorkFu, the social recruitment service for the technology industry. WorkFu chief technology officer Rik Heywood told Recruiter that the graph provides a vehicle for endorsing skills and could turn social recruiting on its head. “It uses the networks as a metric as to what people know, what they are good at and where their experience is,” he said. Heywood, a web developer and entrepreneur, explained that WorkFu came about after its founders believed that social networks were not performing well as a recruiting tool. “It was particularly obvious in the technology industry where a lot of skills are new and in a constant state of flux,” he said. “The fact that someone had done a course five years ago or worked at a company eight years ago is almost irrelevant. People are more interested in how a person can prove they are capable of delivering on the skills and expertise they claim they have.” Using WorkFu, individuals can create a Smart Profile that links up all of their profiles Rik Heywood held on social networks and other relevant sites. The Influence Graph is created by a clever algorithm that will look for evidence of the person’s skills and expertise across all of these online spaces and then delivers a score. So, if one of a person’s skills is ‘programming’, for instance, it will look for followers with similar keywords in their profiles as this suggests people in this area feel it is beneficial to follow them. One of the reasons WorkFu works well for the technology sector is the proliferation of specialist networks and sites that exist, such as Stack Overflow, the question and answer site for programmers, and GitHub, which enables techies to share their code. Users don’t even have to return to WorkFu to update their profile if something changes on one of their networks that might affect their score because this is done automatically. The Influence Graph is one of several features in the WorkFu pipeline that Heywood believes will help recruiters compare talent and find the right person for a particular role. “Once we get scores against people’s skills and expertise, there are

all sorts of useful things we can do on the recruitment side,” he said. “For instance, we can issue awards and give people an extra flag on their profile to indicate they are in the top 10% for that skill.” WorkFu, which launched last May, has tens of thousands of profiles posted on it and also allows employers to post opportunities. The algorithms behind the site score opportunities for relevance against a candidate’s profile (called a FuScore) and it also suggests relevant candidates to employers for each opportunity posted. It provides a one-click apply button for candidates while employers can manage their opportunities and applicants through a dashboard. The site is currently in beta so all services are free but eventually employers will pay to post new opportunities and to search the talent database. Although WorkFu is focused on technology professionals at the moment, the plan is to broaden it out to other sectors. It is currently adding more networks for the creative and design community, and in theory the technology can be applied to any profession. Disparate pockets of users are already starting to join up, reports Heywood. “For instance, we have a lot of accountants and US sports coaches,” he said. “We have a good mechanism for analysis so can see what is getting most traction.”

Whittling down the top talent Two recent graduates from Bournemouth University have developed a database and filtering platform that aims to make it much easier for employers to connect with new high-quality talent. Called Witlr, which derives from whittle, the platform is currently in beta and has built links with universities across the UK. Nick Guy, who co-founded the site with David Rubie-Todd, told Recruiter that the aim is to do for recruitment what Auto Trader and Rightmove have done for car and property search respectively. “Traditional recruiting methods can be time-consuming, especially for SMEs [small and medium-sized enterprises] where time is often scarce. We’ve developed Witlr so the database can be queried really simply,” said Guy, who has spoken to hundreds of employers in the course of his market research. “Employers seem to like the idea of having graduates in one place.” Students and graduates fill out a profile form, which is broken down into different sections, making it easier for employers to search. Guy explained that search criteria can be as precise as asking for a Frenchspeaking politics student with experience of a university student newspaper. Employers can also use the filtering system to set a minimum criterion such as only wanting to see graduates with a 2:1 degree. The database is free for employers to search and they pay £49 per person if they find one or more profiles they like (contact information isn’t visible when searching). To enable graduates to be proactive about their job search, the developers have also built in a job board on which employers can post vacancies for free. The website has already attracted funding from angel investor Adam Norris, formerly of Hargreaves Lansdown and now the founder and owner of Horatio Investments, who has committed £500k toward the project. Guy reports that the idea resonated with Norris because he always struggled to find the right students and graduates when recruiting. www.witlr.com David Rubie-Todd (l) and Nick Guy

www.workfu.com SUE WEEKES

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News

SPECIAL REPORT

Web comments BeautifulPeople.com launches recruitment service for the good looking (recruiter.co.uk, 3 June) “Seems like a big step backwards in a time where we should be moving beyond discriminatory practices. I would be ashamed to be associated with any company that uses this service.”

Rebecca Nixon IOR to deliver new recruitment qualifications from September (recruiter.co.uk, 30 May) “I think it is imperative that the industry’s training and qualification programmes are fully accredited to OfQual Standards… Well done, IOR, for demonstrating the difference between a revenue stream income scheme and the supply of high quality and trusted training and educational programmes designed to increase knowledge, expertise and professionalism within the recruitment industry.”

David Montague [former IOR head of regional directors] Skip the job application, more satisfaction guaranteed with pizza order (recruiter.co.uk, 20 May) “Which is exactly why niche consultancies remain on the up! A niche consultancy will place significantly more emphasis on building ongoing relationships with candidates than the recruitment ‘big guns’. Building a lasting relationship relies on providing the right recruitment experience. Get that wrong and not only have you lost your candidate, but the value of the service offered to your client is diminished.”

Jon Witcomb London Mayor aims at Asian firms and new jobs with £1bn docks scheme (recruiter.co.uk, 30 May) “And why do we need a Chinese firm to build this? Are there no British equivalents that could be used?”

Chris Reynolds

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FIRM FINDINGS HIGHLIGHT IN-HOUSE CONCERNS IN-HOUSE RECRUITERS MUST STEP UP THEIR PERFORMANCE IF THEY ARE TO MEET THE NEEDS OF THEIR ORGANISATIONS, ACCORDING TO A NEW REPORT The Forum for In-House Recruiters’ (FIRM’s) inaugural Strategic Acquisition Report, produced by talent research and insight consultancy the Write Research Company, found that the recent economic recession had had “a profound impact on senior management attitudes to the importance of new talent”. The report was based on research carried out in late 2012. It found that far from being a cliché, the phrase ‘People are our greatest asset’ “was now a clarion call to find high performers for critical roles, who can drive organisational change and deliver corporate success”. However, the report raised question marks over in-house recruiters’ ability to meet the challenge. The good news is that inhouse recruiters themselves believe they have gained both greater credibility and presence within organisations, with 65% saying that recruitment is viewed as more important by senior managers. The report confirms a transformation in talent acquisition practice, with 90% of organisations represented in the survey now having a formal recruitment strategy and policy. However, while resourcing professionals aspire to act at a more strategic level, the report identifies how this is thwarted by demands on their time from day-to-day operations. Although resourcing professionals in larger organisations spend more time on strategic planning than their counterparts in smaller organisation, overall 78% spend some element of the day recruiting. The report finds that “while there is a greater emphasis on forward planning, resourcing

KEY FINDINGS Resourcing professionals feel they have yet to make a genuine contribution to strategic decision-making Talent pipelines are not delivering Day-to-day operations are a barrier to in-house recruiters working at a more strategic level Internal teams must be equipped with the right skills

professionals feel they have yet to make a genuine contribution to strategic decision making”. It notes that this is hardly a surprise given that recruitment metrics focus on tactical measures, such as cost per hire, with no clear correlation to organisational effectiveness. The report suggests that many in-house recruiters lack real autonomy, by working within a global resourcing framework “that allows them little if any local flexibility”. Building talent pipelines is a core component of talent acquisition strategies, with resourcing professionals choosing it as one of their top three priorities — more than any other goal, finds the report. However, there is only limited evidence that organisations use them effectively, it says. More than half (55%) make below average or no use of pipelines to source candidates, while only 4% see them as the primary source of candidates before other types of sourcing and attraction activity. Despite being identified as the key to becoming a true strategic partner to the business, the report finds that workforce planning has yet to deliver. Only 4% consider it to be well developed in their organisation, while in 13% of organisations it doesn’t happen

at all. The report also identifies a lack of understanding by in-house recruiters of the external market. “This apparent lack of intelligence with respect to either the future talent requirements of the organisation or the characteristics of the external market is likely to be a major barrier to resourcing becoming a strategic activity,” the report says. A further challenge is for people working in resourcing to have the right skills. The skills needed for the old days of transactional recruitment are no longer sufficient, the report says. “Resourcing functions either need people with a broader commercial perspective, or career recruiters need to rapidly develop a wider business understanding and organisational awareness.” The report reveals a significant gap between the demands made of in-house recruiters and their ability to deliver. The challenge will lie in closing that gap, with workforce planning, talent pipelines, upskilling their teams, and greater strategic input likely to be important components. COLIN COTTELL colin.cottell@recruiter.co.uk

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06/06/2013 15:29

DIGEST

•

THE AVAILABILITY OF freelance work was brighter than average between early 2012 and 2013 for IT specialists with skills in the Windows Azure cloud platform, marketers with proficiency in Twitter and creative professionals who write and edit, according to freelance platform Elance’s ‘Global Online Employment Report — Q1 2013’. Demand for Windows Azure skills globally skyrocketed by 248% year-on-year between the first quarter of 2012 and 2013. At the same time, tweeting marketers found demand for their services leap by a similar increase, at 235%. At an increase of 104%, freelancers with writing and editing skills also found rising need around the world for their services. Those skills experienced the highest year-on-year growth in Elance’s Q1 survey. Other fields that saw increased demand for freelancers included STEM [science, technology, engineering and mathematics], which rose by 153% year on year, virtual assistants (85%), infographics (81%) online research (78%), Android skills (71%) and legal research (68%). The report pinpointed greater opportunities globally for freelancers providing admin support. “Today’s admins use cloud productivity tools in addition to mastering traditional skills like researching data, creating presentations, writing supplier letters, culling social media content, responding to emails and managing calendars for their clients,” the report said. Elance’s vice president for Europe, Kjetil Olsen, recently told Recruiter that lawyers, architects and engineers are entering the global marketplace of freelance work in dramatically rising numbers. At the same time, freelance opportunities for those professions are also rising, Olsen said. See ‘Freelance working gets hot under the white collar, says Elance’, 23 May, recruiter.co.uk. In Q1, 300,000 freelance jobs were posted on Elance, with 290,000 freelancers signing up. The Elance freelance corps’ Q1 earnings were US $60m (£39m).

of mobile enterprise employees surveyed for the latest iPass Mobile Workforce said a company’s BYOD [bring your own device to work] policy can sway their employment choices

TOP

ELANCE REVEALS FREELANCE DEMAND

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JUNE 2013

06/06/2013 15:29

Analysis

M&A BAROMETER SUGGESTS MARKET UPSWING IN 2013 The latest Osborne Clarke/Recruiter Recruitment Sector M&A Barometer reflects a welcome return of confidence to the market. The vast majority of respondents to the survey believe there will be an increase in mergers and acquisitions (M&As) within the sector over the next six months. “This finding is given added force by the fact that 61% of those answering … were CEOs [chief executive officers],” said Kevin Barrow, partner at Osborne Clarke. Added Recruiter editor DeeDee Doke: “We’ve seen a flurry of activity in M&A in recent weeks as our readers announce recent acquisitions and intentions to buy or sell. Hopefully, this marks just the start of an energy injection into the market.” Here are survey result highlights:

89%

of respondents (up from 67% a year ago) think that M&A activity will increase in the next six months.

56%

see this as a trend toward market consolidation.

Which of the following four scenarios do you think is most likely to occur over the next six months? More than 80% of respondents think that at least 5% of traditional recruitment agency revenues are being lost to jobsites, online exchanges and networking sites.

2.9%

55.9% ■ There will be market consolidation ■ Recruiters will be looking to divest non-core parts of their businesses ■ Recruiters will sell up completely ■ Private equity investors will be looking to sell

11.8%

29.4% 29.4%

M&A conﬁdence vs intentions in the next six months

Sector in signiﬁcant demand is Oil & Gas. Nearly threequarters of respondents believe that this is the sub-sector of most interest to buyers at the moment.

Who will buy?

60%

think that private equity will be the most likely buyers of online recruitment businesses that pose threats to traditional recruitment companies.

Acquisition targets are expected to cluster in the £5m to £35m range, with nearly expected to be in this segment.

Nov 2010

48 87.5 30 66.7 66.7 88.6 62.9

Apr 2011

Oct 2011

June 2012

■ % believe activity will increase ■ % buying or selling

RECRUITER

JUNE 2013

12_infographics_V3_JUN12.indd 12

May 2013

Infographics: Adrian Taylor

70% Asia

is seen as the region most appealing to an international buyer.

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05/06/2013 14:59

Sector Analysis

Oil & Gas

Views from the market

IN THIS SKILLS-SHORT MARKET, THE SECRET TO GOOD RECRUITING IS… GOOD RECRUITING — IDEALLY SUPPLEMENTED BY STRONG LEARNING & DEVELOPMENT Anyone with half an eye on recruitment agencies will note oil & gas specialists are doing rather well — reflecting a growing, prosperous client market and a labour market with longterm talent scarcities. Global oil services company Aker Solutions wants to tap those precious resources, growing its UK workforce of 3,200 by 1,700 in the next three years. Aker tells Recruiter it would prefer not to resort to salary inflation, meaning tactics to meet its personnel needs include developing younger staff and continuing to look outside the industry: currently 30% of hires come from other engineering sectors or the armed forces. “We have to ensure that our recruitment system can process applicants with world-class assessment tools, to ensure quality and making sure everybody is exposed to a professional recruitment process,” adds UK operations director Mike Smith. Aker is “establishing recruitment centres of excellence in each region, with professionally trained, employed staff, standardised processes, infrastructure and search capability”, he explains. There is no silver bullet, aside from intelligent, strategic, well-executed recruitment. The same goes halfway across the world for Texas-based headhunter Mac MacLaren, currently on contract with oilfield services firm Baker Hughes. MacLaren knows the market dictates he has to “be a little bit creative and work real hard”. This means a good blend of methodologies. “There’s no one channel. Obviously we’re using our website along with some of the major oil & gas employment sites; we’re being proactive

WE IMPLEMENT A PYRAMID SCHEME, WHICH ENSURES EXPATS CAN TRANSFER THEIR SKILLS TO THE LOCAL TEAMS

Simon Coton Managing director, NES Global Talent “We recognise the importance of boosting national employment levels. However, we don’t have enough engineers in the UK to drive vital energy projects.”

through things like LinkedIn. We engage outside agencies,” he says. And print advertising too. “I kind of laughed because that’s kind of old school,” MacLaren admits. “It actually worked pretty well.” With candidates generally having multiple offers, MacLaren agrees with Aker that a smooth process is critical — acting fast to “get them hired before other things take their fancy”. Further solutions abound. Harry van de Vossen is chief technology officer of learning and training firm Atlas. He says technological advances mean solutions, such as his firm’s, can be one of those. Already the industry is “beginning to see new industry training standards developed, with e-learning as an integral part”, he says. A spokesperson for GL Noble Denton, a technical advisory firm to the oil & gas industry, agrees that maximising internal development is a big opportunity, something that intelligent use of contractor workforces can facilitate. “We implement a pyramid scheme, which ensures expats can transfer their skills to the local teams,” says Sarah Bass, HR business partner for Asia Pacific. “It is crucial that we only bring onboard expats who are willing to pass on their expertise.” It is important, she adds, to encourage networking and team building for such exchange to take place successfully. In a different way, internal knowledge exchange is also a key advantage for Michael Page Oil & Gas managing director Jamie Newman. “We’ve got a global database of candidates and we’ve got a global network of client contacts. We will exchange candidates on a daily basis; we’re able to tune in to a lot of expatriates,” he says. He also reiterates that managing candidates with multiple offers is a crucial challenge given the market. “Working on dialogue all the way through the process” is part of the solution, he says. Yes, good dialogue is something a good recruiter maintains whatever the market — but in so competitive an industry, one can’t afford to forget the basics.

Daniel McCourt Managing consultant, Leap29 “UK ambitions with shale gas will be expensive if anything goes ahead. Due to the country’s population, and decreasing rural percentage, it means the reserves will be harder to work with for safety reasons, so companies will accrue more expense.”

Helen Smith CEO, Oil Consultants “Technologies are changing. New production methods such as fracturing and HPHT [high pressure high temperature] or deepwater drilling require the kind of skills that traditional methods cannot provide.”

Mike Walker MD, energy & natural resources, Progressive Recruitment “A good consultant is typically hard to find… You should not assume that industry knowledge is all that’s required — you can always learn with the right training and support.”

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

OIL, GAS & ENERGY CVs New CVs registered on CV Library 5000 4000 3000

AVERAGE INDUSTRY SALARIES According to CareerStructure

2.00

(typical range: £42,500£62,500)

1.75

(typical range: £32,500£61,818)

1000 0

Offshore careers: £70,920 Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Jan Feb Mar Apr 2012 2013

RECRUITER

JUNE 2013

14_Recruit_SectorAnalysis_june2013.indd Sec3:14

■ Global ■ Europe ■ Asia ■ North America ■ Middle East ■ Africa ■ Australasia ■ South America ■ CIS 2.25

Oil industry: £57,500

Gas industry: £47,500 2000

HAYS OIL & GAS GLOBAL JOB INDEX

(typical range: £72,500£61,137)

1.50 1.25 1.00 0.75 0.50

Jan 2011

Apr

Jul

Oct

Jan 2012

Apr

Jul

Oct

Jan 2013

Mar

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Market Indicators

Global Spotlight on Brazil

ALTHOUGH THE COUNTRY HAS BEEN AFFECTED BY RECESSION, BRAZIL IS STILL REAPING THE REWARDS FROM ITS PREVIOUS RAPID GROWTH, THOUGH SKILL SHORTAGES ABOUND When Recruiter’s Global Spotlight last visited Brazil in November 2011, it was about to overtake the UK as the world’s sixth largest economy. Recruiters queued up to reel off lists of sectors hiring strongly. However, Michael Page director Paulo Pontes noted at that time that since October 2011, global recession had reached Brazil’s shores, with clients “putting their positions on hold and being more cautious about starting new projects”. A more muted 2012 followed — but muted only by Brazil’s own high standards. Things were still “much better” than in Europe, Pontes noted – and still are. Raquel Cunha, a senior talent acquisition adviser for computing giant Dell in Brazil, says the previous rapid growth is still being felt. “The positions available grew and we faced a talent shortage in certain areas,” she says. “This seems to be the trend that we will face in the short term.” This, she says, means a recruiter “can no longer be a person that only searches… [but also] shows the candidate their career’s perspectives for the future” and in general, must become “more strategic”. With opportunities still plentiful, firms are adopting “really aggressive retention strategies”, says Eva Piqué, a senior Latin America life sciences consultant at recruiter Antal International. High turnover is “one of the most important challenges within HR departments in Brazil”, Piqué says — an issue made more important given bureaucratic difficulties importing overseas talent. The other side of the coin, though, is that “access to candidates is easier compared to other countries. They are more open to changing jobs”, she explains. Roberto Spuri, managing director — Latin America at talent solutions firm Futurestep, agrees that “talent management becomes very strategic” with Brazil’s “very aggressive and competitive labour market”. On Spuri’s agenda for 2013 is bringing innovations

MANPOWER EMPLOYMENT OUTLOOK SURVEY Percentage balance of 900 Brazilian employers surveyed expecting to expand workforce minus those looking to reduce it 40 % 35 30 25 20 15 10 5 0

Q2 Q3 Q4 2011

Q2 Q3 Q4 2012

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17_Recruit_june13_Global spotlight.indd 17

Q1 Q2 2013

Key indicators Major events coming up: FIFA Confederations Cup (June 2013, nationwide), FIFA World Cup, (June-July 2014, nationwide), Olympic and Paralympic Games (August and September 2016, Rio de Janeiro) 79% of Brazilians are currently seeking or considering additional training or education to further their career — the fourth-highest rate globally after Russia, Thailand and Mexico Source: Kelly Global Workforce Index Brazil has a “terrible supply” of leaders today, ranked 24th out of 25 major global markets, but is more promising on leaders for tomorrow, sitting in fifth place Source: SHL Talent Report

like talent mapping, recruitment process outsourcing (RPO) and social media to the market. Something else he would like to see introduced is more investment in trainee and internship programmes “to prepare the new generation of professionals”, as the lack thereof is only adding to labour market competitiveness. While Spuri finds that work equates to bringing new methods to the market, Joel Stern offers Recruiter a unique perspective. An experienced corporate recruiter in the US, Stern is now working as an independent consultant in Brazil. In every market, Stern acknowledges, “people appreciate referrals… but what I’ve seen here is that it goes a step further. It’s a very tight-knit culture and generally it appears that Brazilians prefer to work and socialise with the people that they know or are referred to”. Stern adds: “I don’t think some of the traditional channels like a job board and mass broadcasting are as effective here, because relationships matter. So I’ve used that to my advantage to go through some contacts to get interest from people.” While Stern looks to make inroads in Brazil, Amy Bush, the head of Americas at talent acquisition firm Alexander Mann Solutions (AMS), also says that the firm views Brazil as “one of the emerging markets that we see as critical to our success”. Bush says that high employment tax and high salaries in Brazil, alongside social unrest across the continent, are among the barriers to entry into the market, which Bush sees as relevant to AMS clients. But as with all the ‘issues’ in Brazil, these pale into insignificance against the market’s undoubted potential. SPONSORED BY

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

AGENCIES IN BRAZIL In 2012, there were 1,467 temporary stafﬁng agencies and a further 33,794 companies providing outsourced services in Brazil. This total of 35,261 is up from 32,580 in 2011, and 31,029 in 2010. According to a report from Brazilian recruitment and stafﬁng trade body Sindeprestem, a Ciett member

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Soapbox

Sucking on the VMS pipe?

SOAP

HAVING WATCHED UK RECRUITMENT PLC SUCKING ON THE VMS PIPE FOR THE PAST DECADE, IT’S AN INTERESTING WASH-UP

The vendor management system (VMS) or neutral vendor (NV) has long put down its roots in the UK recruitment world, starting in the public sector and gently moving into the larger corporates, normally as a managed service provider (MSP). It has had a material effect on the recruitment sector. Margin crushing, disintermediation from the customer’s line management and often onerous contractual obligations make it an interesting way to do business. But is it all bad? It’s a normal maturation process that has been speeded up by the market environment — tough markets give the whip hand to the hiring community — and when this exists for a prolonged period, it can have real structural impact on the economic supply chain. Where I grew up, the value of a recruiter was in the pipelining and deep knowledge of the specific skillset that was required. If it’s just a ‘recruitment’ outsource, this is by definition a process and therefore a commodity, surely, meaning even skinnier margins.

Most recruiters playing in the VMS space now have specific delivery teams to satisfy the on-contract demand — pipelining candidates in anticipation of demand. Or, they don’t bother and spend their life seeking out some off-contract work at a margin they can feed their children on. Not many recruiters have pulled off the trick of being able to do both — a polarising effect on the operation — which poses a real challenge to management. If there is even a slight uptick in demand, these contracts will most surely be ignored. Why wouldn’t people build out a real supply chain with trusted partners, trading volume for margin? In my experience ‘crowd sourcing’ or ‘dynamic pricing’ simply doesn’t work in a B2B environment in the long term; suppliers just lose interest. Consider the supply chain; does it belong to the hiring customer or the NV/MSP? Ask different people and you get different answers. One of the larger players tried to impose a tax of 2.5% on the supply chain

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(a ‘service’ fee), and when asked to justify this, there was some uncomfortable shuffling of feet and then a “well, we need to make some money”. Don’t we all! Arguably, 2.5% of turnover is probably nearer 25% of the margin, or even 100% of the actual profit of the margin on an already skinny deal. And anyway, this saving would go to the customer, right? Wrong — we “own” the supply chain. Really? Let’s ask the customer... Strategically, we have to wonder where this will end up. The big guys are effectively starting to give the managed service element (and the tech) to the customers to get the opportunity to fill the vacancy and control the supply chain — not good news for the NVs certainly in the medium term. What’s left for the end of the supply chain? All the hard stuff. That’s fine by me but at least understand that this comes with a premium margin — you can’t expect it to be filled at the low rate, surely… TIM COOK is group chief executive ofﬁcer at Human Capital Investment Group

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Opinion

Letters Don’t underestimate the value of umbrella companies UMBRELLA COMPANIES play a vital role in the professional •recruitment sector and our afﬁliate umbrella provider members

pride themselves on the strong relationships that they have built and nurtured with their clients. Recent reports in the recruitment press have suggested that umbrella companies may be competing with recruitment consultancies — but this is simply not the case. The Association of Professional Staffing Companies (APSCo) works exclusively within the professional staffing sector, so I am not able to pass comment on other areas of the recruitment industry. However, when we recently canvassed our umbrella members to determine how they perceived their relationship with the staffing sector, the response was overwhelming. They confirmed that they had absolutely no intention, now or in the foreseeable future, of competing with their recruitment company clients. While it is true that some of our members have overarching employment contracts which require them to help contractors look for work, this activity goes no further than assisting them to review job boards and contacting previous recruitment companies with whom they have worked. Umbrella companies fulfil an important role within the professional staffing sector, and contractors turn to them to take advantage of legitimate travel and subsistence tax benefits, without the worry, cost and concern of running their own personal service companies. APSCo takes extremely seriously the legal and ethical compliance of its umbrella company affiliate members and requires that they all undertake an external compliance review, which is carried out to an agreed level. Although compliance issues in this area are complex and best practice is constantly changing, APSCo endeavours through its compliance review and affiliate code of conduct to give its members a degree of comfort when working with an APSCo affiliate umbrella. So to be clear, APSCo affiliate umbrella companies only help place candidates as part of their obligation as an employer. Their success depends on an ability to work closely with recruitment consultancies. It is not in umbrellas’ interests to compete with or upset the staffing companies with whom they collaborate. Of course, there may be rare occasions where a contractor will find work directly with a client and in such cases an umbrella may contract directly with them — but these cases are rare. We should not forget that the relationship between umbrellas and staffing companies is a valuable commodity. Many recruitment firms have preferred supplier lists of umbrellas and making it onto these lists is no easy feat. Umbrellas must provide a great deal of information regarding their compliance and working practices. Why on earth would umbrellas want to jeopardise these lucrative relationships? Furthermore, most recognise that running a recruitment business requires more than just a database of client contacts and contractors. Recruiters are highly-skilled professionals. Success depends on experience, expertise and the ability to understand your marketplace. Large databases are not the asset they were before the rise of the job board and LinkedIn. As far as I’m concerned, our umbrella company members provide a valuable and professional service to both candidates and the recruitment businesses. There is absolutely no evidence that our umbrella company members are breaching the confidentiality of their arrangements with, or of them deliberately setting themselves up in competition against, their recruitment company clients. We must not underestimate the value of umbrella providers and the strength they bring in working alongside recruitment businesses to deliver holistic solutions for contractors. Samantha Hurley, head of external relations, APSCo

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21_Recruiter_Soundbites_june13.indd Sec3:21

Soundbites

“What is the most thought-provoking question you’ve ever been asked – or have asked – in a job interview?” Russell Adams Director, AdMore Recruitment

A client of mine uses this question and candidates find it very challenging to answer. The question is: ‘Give me an example of a time when you have not been 100% honest in your current role’. The client is looking for openness and candour in order to gauge the person’s fit with the values and culture of the business. The key is to strike a balance between being frank and not casting doubt about your personal integrity!

Jonathan Coxon Managing director, Liquid Personnel

Recruitment is a tough career to establish yourself in, and one of the most important things we try to identify is whether or not a candidate has the mental fortitude to succeed. I usually ask ‘Give me an example of a time you have struggled with real adversity and turned things around against the odds’. Great answers might relate to work or personal life, but will demonstrate perseverance, backbone and coping in a pressure situation.

Emma Shuttleworth EMEA recruitment and talent manager, The Body Shop

When your job is asking people questions you, expect never to be thrown by one yourself. So when once asked at an interview ‘Who has been your most successful hire?’ I was surprised to be stumped for an answer. Not because I couldn’t quickly think of all the great people I have recruited over time, but because I wasn’t sure there was a clear measurement… Impact on the business, length of service, cost or time-tohire – who knows how to define it, but it really got me thinking… Who has been my most successful hire?

Steve White-Cooper Director, add-victor

In a recent interview, one of add-victor’s candidates was asked: ‘What is it about life today that makes people want to put themselves through pain?’ For most young interviewees, this question would have stopped them in their tracks, but what unites add-victor’s pool of athletes and ex-military officers is their diverse view of the world as a result of their outstanding life experiences. As a result, they were able to discuss what drove them to push themselves beyond their pain barrier, and why more and more people in corporate roles spend their weekends testing their abilities outside of the workplace.

IF YOU HAVE A LETTER OR WOULD LIKE TO BE A CONTRIBUTOR TO SOUNDBITES, EMAIL... VANESSA.TOWNSEND@RECRUITER.CO.UK

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Insight

Look beyond bottom line on social media SOCIAL MEDIA IS WIDELY USED IN RECRUITMENT, BUT HOW WELL HAS MEASURING ITS EFFECTIVENESS KEPT PACE? Jon Hull, global head of resourcing at components maker RS Components, says that recently he has “probably saved on more senior agency fees, about £300k a year via LinkedIn”. And he notes that when RS Components line managers personally share a job via Facebook or LinkedIn, it is “highly likely to be more effective”. How much something costs is easily measured, but what about its effectiveness? Well that’s another matter. You can see what seems to drive good hires in the short-term, you can work out where your brand presence is strong, but determining whether social media recruitment strategies are really delivering the goods is by no means clear cut. More and more employers are tracking cash return on investment (ROI) from their social media recruitment. However, Hull and others agree that you have to do more. It is imperative to take this tangible result hand-in-hand with a more nuanced appreciation of what your social strategy actually achieves, and how it achieves it. “Recruiting has always been an art, but it is now becoming a science,” claims a LinkedIn spokesperson, adding: “If you can’t measure it, you can’t fix it.” With its various “real metrics” and “datadriven insights”, LinkedIn is offering fixes — but it’s not always that simple. Matt Lavery, the director of talent acquisition at logistics giant UPS, says they do indeed practise the ‘scientific’ aspect, meaning “track everything we do, applicant flow and so on… we go back and look at what drives that activity or didn’t”. However, he continues: “You can get stuck in a bubble where it’s just about how many people you hire. We also look at it as a means of awareness, influence and action.” Again: less easily measured, no less important. Steve Fogarty, adidas Group’s employer branding manager, goes further. “I see a lot of chatter in the industry about measuring direct ROI and conversion numbers around hires from social recruitment,” he says. “From my point of view this is very shortsighted.” Of course, adidas tracks metrics (see PowerPoints,

YOU CAN GET STUCK IN A BUBBLE WHERE IT’S JUST ABOUT HOW MANY PEOPLE YOU HIRE

right) but Fogarty is also conscious of broader needs. “If we engage in a relevant way based on core reasons our audiences come to us in the first place, then the conversions will follow,” he says. You can’t put a metric on understanding your own brand and your audience. The big question Ashley Hever, European talent acquisition manager at Enterprise Rent-A-Car, asks is: “Is it really generating good quality hires?” Enterprise hires almost solely at graduate level, so seeing how hires have progressed six, 12 or 24 months down the line, looking back to where they came from, begins to answer that question. “It really is a long-term thing,” he says, explaining that nothing happens overnight. Eamon Collins, group marketing director at recruiter PageGroup, warns against forcing an unsuitable metric on social media. “In some of them, it’s early days — we’re still learning about what is an acceptable benchmark to use,” he says. “Showing a tangible ROI is often going to be hard,” he says, not just in social media recruitment, but across a lot of marketing and advertising activity. While again, they have specific measures in place and a dedicated team, Collins also knows that a key return is “investing in our staff” — providing social media training will give ROI, but one you can’t necessarily put your finger on. “There are a huge amount of activity measures,” acknowledges digital strategist Matt Alder. “You really have to work out what you want to measure, what metrics are actually important to you.” Alder agrees it can be “slightly difficult to measure in a joined-up way”, adding it is vital to shun “vanity measures” — followers and connections. If you quote those, “you probably aren’t looking deeper into the process”. However there is, Alder says, “absolutely” space for the intangible ‘buzz’ factor. Social ‘buzz’ is essentially what it sounds like — making it hard to measure, not necessarily visible in tangible results; in March, a senior Coca-Cola marketer admitted that despite (expensive) efforts at creating and maintaining that buzz, the company had not seen measurable short-term sales impact. Where Coca-Cola has fallen down on the consumer front, recruitment users have gone from strength to strength, Alder believes. “Most of the companies that are shouting about how good their social media is, are probably backing it up – three or four years ago, that wasn’t always the case.”

Power Points Adidas Group employer branding manager Steve Fogarty on different social media: • “What we measure within Facebook is our growth, reach and level of engagement” • “On Twitter it’s about reach and click through” • On LinkedIn Groups adidas measures “growth and the quality of the talent pools”, on company pages “we measure growth and impact of posts” • Other platforms adidas uses include Pinterest and Youtube Employees hired through LinkedIn are 40% more likely to stay with a firm beyond six months than other hires, data from the social network shows “Keep it aligned to your core business objectives. It’s very easy to get distracted almost on a whim, but we don’t just jump in there because something is new and shiny.” Eamon Collins, group marketing director, PageGroup

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

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

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The Challenge

Disabling attitudes to work in partnership Paul Langshaw Proprietor

THE WHITEHOUSE HOTEL NEEDED TO FIND RELIABLE PEOPLE WHO COULD ALSO BE FLEXIBLE. WORKING LINKS AND SCOPE CAME UP WITH A FRESH SOLUTION

THE CHALLENGE Running a small seaside hotel on the coast of North-West Wales may sound idyllic but when you factor in the Great British weather — especially of late — and the high turnover of staff due to the seasonality of the hotel business, then such a way of life can turn out to be more of a challenge than a Shangri-La. Paul Langshaw, proprietor of The Whitehouse Hotel in Llandudno, alongside his wife Jacqui, for the past five years, was all too familiar with the demands of a family-run hotel and was on the look-out for reliable, hardworking and flexible staff. He was finding that candidates who were applying for vacancies in the hotel often didn’t live up to the claims on their CV. “The problem with recruitment,” he told Recruiter, “was that you never know who’s going to walk through the door.” He explained that because the hotel was a small business — he employs 7-14 staff, depending on season — he didn’t have an HR department to sift through applications, which meant the hiring was down to him. He told Recruiter he even had overseas candidates he was about to take on turn up with the wrong paperwork. Compounding the high seasonal turnover in staff, Langshaw added

that he was aware that good staff would eventually want to move on. “We’re a small hotel, I can’t offer great hourly rates,” he admitted, “but I like to see people progress.” Noble sentiments but not much help in making a business a success in these tough economic conditions. The Whitehouse Hotel needed to find a better pipeline of staff — the type of people who could fit in with the family ethos of the hotel and be willing to be flexible in their roles.

THE SOLUTION The answer came in a roundabout way through the government’s Work Choice initiative, which is designed to help long-term unemployed, disabled people into suitable work through support and training. Disability charity Scope was awarded the contract 18 months ago from prime provider Working Links, which needed Scope’s expertise to deliver the programme. Working Links aims to support people who face signiﬁcant challenges in the workplace and helps them move into jobs with a future. Marian Roberts, partnerships and provisions co-ordinator at Working Links Wales, told Recruiter the relationship with Scope works because there’s mutual respect. “When you’ve got an open, honest, two-way relationship, it can’t go wrong,” she said. Scope’s operations manager Ann Lloyd, who had known Langshaw in a previous job, met up with him by chance at a community

Lessons learned “With Working Links as the prime provider, it’s all about working together to make sure we deliver to our customer. Paul works alongside us as well… we all share good practice. It cements it all together.” Ann Lloyd, Scope

event in Llandudno. “I cheekily asked him about vacancies,” she told Recruiter. “I knew he’d be up for giving disadvantaged people a chance, as he’d helped vulnerable young people in the past.” Langshaw was immediately passionate about the initiative. “It’s about focusing on people’s abilities rather than disabilities,” he said. Scope’s team, with Lloyd at the helm, worked closely with Langshaw to get a complete and true feeling for his business to ensure he would get the right people. “At the end of the day, he’s got a business to run,” Lloyd said. “And it ﬂuctuates throughout the year. He’s got to manage the peaks and troughs, so he needs ﬂexibility from his workforce.” Roberts explained that Working Links pre-sifts Scope’s candidates to ensure that their qualities are right and that they are adaptable. Langshaw is clearly delighted with the results. “It’s like my own HR

Ann Lloyd Scope

department,” he told Recruiter. “I automatically get qualiﬁed leads.” Over the past year, the hotel has given 10 people with disabilities work experience, taken on seven as permanent staff, and has three working for the hotel at the moment. It’s not all been plain sailing, of course. Langshaw explained that with all the will in the world there have been some Scope clients who, when it comes to working a full shift, can struggle. “There are fails, but for every two fails you ﬁnd a gem,” he said. At the time of writing, the receptionist hired from Scope more or less runs the hotel, Langshaw said proudly. Previously, she wasn’t allowed to work due to her condition, but Scope initiated a support package for her, with a member of Scope’s staff working shifts alongside her in the beginning. And that’s not a one-off. “We support our clients in the workplace — hold their hands,” said Lloyd. “Then we gradually taper off, which could be up to two years.” Not only has Langshaw now got a pipeline of potential staff, last month the hotel scooped the Employability Related Services Association’s SME [small and medium-sized enterprise] of the Year award. “Paul is really supportive and really open to resolving problems,” Lloyd said. “It’s like a little family — there was an enormous sense of pride at the awards ceremony.” Roberts added: “Paul is passionate. People with disabilities really want to work; other employers need to know how good they are.”

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

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Profile

PAUL CLARK’S PHILOSOPHY OF RECRUITMENT

“NICHE SPECIALIST BRAND ALL THE WAY — THAT IS IT FOR ME”

Pioneering Penta Not many recruiters get to hobnob with royalty, but for Jamie Sobrany, managing director of international information and communications technology (ICT) recruiter, Penta Consulting, it’s all in a day’s work. Sobrany has just flown in from Saudi Arabia. Looking fit and tanned, he is looking forward to Ramadan, the ninth month of the Islamic calendar, observed by Muslims as a time of fasting. “It’s great for networking with the sheikhs,” he says, explaining the importance of that time in the evening, when sheikhs and government officials break their fast, and sit around for two to three hours talking. “That’s when a lot of business is done,” he adds. On the other hand, he says with a certain air of resignation, much of the machinery of government closes down during Ramadan, so getting things done quickly can be all but impossible. As winner of Best International Recruitment Agency at last month’s Recruiter Awards for Excellence, sponsored by Eploy, both Sobrany and Paul Clark, co-founder of Penta, can talk for England about the importance of understanding local culture when doing business abroad. The firm, which was set up in 1998 by Clark and Richard Wilson, operates in 85 countries round the world. Along with the Recruiter Award that sits proudly on the reception desk at its headquarters in Wallington, Surrey, Penta is also a winner of the Queen’s Awards for Enterprise. Clark explains how Penta’s sponsors in the Gulf States

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love being associated with the winner of both awards. “They say ‘my recruitment business in the UK, which has been recognised’,” he says. As Sobrany explains having a sponsor onboard is vital in the Middle East where Penta does 31% of its business. “There is no set way of going about it, by doing x, y and z. It depends on who you know and who can facilitate your ability to get visas. Both in Qatar and Dubai our business partners are the royal families, so obviously it opens a lot of doors,” he says. In Qatar, thanks to its sponsor, Sheikh Mansour Jabor JJ Al-Thani, a member of the House of Thani, the ruling family, Penta has access to an unlimited supply of residents’ visas for international workers. Sponsors also help oil the wheels of business — their name adding that all-important cachet to the Penta brand. “Part of the reason why we have been so successful is our ability to get through to the right people and then promote our services, so they see it as a benefit to their home countries as well,” he says. Indeed, the influence of Penta’s sponsor is such that Qatarisation, a government policy to encourage the employment of Qatari nationals in the private sector, doesn’t apply to Penta. In Dubai, Penta’s sponsor is Sheikh Mana Ali Saeed Ali Rashed Al-Maktoum. Neither Sobrany nor Clark have always moved in such rarified circles, however. As Clark, a proud Scouser, explains, the company’s beginnings were more humble, providing IT staff to investment banks in the City. The seeds of its current success were sown after Sobrany’s

PAUL CLARK’S SECRET OF SUCCESS

“SURROUND YOURSELF WITH PEOPLE THAT ARE BETTER THAN YOU, AND TREAT THEM AS YOU WOULD LIKE TO BE TREATED YOURSELF”

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PHOTOGRAPHY: PETER SEARLE

Profile

JAMIE SOBRANY’S PHILOSOPHY OF RECRUITMENT

“MAKING SURE WE ADD VALUE. WHAT WAS NEEDED YESTERDAY MIGHT NOT BE WHAT IS NEEDED TOMORROW”

COLIN COTTELL MET WITH PAUL CLARK, CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER AND CO-FOUNDER, AND JAMIE SOBRANY, MANAGING DIRECTOR OF INTERNATIONAL INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATIONS TECHNOLOGY (ICT) RECRUITER, PENTA CONSULTING appointment, when the company turned its attention to mobile and to international markets. Sobrany recalls it was a close-run thing between joining Clark and taking a job at another recruiter, Spring. However, impressed by Clark’s vision to expand into international growth markets, Sobrany describes the moment the two men’s careers became entwined. “I had an epiphany and it was the best decision I ever made,” he says happily. Similarly, the company’s decision to look abroad, rather than simply concentrate on the UK, also looks to have turned out well. “We wanted to step out of the UK, where there is margin pressure, and a lot of competition,” says Clark.

PENTA CONSULTING Formed by Paul Clark and Richard Wilson in 1998

21 entities around the world Contractors in 85 countries 92 staff in UK 22 staff overseas 2011-12 Sales £45.1m Proﬁt before tax £3.3m

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2012-13 (projected)

£45.3m £3.6m

Penta’s business model also stands out from its JAMIE SOBRANY’S competitors, making it difficult to replicate, adds Sobrany. SECRET OF SUCCESS Not only does it, as you might expect, supply clients with “SET THE the skills they need, but it provides them with “an endMILESTONES. to-end solution”. “It’s about taking the headache away from the client — the tax, deployment of the candidate to THEN PUSH the site and the immigration issues,” he says. THEM Part of this is taking care of contractors’ every need in countries as diverse and often dangerous as Iraq, YOURSELF. Zimbabwe, Afghanistan and the Democratic Republic of DON’T ASK Congo. As a matter of routine, contractors receive health cover, including kidnap cover, secure accommodation and SOMEONE TO professional security. DO SOMETHING In one case, staff worked all weekend to evacuate YOU WOULDN’T a project manager contractor when a military coup erupted in the Democratic Republic of Congo. On another BE PREPARED occasion, a Zimbabwean contractor working in Kabul, TO DO who had contracted TB [tuberculosis], was evacuated YOURSELF” by private jet to Germany. “Ninety-nine point nine per cent of the time everything is plain sailing; it’s the 0.1% of the time… you have to be able to react, and solve their problem,” says Sobrany. Candidate deployment and client handling work is carried out at Penta’s Wallington offices. This is complemented by a local presence on the ground in its international markets to deal with immigration, visa and tax issues. “We use locals who can run round and get things done for us,” says Sobrany. Although the UK and Europe, each with 27% of Penta’s turnover, are important, it is the Middle East,

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Profile

where Penta does 31% of its business, which is its biggest market. As Clark points out, this has been no overnight success. “It has taken seven years to do the Middle East,” he says. The company first formed an LLC, a limited liability company established with a national or sponsor in Dubai in 2006, and in Qatar in 2008. And it is Qatar, which won the bid for the 2022 World Cup, where the always-enthusiastic Clark is most excited. “It is immense,” he says, referring to the opportunities coming on stream from £200bn of infrastructure investment. At the same time, Sobrany points out that recruiters can’t simply expect to roll up and reap the rewards, be that in Qatar or in any of the Gulf States. “One of the things we have learned is that you have to adapt to the pace and the way they work. They have a much more relaxed way of life, whereas this business is 24/7. “What we would hope to deliver in one day they would deliver in one week,” he continues, getting into his stride. “They say ‘God willing — it is going to happen at some point, but we are not going to tell you when’.” Penta’s consultants in Wallington also have to adapt. Not only does the

three- to four-hour time difference mean consultants starting work at 4am, but because in most of the Gulf Region Sunday is the beginning of the working week, for some Sunday working is a must. “Consultants have to do what it takes,” says Clark. Next on Penta’s Middle East wish list is Saudi Arabia, where the company already trades, but plans to open an LLC later in the summer. Beyond that, Clark sees Africa, with its many similarities to the Middle East, as another great recruitment frontier just waiting to be conquered. “It’s who you know, and having relationships in the government; without having that you’re stuck,” says Clark. “The biggest challenge is having the understanding and the ability to negotiate your way through what appears to be sticky tape.” During its 15-year history, Penta has come a long way. But it has done nothing to take the edge off the two men’s ambition. “We will get on a plane if there is a slice of business to be had,” says Clark. “It took seven years to do the Middle East. We just cannot get around the world quickly enough. We wish we were Phileas Fogg. If we could do what we did in the Middle East in Latin America and Asia, we would clean up.”

CV PAUL CLARK Co-founder and now CEO, Penta Consulting

1998 – present Recruitment consultant, MSB International

1997-98 Owner and operator of two independent businesses, Surrey Motors and Squats Gym

1985-97 JAMIE SOBRANY Group MD, Penta Consulting

2011-present MD, telecommunications division, Penta Consulting

2008-11 Various management roles, Penta Consulting

2002-08 Associate consultant, MSB International

1999-2002 Sales and contract director, S & T Developments

1995-99

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Financing

GETTY IMAGES

Securing green shoots of growth WITH BANK INTEREST RATES REMAINING AT AN ALL-TIME LOW, NOW MUST SURELY BE THE RIGHT TIME FOR RECRUITMENT COMPANIES TO SEEK FUNDING TO HELP THEIR BUSINESSES. COLIN COTTELL LOOKS AT THE OPTIONS Finance is always important for recruitment companies, but it is absolutely essential when they are looking to grow. With recruitment activity on the rise, according to the Reed Job Index for May, and official growth figures for the UK recently upgraded, now could be a good time for staffing companies to seek funding for that long hoped for growth.

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While a variety of types of finance are available, for many recruiters finance is synonymous with invoice discount finance. Invoice finance bridges the gap between a staffing company paying its temps and contractors, and when it gets paid by its client. Recruiters also like it because the amount lent can flex with the number of temps. According to Mark Critchlow, an invoice finance

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Financing

“IF IT IS A NICE PROFITABLE BUSINESS THAT IS GROWING, SPEAK TO TWO OR THREE SUPPLIERS… THE MORE DIFFICULT IT IS, THE MORE COMPETITION YOU SHOULD CREATE” MARK CRITCHLOW, CLEARVIEW CORPORATE ADVISORY specialist at Clearview Corporate Advisory, with bank overdrafts harder to get these days “invoice finance has become the norm”. However, obtaining invoice finance is far from straightforward, he says. While for many recruiters a high-street bank is the natural port of call, Critchlow says they aren’t always the best bet. “If it’s the right client the high-street banks are really good,” he says. However, banks tend to be more conservative, he says, and recruiters who have come out of administration, for example, may find it impossible to get funding from them. Critchlow advises recruiters to approach a number of different finance suppliers and compare what they offer. “If it is a nice profitable business that is growing, speak to two or three suppliers,” he says. But he suggests six if sending contractors out to a difficult market, such as Kazakhstan. “The more difficult it is, the more competition you should create,” he adds. Agreeing the details of a deal is also vital, says Critchlow, who suggests that an 18-month contract, with three months’ notice, should be generally acceptable. Three months is about how long it takes to put together a new invoice finance deal from scratch, he advises. Critchlow adds the most common pitfall made by staffing companies is they focus on the price of the deal — a certain percentage over base rate and a service fee, and on the percentage headline advance — for example, 85% of their debts. He suggests they should instead look at “how much money they are going to get six months into the relationship”. Suppliers will take different views on which staffing companies are a good risk, he says. One might refuse to lend to a staffing company that is too reliant on one

client, while another might not be prepared to lend if the agency’s contractors are in Australia. “You need to go to a company where the nature of your sales ledger isn’t a problem,” says Critchlow. Sean Dixon, head of services sector at Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), says he has started to see a pick-up compared to 12 months ago, with oil & gas, education and IT seeing a number of deals. Dixon says that from RBS’s perspective, providing funding to staffing companies in heavily cyclical sectors such as financial services, “will be less attractive” than to “more stable sectors”, such as nursing and education. He points out that as a result of the government’s Funding for Lending Scheme, under which banks can borrow money at a lower rate as long as they lend it on to SMEs [small and medium enterprises], RBS has been able to cut interest rates by up to 1.7%, as well as reducing some arrangement fees. Mark Byrne, managing director of Calverton Finance, says invoice finance providers “are falling

Mark Byrne

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S t The food and drink sector boasts some incredible people. And we should know - as the UK’s premier industry recruitment website, up to 60,000 of them visit us every month. Now we’re celebrating the industry’s HR work with the YFJ People Awards that culminates in a black tie event at The Lowry Hotel, Manchester on 6th November 2013. Don’t miss out. Our 2013 Award categories include: BEST EMPLOYER BRAND DEVELOPMENT | EXCELLENCE IN TALENT MANAGEMENT OUTSTANDING EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT STRATEGY | BEST GRADUATE RECRUITMENT CAMPAIGN EMPLOYER OF CHOICE (VOTED FOR BY YFJ CANDIDATES) | BEST RECRUITMENT AGENCY BEST HR INNOVATION THROUGH TECHNOLOGY (SOCIAL MEDIA) | BEST USE OF DIGITAL BEST HR BUSINESS IMPACT AWARD | BEST CAREERS WEBSITE HR DIRECTOR OF THE YEAR | HR TEAM OF THE YEAR RISING STAR OF THE YEAR | SECTOR EXCELLENCE AWARD IN: CHILLED & FROZEN FOODS - FRESH PRODUCE - GROCERY, BAKERY & CONFECTIONERY - FOOD RETAIL - FOOD SERVICE - FOOD SUPPLY CHAIN

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Financing

“IF YOU ALREADY HAVE £5K THE BANKS WILL LEND YOU £5K, AND IF YOU HAVE £10K THEY WILL LEND YOU £10K” RICHARD PRIME, SONOVATE

over themselves to offer facilities”. However, he warns that not all deals are the same, and before entering into a contract, agencies must be sure that the basic, if seemingly obvious, requirement — making funds available to pay its temps — is met. “If your finance provider starts imposing limits on funding — for example, by imposing credit limits on certain clients or on overall funding, and you are not expecting these, it can become a problem,” says Byrne. Byrne also advises recruiters to take advantage of the wide range of facilities on offer, to pick the one that best meets their needs. Facilities range from simply providing finance to a complete service covering invoicing, payroll, credit control, bookkeeping and finance itself. Factoring, where the finance provider is responsible for credit control, is another variation, and particularly suitable for young and fast-growing recruiters, where staff time would be better spend on growing revenue, says Critchlow. Andy Hogarth, chief executive officer of temporary staffing group Staffline, says that invoice finance can be attractive for staffing companies, with some very good deals available. However, he suggests that it is most suitable for companies with a turnover of less than £10m. Above this size a bank overdraft “is normally cheaper than invoice finance”, he says. “For bigger and

TOP FOUR Top four pitfalls for recruiters seeking invoice ﬁnance, with suggested remedies, by Mark Byrne, MD Calverton Finance

1 Pitfall Getting stuck in a long term contract Remedy Negotiate a trial period — say three months

2 Pitfall Failure to understand you may not get 90% of the sales ledger Remedy Check the potential funding restrictions

3 Pitfall New start-ups not having a VAT number Remedy Apply for a VAT number as early as possible

4 Pitfall High minimum charges Remedy Ask for this to be waived

RECRUITER

JUNE 2013

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more established companies, financing growth out of retained profits is the best way because you are not paying any interest,” Hogarth says. Paul Saunders, consultant at Leonard Curtis Business Solutions Group, says that now is a good time for recruitment companies to borrow to fund growth because interest rates are low and likely to remain so for at least the next two years. “There is not much risk in companies taking on debt,” he says. Saunders says that for those companies that can articulate clearly to lenders what they want the money for, the market is “well supported” by lenders and “there are going to be plenty of people willing to lend”. Saunders advises recruiters to challenge providers, so they avoid signing-up to “onerous guarantees and covenants, and termination agreements”. “Make sure you understand the implications of taking on that agreement,” he adds. Byrne agrees that recruiters should be careful what they sign up to, and highlights four common pitfalls for recruiters, with suggested remedies (see below). According to Richard Prime, joint CEO of recruitment industry development platform Sonovate, there is a strong demand from recruitment agency start-ups for £10k-20k. Prime says that while he has seen cases of people using personal loans to launch staffing companies, he hasn’t come across any examples of recruiters going into a bank with a business plan and coming out with £100k. “If you already have £5k the banks will lend you £5k, and if you have £10k they will lend you £10k,” he says. Prime says that in some cases banks are prepared to provide funding but only for a significant stake — 51% in some cases. “A few of them [recruiters] succumb to it, but a lot walk away from it because of the [small] amount they would get for their equity,” Prime says. RBS’s Dixon says the key to successfully obtaining funding for growth from the bank is being prepared. There are a number of questions that funders will look to ask recruiters, and anyone approaching RBS would be well advised to have thought through their responses (see box, p34). Dixon says “the most important thing” is that recruiters “need to be prepared to be challenged by the bank”. One key area is “sensitivity analysis”, he says and being able to answer questions such as “what if you were to lose a key client”. “They need to be able to answer these questions,” says Dixon. “If you have thought this type of question through, you will come across as credible and you will make a much stronger business case.” The jury is still out on the strength of the UK economy, but even if recruiters aren’t convinced that the corner has finally been turned, with interest rates remaining low, for any staffing companies aiming to grow now would be a good time to at the very least consider their funding options.

Andy Hogarth

Sean Dixon

WWW.RECRUITER.CO.UK

06/06/2013 09:45

Break the Recruitment Mould Chief Executive Officer – Recruitment Consultancy Human Capital Investment Group London Seven figure capital growth opportunity (equity) Human Capital Investment Group is the largest part of the Hamilton Bradshaw portfolio led by James Caan. With it’s head office situated in London Bishopsgate and regional offices around the UK, this company boasts huge potential for further market penetration. HCIG, with a portfolio of 9 specialist recruitment companies across a variety of sectors with a combined turnover approaching £200 million, are now looking for a CEO to lead one of those businesses. Using your extensive business experience and strong sales and management skills, you will work with the Group board and your SMT to essentially provide strong sales leadership, talent attraction, strategic input in client and business development and helping the business to develop and extend its specific services in its chosen markets. This is an exceptional opportunity for a high calibre candidate. To be considered for this role, you must have significant experience within a recruitment company with a proven track record, either as a Managing Director or in a senior Director role. Extensive sales and management experience are prerequisites. As CEO, you must be confident and experienced in both contract and permanent recruitment and be able to manage a successful recruitment business with a turnover of up to £100 million. An outstanding leader, you will be confident in attracting talent and be a strong strategic thinker who can implement change and accelerate growth in difficult market conditions. You will be joining an exciting and entrepreneurial organisation which has ambitious growth plans over the next 3-5 years. In recent years our programme of acquisitions, joint ventures and talent acquisition has positioned us as one of the most dynamic recruitment companies in the industry. Working with a new CEO we intend to continue seeking these opportunities with the aim of sharing in seven figure rewards based on this growth. For further information, to submit your CV, or to discuss this unique opportunity in strictest confidence, please contact:

Catherine Labinjo E: c.labinjo@hcigltd.com T: 07956 083 167

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