Recruiter December 2012 by Redactive Media Group

December 2012

www.recruiter.co.uk

BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE FOR RECRUITMENT AND RESOURCING PROFESSIONALS

Ryan Broad Recruiting the visual effects ‘wow factor’ talent for the Moving Picture Compa any MOBILE RECRUITMENT AFTER MANY FALSE DAWNS, IS IT FINALLY TIME FOR RECRUITING ON THE GO TO COME OF AGE?

IMPROVING PROFESSIONALISM Hays offers new consulting qualification in drive to create ‘trusted advisers’

PHIL CLARKE

THE ASIAN CENTURY

Self-sufficient recruitment on the rise — where does this trend leave outsourcers?

Region’s talent faces university challenge in business transformation

SMART RESOURCING CONFERENCE 2013: Taking recruitment leaders Two Steps Beyond ... The ‘must attend’ event for in-house recruitment professionals www.smartresourcing2013.com 01_Recruit_DEC12_CoverNEW.indd 1

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Contents 42

As a writer, sometimes you wish you had at least twice the number of allowed pages to get across the highlights of a conversation you’ve had with a particularly interesting person you’ve interviewed. Sometimes you struggle to fill the pages you’ve got because the discussion has been, shall we say, a little less than sparkling. I can say that the former case is definitely true with Ryan Broad of The Moving Picture Company, the subject of our cover profile this month. Ryan and the work environment at MPC illustrate how many of the predictions about the future world of work — high volumes of skilled contingent workers, project-based work, hiring decisions based on the ability to deliver outcomes, increased communication with candidates — are already in play. Be sure to hear Ryan speak at Smart Resourcing 2013 (www.smartresourcing2013.com). One of the trends we’re hearing a lot about is increased investment in training in the recruitment consultancy space. More than a few agencies report that they’re hiring learning and development or training directors to upskill their staff and increase their productivity. This month, we exclusively share with you a bold new offering at Hays, an example of investment in their people (see p5). Their new qualification for senior consultants is a single aspect of a co-ordinated development programme for all levels of their business. This revitalised interest in training and development across the spectrum of UK recruitment businesses can only benefit and further professionalise the sector. And to all — a happy and profitable 2013!

NEWS 5

A new report looks at the effects of social media and technology to 2022 6

DeeDee Doke, Editor

Recruiters urged to partner HR more closely The HR buzz is for agencies to show customer focus

MPC streamlines hiring Recruiting made easier at The Moving Picture Company

10 SMS inﬂuences candidates Norman Broadbent subsidiary sees further social media growth 11 Tech & tools 12 SPECIAL REPORT Recruiter’s HOT 100 event

ANALYSIS 14 News Analysis Autumn Statement throws up questions on tax schemes 16 Sector Analysis Oil & gas 19 Global Spotlight on Canada 14

Scan here to get your own copy of Recruiter

Quality of hire top metric for next decade

FEATURES 28 COVER STORY Ryan Broad, head of global recruitment for The Moving Picture Company 34 Mobile recruitment Has recruiting on the go ﬁnally come of age? 42 The Asian Century Talent faces university challenge to transform the region

REGULARS 20 23 23 24

Soapbox Soundbites Letters Trends The rise of self-sufﬁcient recruitment

26 The Challenge The Rank Group and RPOZone 46 Movers & Shakers Industry moves 50 Bloggers with Bite

WHO’S HIRING? 47 48 48 48

Ruth Moran Rullion Build Linsco Capability Jane

EDITORIAL Editor: DeeDee Doke T: +44 (0)20 7880 7601 deedee.doke@recruiter.co.uk Senior reporter: Colin Cottell T: +44 (0)20 7880 7603 colin.cottell@recruiter.co.uk Reporter: Sam Burne James T: +44 (0)20 7880 7606 sam.burnejames@recruiter.co.uk Contributing writer: Sue Weekes Production editor: Vanessa Townsend T: +44 (0)20 7880 7602 vanessa.townsend@recruiter.co.uk Art editor: Adrian Taylor ADVERTISING Advertising director: Andy Daniel T: +44 (0)20 7880 7607 andy.daniel@recruiter.co.uk Display senior sales executive: Tom Culley T: +44 (0)20 7880 6205 tom.culley@recruiter.co.uk Recruitment sales executive: Richard York T: +44 (0)20 7880 7608 richard. york@recruiter.co.uk Fax +44 (0)20 7880 7553 PRODUCTION Deputy production manager: Kieran Tobin T: +44 (0)20 7880 6240 kieran.tobin@redactive.co.uk PUBLISHING Publishing director: Anne Sadler T: +44 (0)20 7880 6213 anne.sadler@redactive.co.uk RECRUITER AWARDS Events: Anja Rodford T: +44 (0)20 7880 7555 anja.rodford@redactive.co.uk CIRCULATION and SUBSCRIPTIONS To receive a regular copy of Recruiter, the leading magazine for recruitment and resourcing professionals, telephone +44 (0)20 8950 9117 or email recruiter@alliance-media.co.uk • To purchase reprints or multiple copies of the magazine, contact Andy Daniel T: +44 (0)20 7880 7607

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

CONTRIBUTIONS Contributions are invited, but when not accepted will be returned only if accompanied by a fully stamped and addressed envelope. Articles should be emailed. No responsibility can be taken for drawings, photographs or literary contributions during delivery, transmission or in the editor’s hands. © 2012 Redactive Media Group. All rights reserved. This publication (and any part thereof) may not be reproduced, transmitted or stored in print or electronic format (including but not limited to any online service, any database or any part of the internet) or in any other format in any media whatsoever, without the prior written permission of Redactive Media Group. Redactive Media Group accepts no liability for the accuracy of the contents or any opinions expressed herein. The publishers cannot accept liability for any loss arising from the late appearance or non-publication of any advertisement for any reason whatsoever. ISSN 1475-7478

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RECRUITER

DECEMBER 2012

07/12/2012 15:01

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News

QUALITY OF HIRE TO TOP NEXT DECADE OF RECRUITMENT METRICS Quality of hire will become the defining recruitment metric as the proven ability to deliver outcomes takes on greater importance than either a candidate’s education or career history in hiring, according to a new report ‘Recruitment — 2022: The Effect of Social Media and Technology on Future Recruitment’. Factors such as heightened technological connectivity, the economy and increased project-based and contingent work have been exerting significant impact on the recruitment landscape for some time. However, the report points out associated trends picking up pace that will further amplify the impact of these. They include fragmentation of both the workforce and roles themselves, and emphasis on outcomes-based hiring and reward. And in news that recruiters will welcome, recruitment will become acknowledged as the most important HR process, the 44-page report predicts. Commissioned by the Recruitment

& Employment Confederation’s (REC’s) Technology Sector Group, it was researched by Belinda Johnson of WorkLab through interviews and third-party data. Sourcing and the current importance placed on being able to reach out to anyone on social media receive particular attention. Johnson puts forward veiled warnings that the connected population may rebel at some point by refusing to accept invitations to LinkIn with individuals or requests to ‘like’ companies especially if they do not want their contacts cannibalised or ‘scraped’ for someone else’s purposes. “When you can no longer apply the word ‘personal’ to the word ‘connections’, it will also be interesting to see to what extent connecting, ‘liking’ and following dries up,” Johnson said. “The only boundary is whether we want to continue to LinkIn, ‘like’, etc.” Among the report’s conclusions: ● A person’s ‘social exhaust’, described as all that is retrievable from digital channels, will increasingly be pieced together to

“The only boundary is whether we want to continue to LinkIn or ‘like’ ”

assess their potential impact. ● Knowledge and insight into who is best placed to deliver the outcomes required by hirers will increasingly come from the communities potential candidates actively participate in. ● Personality profiling will come to the fore. ● Communication and participation will become a high-skilled requirement within sourcing functions, possibly a spin-off in its own right. ● Professional communities will become ‘an inch wide and a mile deep’, reflecting the continuing rise of niche specialities and interests. ● The ability to source, distil, interpret and publish content will be king. DEEDEE DOKE

TRAINING TRULY ‘TRUSTED ADVISERS’ AT HAYS Global specialist recruiter Hays has launched a new qualification that aims to arm its senior consultants with the same professional standing as a chartered or certified management consultant. Accredited by the Institute of Consulting (IC), the new Certified Recruitment Consultant qualification is intended to improve the perception of recruitment as a profession and to encourage newcomers to the world of work to see recruiting as a career worth pursuing, James Cullens, Hays’s human resources director, told Recruiter in an exclusive interview. “There’s a lot of good training around how to make you a technically ‘good’ recruiter, but that actual consultant piece around being a ‘trusted adviser’ is quite difficult,” Cullens said. “There’s not a lot around in the outside world. So we

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partnered with the IC, quite deliberately, to attack that piece of it.” Earning the qualiﬁcation, which means consultants can put the letters CRC after their name, involves a formal interview and a business presentation to demonstrate “deep knowledge and competence but also client handling and assignment management skills”, Cullens said. To embark on obtaining the qualiﬁcation, Hays recruiters must have a minimum of three years in recruiting. New joiners to Hays with three years’ experience must work at the company for a year before they can obtain it. “This is about the application of your technical skills,” Cullens said. “After three years, you’ll be ready to do it because you’ll have a bank of experience that you can demonstrate. It’s not just about knowledge; I can prove that I’ve applied the knowledge as well. It’s not about taking an exam, it’s ‘here’s what I’ve done for clients’’.” Cullens added: “We’ve also pitched it at a

stage where people will often think, do I stay in the industry or not? To me, it hooks you into the industry.” Some Hays consultants have already earned their CRC, as Hays quietly launched the programme a year ago and are only now discussing it publicly. Hays has six months left of exclusivity under their agreement with IC. At the end of that period, other recruitment companies can begin to offer the qualification. “It’s something that will be there for the profession,” Cullens said. “We just wanted to be able to do it for ourselves first of all.” Cullens went on to say: “We felt that this knocks on the head that issue of ‘Well, I’d rather go and be an accountant because I’ll get a proper qualification’. If you want to go to PwC or Ernst & Young, you’re going to go there ahead of going to us. But to my mind, it gets us onto the pitch.” The initiation of the qualification is a key aspect of a Hays drive to encourage careers in recruitment and to increase professionalism within both the industry and the company itself. DEEDEE DOKE

RECRUITER

DECEMBER 2012

07/12/2012 14:18

News

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

“A shovel doesn’t dig its own hole, LinkedIn can’t place people — we place people” ANTAL BOSS TONY GOODWIN AT ANTAL GLOBAL CONFERENCE

Events

WORK AS PART OF HR’S TEAM…

Social, Mobile and Recruitment Technology Summit, presented by Crexia

Agency recruiters need to improve their understanding of HR’s role if they are to build long-term and profitable relationships with clients, a conference has heard.

17 Jan, Cavendish Conference Centre, London, crexia.com/

Recruitment Agency Expo 2013 26-27 Feb, Olympia, London, recruitmentagencyexpo.com

Recruiter presents Smart Resourcing 2013, sponsored by Eploy 28 Feb, The King’s Fund, London, smartresourcing2013.com

CIPD Social Media and Recruitment Conference 14 Mar, London, cipd.co.uk/ cande

Accountancy Worldwide International Recruitment Forum 20 Apr, Chartered Accountant’s Hall, London, accountancyworldwide.com

Recruiter Awards for Excellence 2013, sponsored by Eploy 1 May, Grosvenor House Hotel, London, recruiterawards.co.uk Entry deadline: 11 January

London HR Summit, organised by Forum Events 10 Jul, Grange Tower Bridge Hotel, London, forumevents. co.uk …plus look out for the first edition of Recruiter in 2013, landing on subscribers’ desks on Friday, 18 January

FOR MORE NEWS AND COMMENTS, GO ONLINE

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During a panel session at global recruiter Antal International’s Global Conference, HR professionals talked about the sometimes strained relationship between agency recruiters and HR. Jill Hearst, senior vice president HR EMEA at international information analysis and management company Verint, told the audience: “Most recruiters that contact us want to put their candidate forward, they want us to work to their process and their goals, and there isn’t very much understanding of the kind of pressure we are under.” However, she asked recruiters to take on board that HR’s role was not just to fill immediate vacancies. “I am accountable for resourcing the business strategy both today and in the future.” She added that she was also responsible for the performance of all hires, their cost, as well as the talent pipeline. “A good recruiter is somebody who works as part of my team — that means they understand the goals that I have and its accountabilities.” Hearst accepted that for an agency to align itself with a client’s long-term goals wouldn’t necessarily yield it short-term results, but she added “it may give you quite a few hires in a year’s time”. Chairing the discussion, Jill Littlejohn, an experienced talent management professional, now a consultant at Antal International, said that one common source of friction was that recruiters believed that HR slowed down the hiring process. Narinder Kaur, interim HR director at JPS Accountants, said she had come across this on

many occasions. However, she told the audience: “I share your frustration.” She explained that international companies were required to work to global recruitment practices, which often included a second signature, and this could delay the hiring process. She added that another source of delay leading to frustration was when a role changed mid way through the process. However, she warned that recruiters who got cross with HR and said look ‘I delivered you 16 fantastic candidates, why don’t you hire one?’ were in danger of alienating HR, and “cutting off a huge source of business”. As she reminded the audience “we are the gatekeepers to the business”. Hearst told the audience: “I am employing you because it is a challenging role… So rather than being exasperated with us, come to see our failings as your business success.” The panel suggested a number of ways that recruiters could stand out from their competitors: • Provide market data, such as information about the competition and the industry • Keep great candidates warm • Behave as if they are part of the resourcing team • Map candidate performance to job description • Don’t be surprised by changes in the market but expect and understand them COLIN COTTELL

… AND BE MORE CUSTOMER-FOCUSED AGENCIES are becoming more customer-focused as a result of the recession, HR managers •haveRECRUITMENT told Recruiter. Agencies are more willing to invest time to get to know the culture of an organisation in

a bid to win business, participants at a roundtable discussion sponsored by Balance Recruitment said. The event brought together HR professionals from the fashion, telecoms, further education, media and online personalised advertising sectors. “The recession has forced recruiters to be much more customer-focused and more responsive as well,” said Rachel Woolf, HR director at the University of West London. “Before the recession started, I was emailed about 100 times a day and they just bombarded you with CVs. Now, because it’s more competitive, it’s forced a lot more of them to give you added value — whether it’s prescreening or more focused CVs.” Holly Franklin, HR director, Europe, Middle East and Africa for fashion brand New Era Cap Company, said more recruiters were willing to invest time to understand their clients’ needs. “I see them being more willing to understand the culture of the business and understand the ﬁt, because they are basically based on results.” Jos Barnett, HR director at online advertising ﬁrm Struq, claimed that there were 15,000 recruitment agencies in London alone, illustrating the depth of competition. • For more on the event, chaired by Recruiter editor DeeDee Doke, see p7. BEN JONES

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News

“More than ever during these difficult economic times the recruitment industry is part of the solution for the UK”

“Either go niche or don’t go at all” HYDROGEN OIL & GAS SPECIALIST RORY FERGUSON ON PROSPECTS FOR RECRUITERS ENTERING THE INDUSTRY (SEE P14 FOR MORE)

SUE DODD AT RECRUITER HOT 100 EVENT

“You can’t have a successful welfare to work system without work” SHADOW CHANCELLOR ED BALLS STATES THE OBVIOUS FOLLOWING GEORGE OSBORNE’S AUTUMN STATEMENT

Contract News

FLEXIBLE WORK KEY TALENT BENEFIT IN TOUGH TIMES

• THE ABILITY TO offer flexible working is an important way of attracting new talent, according to a cross-section of HR managers. In a recession, where salary, pension and benefits packages may not be as high as in previous years, flexible working was one way of persuading talent to join a company, said participants at a roundtable discussion of HR directors and professionals with responsibility for recruitment, sponsored by Balance Recruitment. “The more flexibility you can offer, the better off you are,” said Jos Barnett, HR director at online advertising firm Struq. “If you can be more accommodating to women, then you’re going to get much more loyalty in the workplace.” “It’s about give and take,” added Holly Franklin, HR director, Europe, Middle East and Asia at fashion brand New Era Cap Company. “If you’re offering flexibility, then you expect a bit more from the staff.” Franklin gave the example of one initiative at her company, summer hours, where between May and August staff worked for an extra hour daily from Monday to Thursday so that they could leave at noon on Fridays. “We’ve had 98% take-up on that. The staff love it,” she added. Shelley Williams, programme lead, global contingent workforce at media giant Bloomberg, said that flexible working went together with task orientation of staff, because “you’re asking staff to do what they need to do and it’s up to them whatever times they do it.” The event was held last month in London (see also p6, opposite). BEN JONES

EPLOY’S SMART SPONSORING Smart Resourcing 2013, Recruiter’s knowledgesharing event for the in-house recruitment community due to be held in London on 28 February, will be headline sponsored by leading recruitment software firm Eploy. The company’s technical director Chris Bogh told Recruiter that Eploy was proud to be sponsoring Smart Resourcing, and said: “The event promises to deliver key industry insights to recruiting and resourcing professionals alike.” Other sponsors of the event are careers site CV-Library and direct recruitment platform Elevate Direct, while recruiting expert John Vlastelica’s keynote speech is sponsored by careers website Jobsite. ● See www.smartresourcing2013.com

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MPC MAKES HIRING MORE STREAMLINED Volume hiring of creative and technically skilled people could keep hiring managers mired in administrative work. However, at The Moving Picture Company (MPC), Ryan Broad, global head of recruitment, has focused on streamlining the role of hiring managers and their responsibilities in the recruitment process. MPC, a visual effects and post production provider to the international film and advertising industries, receives between 500 and 1,500 applications per month that must ultimately be considered by between 10 to 15 managers spread out at different locations around the world. Broad told Recruiter: “How do we make things really easy for the hiring manager? “The key thing with technology is, instead of looking at it as really complicated and thinking, ok here’s what the manager needs to do, we take the view that here’s a manager, what do we need to take away from him? What do we need for them to be able to make a decision and tell me why?” Broad and his team pre-screen applicants. Hiring managers then review the applicants’ CVs and show reels (the applicants’ creative portfolios), take the decision “to progress or decline”, then give feedback in response to a system prompt. “That way, it allows us to get the feedback back to candidates, but it also means the manager can get through 10 or 20 people in half an hour, and that’s it, done,” Broad says. Broad has worked for 18 months at MPC, where structuring and streamlining the recruitment process has been a priority. He said his philosophy of recruitment was breaking the project into five days worth of work. “Typically,” he said, “if you give me the information I need, I can find what you want in five days. And the second five days, we can agree and screen out, and make sure you’ve got the shortlist. By the third week, you’re going to be interviewing. But I need everything up front.” His advises recruiters to “keep it simple. Make sure your information is gathered up front … totally know what the proposition is for the individual you’re going to talk to, and then you go and find the right person. Experience has taught me, as long as you can go to market within five days, you can generate a decent slate of candidates” (see also Profile on p28).

Axica: The IT recruiter has secured £500k of financing from lender ABN AMRO Commercial Finance… Blue Arrow: The recruitment consultancy has appointed NOW: Pensions to provide its auto-enrolment pension scheme from January… Bullhorn: The recruitment software firm has acquired rival providers MaxHire Solutions and Sendouts… Freelancer. com: The freelancer marketplace has acquired competitor firm vWorker… GlobalSportsJobs: The job site has been named jobs and careers partner of The World Federation of the Sporting Goods Industry… Hays: The recruiter has extended its relationship with LinkedIn… HCL: Workforce management platform HCL Clarity will be implemented by Worcestershire Royal Hospital Trust… JobsiteWhite: The job board will power the job sites of consumer media company A&N Media and the Road Haulage Association… Norman Broadbent: The executive search firm has acquired a majority stake in Belgian executive recruiter Acker Deboeck… Optima Corporate Finance: The financier has become service partner of the Association of Labour Providers… Outsource UK: The IT recruiter has acquired specialist recruiter Bramlove… Penna: The HR firm has entered into a partnership with disability experts Remploy for outplacement support… SR Group: Buyout fund Baird Capital Partners Europe has invested in the recruitment group

DEEDEE DOKE

RECRUITER

DECEMBER 2012

07/12/2012 14:19

Recruitment is

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News

Web comments Grass greener in technology, study reveals (16 November 2012) Paul Hancock In the US maybe, but in the UK and Europe it’s very different. The tech industry in the UK in particular is seen as a work-a-day industry where very little innovation ever happens. Every US seminar I attend inspires me, every UK seminar bores me. I wish it wasn’t so.

FS Commercial [FSC] judgement makes crackdown on T&S scheme more likely, says Hogarth (20 November 2012) G Rowl It’s when the system is abused by the minority of unscrupulous recruiters that we’re all left to suffer. Leave the T&S scheme as it is. It works and recruiters are allowed to make a living in this difficult climate. Concentrate on the recruiters abusing the system and put them away!

FSC decision sparks further debate on controversial travel & subsistence schemes (21 November 2012) Lisa Keeble, Contractor Umbrella The government should realise the value that agency workers bring to the UK. We seem to have reached a position, thanks to the current media furore, whereby anyone who is not a permanent employee or running a company with two or more staff, must be avoiding tax. If this manipulation of public opinion continues it will not just be offshore or loan schemes that suffer, it will be umbrella companies, PSCs and recruitment firms. I believe that, unless we work in tandem to redress the balance, the UK will risk losing its most valuable workforce.

RECRUITER

DECEMBER 2012

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SMS INFLUENCES CANDIDATES A new Norman Broadbent social media subsidiary specialising in candidate generation uses “influential language techniques” to encourage candidates to apply for their clients’ vacancies. Social Media Search (SMS) charges clients £100 per hour for the candidate generation services of a five-person research team, which is split between Glasgow and India. Clients send SMS a job specification to initiate a search. A search for candidates to fill the jobs, usually office roles in the £20k to £100k range, typically takes about two hours, with up to 40 candidates generated per role. About half the clients receive the information and act on it themselves. The other 50% ask SMS to approach the candidates on their behalf. In such instances, SMS founder Adam Gordon told Recruiter: “Getting candidates to apply requires strong influencing skills. We use a specific methodology.” SMS uses “influential language techniques” based on neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) skills to “optimise the likelihood” those spoken to will apply for the vacancies, he said. Founded in 2009, SMS is one of two digitalfocused services in which international executive search firm Norman Broadbent recently acquired 51% ownership. The other is WinningWork, a so-called “concierge service” which helps senior professionals enhance their online profile. Gordon, whose background is in recruitment consulting and recruitment communications, retains the minority ownership. See ‘Contracts/Deals: Norman Broadbent invests in three new business ventures’, (recruiter.co.uk, 13 November 2012). Gordon said that he sees the greatest business opportunity for SMS, which is based on “the

Adam Gordon, Social Media Search founder

fact that the world is a more transparent place than every before. It’s easy — although still time consuming — to identify people for your vacancy”. Speaking about the creation of SMS, Gordon said: “I noticed in-house recruiters spending too much time on the candidate generation and struggling for time to do the qualitative work. We created the service and took it to an Edinburgh-based FTSE100 company who trialled it to support their in-house recruiters. It worked and they continued using the service.” Clients include FTSE100 media and financial services companies. DEEDEE DOKE

G4S PAYS RECRUITERS LIKE LAWYERS A NEW model of executive recruitment based on •professional services such as accountancy and law,

in which recruiters are paid on an hourly basis, has resulted in global security company G4S filling 14 senior roles, as well as massive savings in the model’s first 18 months of operation, according to the firm’s global head of resourcing. Colin Minto told Recruiter the model has been used to fill senior executive level positions across the UK, US, South Africa, Asia and the Middle East, saving G4S £317k when compared to fees that would have been charged by headhunters and specialist agencies based on a percentage of salary. Minto explained that G4S uses online resourcing firm eSift, who sub-contracts the work out to individual recruiters, generally ex-HR or resourcing professionals or ex-senior agency recruiters. “I would firmly say that being an expert recruiter is a specialist service. When you look at accountancy or law, there is no reason why recruitment shouldn’t operate in the same way,” said Minto. Minto said the model was also a better option than setting up an in-house team, with its requirement

for investment in costly infrastructure and additional headcount. Although he accepted that headhunters and specialist agencies have missed out on work they would otherwise have got, Minto said this was not about “agency bashing.” “It is taking a professional service and treating it as a professional Colin Minto service,” he emphasised. Geraldine Cole, owner of eSift, told Recruiter that one of the big attractions of the model for clients was its transparency, with charges based on an hourly rate reﬂecting the work done. She said that while one G4S role was ﬁlled in 10 hours, others have taken 60 hours or more. eSift had three other clients that used the model for roles with salaries in the £70k to £200k salary range, she said. COLIN COTTELL

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Tech & tools

NEW RECRUITMENT MODEL TESTED IN US JOBSITE.COM IS IN BETA TESTING IN THE US BUT IT TAKES A MUCH DIFFERENT APPROACH TO ITS UK NAMESAKE venbase, the digital recruitment group which owns brands such as Jobsite.co.uk and Broadbean, is launching a new recruitment model in the US. Although called Jobsite.com, it takes a different approach to its UK namesake and features brand-new semantic searching technology, as well as a new scraping engine and e-commerce system. Keith Potts, chief executive of Evenbase and founder of Jobsite.co.uk, told Recruiter that the US represents a “massive” digital recruitment market and is a “great place” to test the new model. “We’ve launched it in beta so it’s under test and review,” said Potts. “I’m very much in favour of thinking about recruitment in terms of a multichannel approach and hopefully we’ve created a new channel that is fulfilling our strategy of making the recruitment process easier for both the candidate and recruiter.” The scraping engine built into Jobsite.com can collect jobs from various sources, including a company’s own website, and apply its semantic search technology called Jobtology to match a vacancy to the most Keith Potts appropriate candidates in its database. It will then ask the candidate if they want to be put forward for the role and sends the employer a list of highly qualified candidates with percentage scores indicating their suitability via email. The employer can view the candidate CVs and will only be charged for contact details. “Digital recruitment is all about speed and relevancy,” said Potts. “Recruiters want to fill their vacancies before their competitors do and they want relevance. Hopefully what we are doing is getting closer to that speed-andrelevance factor.” Employers don’t have to sign up to the service and the process described above is unknown to them until they receive a list of candidates in their inbox. “We’re hoping that employers who find this happening to them and who have a positive experience will … say they want it to happen again but in a less random way,” said

Potts, who admits that the service may not suit everyone. “People have to engage with their inbox for it to work and some may ignore our email but that could mean they bin an email with some amazing candidates in it. It’s a new concept: what we are doing is pointing the eyeballs of the candidate at something that is relevant to them… I think it will be a certain customer segment which engages with the service but we’re not sure who yet.” Both Jobtology and the scraping technology has been developed in-house by Evenbase. Being a semantic search technology, Jobtology is far more intelligent than a traditional keyword search engine because it understands concepts and context and therefore the meaning behind the search term. At the moment neither technology features on Jobsite.co.uk but Potts said the UK sites were likely to be “influenced by the learnings” of the new US model by mid-2013. “I think it will be great for all of our products and we are going to learn a lot from this beta,” he said. He believes a similar e-commerce model could work in the UK. “The pay-for-performance model is already starting to gather traction here. We’ve already launched a service that lets recruiters pay per CV rather than have a subscription. If clients want a pay-forperformance model, we’re happy to build it.”

“Recruiters want to fill their vacancies before their competitors do and they want relevance”

www.jobsite.com

News

Plug in to affordable video Plugin Recruiter is a new recruitment platform that aims to make it much easier for employers to integrate video and rich media into their recruitment campaigns. Founder Chris Heron told Recruiter that while everyone is talking about using video in recruitment, it has been cost-prohibitive for many organisations. “We came to the conclusion that you have to have a decent service provider at the right cost and it has to be frictionless for the employer,” he said. “There is a deﬁnite appetite for using video, especially from direct recruiters.” After a candidate applies for a vacancy on a job board, they are sent to an employer-branded microsite or bespoke website built by Plugin Recruiter where they can view one or more recruitment videos from that employer. It could be a ‘day in the life’, meet the team or an overview of the company, and they are also able to ask questions on a social media-style wall. The employer’s responses to these are posted on the wall for subsequent candidates to see. The employer can feature as many videos as they want along with Twitter and Facebook feeds, and links and photographs. Once the candidate applies for a job, they are put through an online assessment to give the employer an indication of their suitability. Essentially, Plugin Recruiter is offering to build clients a rich media career site but rather than charge for its services it is deriving revenue from the mark-up on the job board advertisement placed. The company is able to offer the service for free because another business in its portfolio is Cast Recruitment Videos, one of the biggest recruitment tment and employer branding ng video companies in the UK.. Former recruiter Heron (right) ht) started using video out of necessity ecessity when he set up a business iness in the South of France. ce. “I had to ﬁnd ways of working remotely and starting using video and technology to help a client,” he says. s. www.pluginrecruiter.com om

SUE WEEKES

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News

HOT 100

TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT KEY TO MAKING THE HOT 100 Around 70 recruiters from the UK’s most profitable staffing companies came together in London earlier this month to celebrate their success in achieving a place on Recruiter’s HOT 100 2012, sponsored by Microdec. The HOT 100, compiled by Agile Intelligence, ranks recruiters according to gross profit per employee, which is regarded as the definitive measure of productivity within the industry. At the event, supported by law firm Charles Russell, Sue Dodd, director of Agile Intelligence and author of the HOT 100 report, told the audience: “You are the most productive recruiters in the UK, and that spells success.” She added that their achievement was “even more a cause for celebration in these tumultuous economic times”. After an introduction by DeeDee Doke, editor of Recruiter, who facilitated the event, guest speaker Charles Walker, Conservative MP for Broxbourne, a former director of recruitment agency Blue Arrow, praised the recruiters in the room. “You are clearly the cream,” he said. Fellow guest speaker Robert Walton MBE, an entrepreneur in the hospitality sector, linked training to filling recruitment needs, and said hospitality and recruitment shared a common thread: “Service is the next thing in this country for all sectors of the economy.” Afterwards, as recruiters mingled and networked, some of the HOT 100 representatives reflected on their achievement. Anton Round, sales director of Staffgroup, parent company of 21st-ranked Eurostaff Group, told Recruiter that the firm’s success in driving productivity as measured by gross profitability per employee was its agility “against a challenging backdrop”. “We analyse the markets and listen to our clients, candidates and own teams, and incorporate the intelligence gathered into our flexible approach to build and grow teams. These teams then hit the ground running and start generating revenues quicker than most would expect.” He added that “bringing on board our first ever head of learning and development will prove invaluable”, leading to even higher revenues in the future. Darren Ryemill, chief executive at IT recruiter Opus Recruitment Solutions (ranked 71),

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HOT 100

66 TOP

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

consultant

2. Sanderson

Recruitment Germanspeaking recruitment consultant

3. Frazer Jones In-

house HR specialist, Germany

4. Linsco Recruitment

consultant, Scotland

5. Linsco Recruitment consultant, West Midlands

Experian Hitwise most popular websites employment and training sites — November 2012 Websites

Domain

Visits share

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

www.linkedin.com www.indeed.co.uk www.reed.co.uk www.totaljobs.com uk.jobrapido.com www.tes.co.uk www.jobs.nhs.uk www.jobsite.co.uk www.cv-library.co.uk www.monster.co.uk jobs.guardian.co.uk www.jobisjob.co.uk www.simplyhired.co.uk www.ﬁsh4.co.uk jobs.trovit.co.uk www.sainsburys.jobs www.careerbuilder.co.uk www.jobs.ac.uk www.jobstoday.co.uk www.changeworknow.co.uk

20.54% 8.50% 5.04% 4.39% 3.17% 3.14% 2.77% 2.58% 2.05% 1.55% 1.48% 1.05% 0.77% 0.73% 0.61% 0.60% 0.58% 0.58% 0.57% 0.53%

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MOST VIEWED JOBS ON OUR WEBSITE

1. Ingeus Recruitment

TOP

Among those attending the event were Green Park’s Raj Tulsiani (top) and Staffgroup’s Anton Round (above)

attributed the firm’s success both to the quality of its people and being in a fast-growing sector. He explained that since the firm opened for business in 2008, the company had always invested in training. “Even when we had only six people, we had a full-time training officer,” he said. This investment had led to “a natural return”, he said, adding: “If you invest in people they pay you back.” Simon Bartington, a senior consultant at engineering and technical recruiter CBSbutler (ranked 34), also pointed to investment in training. The firm’s three-month training programme “was linked to real job roles, real candidates and real clients”, he said. Another driver of the firm’s success was its share ownership scheme, with “wealth contributors” being eligible to have shares in the firm, said Bartington. Ben Cowan, a director at banking and financial services recruiter Astbury Marsden (ranked 94), said a key factor was the company’s encouragement of entrepreneurialism. “It’s about allowing people to be business people in themselves, using their own business instincts and acumen and giving them the opportunity to play their part.” He said one example was two consultants who saw an opportunity to set up and run a new oil & gas desk, even though it was outside the firm’s core sectors and countries. Steve Carter, a board member at banking, finance, accountancy and professional recruiter Morgan McKinley (ranked 39), said the company “has a very strong leadership team focused on sourcing and nurturing the best talent that fits with our commitment to be an innovative global market leader in professional recruitment”. “All of us are delighted to have this recognition from Recruiter for the quality of our business,” he added.

News

MPs call for action on expenses schemes

2. Recruiter’s 2012 HOT

100 and the HOT 10+3 IT/Telecoms recruiters

3. Recruiter HOT

100: Focus was on investment and expansion

4. HOT 100 2012’s Hot 10 Technical recruiters

5. FSC judgement makes crackdown on T&S scheme more likely, says Hogarth

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DECEMBER 2012

07/12/2012 14:22

News Analysis

AUTUMN BUDGET GOOD NEWS FOR COMPLIANT RECRUITERS

CREDIT: PA

Chancellor George Osborne’s Autumn Statement may have thrown up more questions than answers on the subject of tax schemes, but many believe they are still in HMRC’s firing line. Colin Cottell reports

he chancellor, George Osborne, never mentioned the recruitment industry during his recent 50-minute long Autumn Statement, but nevertheless there was plenty of food for thought for those in the staffing sector. With travel & subsistence (T&S) schemes coming under close scrutiny in the media and from MPs in the House of Commons in the preceding weeks, there were expectations that the chancellor would use the occasion to crack down on some of the more aggressive schemes. The chancellor may not have had the recruitment industry and such schemes specifically in mind, however Treasury documents published to accompany his statement showed that with tax avoidance high on the government’s agenda — see Key facts — the recruitment sector remains very much in the firing line. As Andy Hogarth, chief executive and chairman of staffing firm Staffline, says: “Stopping tax avoidance has obviously moved considerably further up the chancellor’s agenda” following the Statement, “with significant additional funding being found to help HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) achieve the coalition government’s targets”. Hogarth highlights recent publicity by HMRC, where it indicated it is seeking to make the directors of companies involved in tax avoidance schemes personally liable for tax losses. “This might well be the reason that some umbrella organisations are re-examining their willingness to operate some of the more aggressive products,” says Hogarth. And he points to HMRC’s intention to investigate offshore payroll companies as evidence that the recruitment sector is one which is specifically being targeted for compliance by the revenue. “We should all expect to be the subject of more reviews and visits by HMRC,” he adds (see Opinion, p20). David Thornhill, managing director of Simplicity, which provides an umbrella solution to contractors among other services, points to the government’s

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Key facts A further 2,500 tax inspectors will be employed to further tackle tax avoidance and evasion, with an additional £77m provided to HMRC — announced 3 December Introduction of a General Anti-Abuse Rule (GAAR). Guidance and draft legislation will be published later this month Consulting on the introduction of significant penalty powers targeted at the promoters of aggressive tax avoidance schemes A review of offshore employment intermediaries being used to avoid tax and national insurance Travel & subsistence schemes alone cost the Treasury £650m a year, according to HMRC

intention to bring in a General Anti-Abuse Rule (GAAR), a catch-all piece of legislation designed to close all tax avoidance loopholes. He says the effect of this is that “if HMRC thinks you have arrangements to avoid tax they are going to investigate you”. Those who run travel & subsistence schemes for workers at or around National Minimum Wage rate levels are likely to be in the firing line, he says. Others likely to be targeted are those with an HMRC dispensation, who he says take this as a green light to pay expenses to workers as a matter of course rather than because they actually incurred those expenses. John Chaplin, director, global employment tax services, Ernst & Young, says that “broadly speaking” the Autumn Statement was “good news” for the sector, and evidence that the government is taking a sensible approach. He says that the announcements made by the Treasury will increase the scrutiny on unscrupulous operators. However, he adds: “For compliant organisations in the recruitment sector, the news is better than could have been expected.” Kevin Barrow, a partner at law firm Osborne Clarke, says it is too early to say what the implications of Autumn Statement will be. However, he takes the general view that the measures “will be good for the good [compliant operators]”, though “the devil will be in the detail, and we don’t know the detail yet”. “It is too early to say that the world of T&S is not directly in HMRC’s firing line,” he adds. Barrow suggests that the autumn budget has done little to increase certainty. “Maybe the chancellor concluded that it [tax avoidance] can be dealt with by existing legislation and maybe it is all caught by a General Anti-Avoidance Rule and his proposed stepping up of enforcement.” For those who feared that the chancellor would remove tax relief on T&S expenses schemes, the Autumn Statement was undoubtedly better than expected. However, the government’s general antipathy towards anything that could be construed as tax avoidance, particularly in this age of austerity, suggests that question marks over these schemes and others linked to the UK’s flexible workforce look certain to hang over the recruitment sector for some time. While there are indicators that the government wishes to focus its efforts on those operating in and around the margins of legality, those calling for greater clarity and certainty from this statement are likely to be disappointed.

“For compliant organisations, the news is better than could have been expected”

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Oil & gas

Sector Analysis

Oil & gas

Stakeholder Comment

RECRUITMENT AND RESOURCING PROFESSIONALS HAVE FOUND THEMSELVES WITH PLENTY TO DO, AS THIS BUOYANT INDUSTRY EMBRACES NEW TECHNOLOGY AND INVESTS IN YOUNGER TALENT

This year our HOT 100 list of the UK’s most profitable recruiters featured eight in oil & gas, compared to five last year — four within the top 25 positions, which no industry representative firm achieved in the 2011 list.

THE MOST CHALLENGING BIT IS THE DRILLING SIDE, BECAUSE YOU CAN’T REALLY COME WITH SIMILAR SKILLS FROM ANOTHER INDUSTRY, IT’S A CLOSED INDUSTRY AS SUCH

“Many companies are investing in rigid training programmes, setting up various schemes to really bring graduates forward. We’re also seeing a lot of these operators and service companies investing their time in younger resources … taking a punt not just on degree-qualified candidates, but various kinds of schemes from A-Levels onwards.”

the new oil is to be found in much deeper water in the golden triangle between the US, Africa and Brazil. It’s more difficult to extract and you have to operate at water depths of about 3km” — compared to just 100m in places in the North Sea. Under Maersk’s plan to hire 3,000 people by 2016, Nyvold notes three different recruitment areas that reflect wider problems and solutions faced by those recruiting among scarce technical talent. For marine jobs, he says, “we can get people from the shipping fleet as there is no growth in the shipping market right now”. He continues: “In the maintenance part we can get a lot of people with a relevant background from other industries like the royal [armed] forces and we give them the last details to work in the drilling industry.” Thirdly, “the most challenging bit is the drilling side, because you can’t really come with similar skills from another industry, it’s a closed industry as such”, Nyvold explains. Thus the need for investment in training in this area — and indeed investing in younger talent. BP’s recently-announced £4.5m scholarship fund for undergraduates shows this is being taken seriously elsewhere. So too the comments of Kevin Forbes, managing director of job site Oil and Gas People, that after a few years of recession when such programmes were rarer, investing in that future talent is “the only thing” the industry can do to fill its talent pipeline, especially as the high salaries in the sector mean more people can afford to retire younger, he notes. With Chancellor George Osborne’s Autumn Statement announcement promising select glad tidings for the sector, there is at least some degree of political can-do, and if the aforementioned education strategies bear fruit, the talent will also be there. And with money to be made in the sector, there could be no fear of there being enough willing recruits in this sector.

Mads Nyvold BojsenMøller Organisational development specialist, Maersk Drilling “We do use them [agencies] depending on several factors, one being our local presence. In Angola, for example, we don’t have a large office so we tend to use agencies more than in Norway for instance where we have a larger presence and do more in-house.”

Matt Underhill Managing director, Hays Oil & Gas “Recruitment within the sector remained busy in 2012, driven by high oil prices and a wave of new development. Salaries rose 6% globally and research suggests this is to continue … the global need for energy appears to override any current economic drag.”

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

WORLD’S TOP OIL PRODUCERS TO CHANGE OVER TIME Million barrels/year

DESTINATIONS OF UK OIL & GAS WORKERS ABROAD

■ US ■ Saudi Arabia ■ Russia ■ China ■ Europe 14m

50%

2.0 ■ 2011 ■ Q1-Q3 2012

8 6

0 2015

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2035

HAYS GLOBAL OIL & GAS JOB INDEX

Africa

Australia & Oceania

Asia

Europe

Middle East

North South America America

ACCORDING TO RIGZONE.COM

ACCORDING TO INTERNATIONAL ENERGY AGENCY’S ‘WORLD ENERGY OUTLOOK’

The market has been busy, with recruiters expanding and generating increasing profits from this sector. Oil discoveries and planned investments have been announced, and in the words of Rory Ferguson, director for oil & gas EMEA at professional recruiter Hydrogen, globally there is “more money now than ever available in exploration and production”. Ferguson says Hydrogen is particular keen on overseas opportunities such as East Africa and, more immediately, Norway. But there is opportunity in the UK too. “It’s easy to write the UK off because it’s quite a mature market,” he says, but adds: “I’m not convinced we’ve seen the end of the cycle.” What would previously have been seen as exhausted fields in mature markets can keep producing, thanks to new technological advances such as high pressure high temperature (HPHT) drilling, he says. Indeed, the whole industry is finding it is forced to do more and more “difficult” work, Mads Nyvold Bojsen-Møller, an organisational development specialist at oil & gas support services provider Maersk Drilling, explains. “The growth areas for us right now are the US, the West Coast of Africa and also Norway. What we call the ‘easy’ oil is running out and

Darren Dickson Associate director, Spencer Ogden Oil & Gas

1.5 1.0 0.5 0.0

Jan 2011

May

Sep

Jan 2012

May

Sep

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Market Indicators

Global Spotlight on Canada FINDING TALENT MAY BE A LONG-TERM CONCERN, BUT WITH CANADA’S REPUTATION AS AN ATTRACTIVE PLACE TO LIVE, THIS SHOULDN’T PROVE TOO PROBLEMATIC

Tipped for the top job at the bank following boss Mark Carney’s appointment as governor of the Bank of England, she said this contrasts to the previous half decade’s global recession, when the prime concern was “creating enough good jobs for workers”. Canada was less recession-hit than other countries, hiring remaining stronger than elsewhere. But it was not immune. One common hallmark of the recession globally has been demand for recruits able to directly and tangibly influence their employer’s bottom line. This shows in comments from professional recruiter Robert Half Canada district president Gena Griffin, describing the much-desired mix of “strong technical background in their field, along with proficiency with industry-specific technology systems”. Other in-demand attributes include “international business experience, adaptability and the ability to work in a global business environment”. Griffin also notes post-recession optimism: “Many companies who had put special projects on hold due to financial constraints may now be in a position to re-visit... as a result, the demand for the project manager role has increased.” The global lack of technical skills is also felt by Joanne Miller, senior recruiter at design software firm Autodesk in Canada. Broadly, “we’re not getting the depth of talent that we necessarily need”, she says, adding, “we’re known as a traditional software company”. They are now branching out beyond this, but such reputations can linger. One way to mitigate this is through recruiting internationally and global relocation, which Miller calls “part of our business model” — with Canada a frequently-cited attractive destination for migrants,

CANADIAN FIRMS EXPECTING TO INCREASE STAFF HEADCOUNT 30%

■ All jobs* ■ Professional roles* *

having trouble attracting that scarce talent would seem unlikely to be an issue. Miller believes that the government “does its best to attract educated, specialised and skilled talent”, and adds that “for the right talent we [Autodesk] absolutely make it happen”, but of course the bureaucratic mechanics of immigration can be challenging. Phil Martin, business manager in Canada for medical recruiter Global Medics, suggests Canada is “very similar to Australia… not easy to get into”. For the doctors he recruits, the path to entry is a long and winding one, further complications arising because in compliance and accreditation terms, “Canada works as if it is 10 different countries”, with different processes in each province. Such regional variance is evident elsewhere, an obvious example being legal requirements around the French language in Montreal and nationally. Complex though this one aspect of recruitment is, Martin still enthuses about Canada’s quality of life, the “phenomenally high” salaries doctors can earn and the low taxes they pay. And there is another key advantage to Canada. It is logistically and practically speaking “very easy” to work across the US border from a Canadian base, using it as a springboard into that bigger, more daunting market, says Zoe Watson, director of technical recruiter Leap29, which opened a Calgary office in August. “We are doing a lot of work with Houston but why try to go straight there when everyone’s doing that?” she says. “If you’re going to pick a fight with someone, why pick a fight with the biggest guy in the room?”

key indicators Population: 33m. Just over 6m live in the largest city Toronto and the greater Toronto area. Capital city: Ottawa Recent global quality of education survey from Pearson, topped by Finland, put Canada in 10th place (UK 6th, US 17th) Statistics Canada’s most recent national unemployment figure, for October, was 7.4%. It had been over 8.5% for three months in 2009, but lower than 6% back in 2007 Five Canadian cities feature in Intelligence Group’s 50 most desirable cities to work in for 2011: Toronto is 7th, Vancouver 12th, Montreal 27th, Ottawa 39th and Quebec 47th

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

GDP GROWTH VERSUS OTHER COUNTRIES ■ Canada ■ US ■ Germany ■ UK 5%

NO. 1 QUALITY

4 3 2

FINANCIAL & ADMINISTRATIVE

1 15

SUPPORT AS AFFIRMED BY

0 -1

-3

5 0

OUR AWARD-WINNING CLIENTS

-2 -4 -5

Q4 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 2010 2011 2012 2012 2012 2012 WWW.RECRUITER.CO.UK

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-6

2007

2008

2009

2010

2011

2012

DATA FROM OECD

* MANPOWER’S EMPLOYMENT OUTLOOK SURVEY **ROBERT HALF’S PROFESSIONAL EMPLOYMENT REPORT

In October the Bank of Canada’s deputy governor, Tiff Macklem, predicted that over the next five years the Canadian labour market’s challenge is “likely to be finding enough good workers for jobs”.

01 260 280 290 www.backofficesupportservices.co.uk

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Opinion

Soapbox

Talk tax payments to HMRC RECRUITERS SHOULD TAKE A PROACTIVE APPROACH TO DEALING WITH HM REVENUE & CUSTOMS AND POTENTIAL LIABILITIES BEFORE THE SITUATION GETS BEYOND HELP Tough times in the recruitment industry have seen many cash-strapped companies deferring their taxes to release crucial cash for working capital to meet rising overheads, such as office leases, equipment and the costs of recruiting or maintaining underperforming staff. When recruiters are in crisis, we have seen HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) increasingly use its powers of distraint* to sell the firmâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s assets at auction as settlement of an unpaid tax bill. There has also been an increase in the number of winding-up orders brought by HMRC when business owners have simply failed to communicate the tough trading conditions that they are experiencing. Just like any other sector, the recruitment industry needs to get the business basics right to survive until an economic recovery is well underway. One way to resolve tax nonpayment and arrears is to improve cashflow, although this is not as easy as it sounds, as * In law, the seizure of someoneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s property to obtain payment of rent or other money owed

recruiters are dependent on clients paying on time. Time-to-pay arrangements â&#x20AC;&#x201D; a scheme where the business owner agrees to arrears being broken down over a period of time â&#x20AC;&#x201D; can help by enabling firms to refinance and, ultimately, navigate their way out of the downturn. HMRC has stated it is committed to supporting â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;viableâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; businesses through these arrangements, but they can still be tough to agree as upfront payments are often required at the outset of any agreement. According to HMRC statistics, 444,400 time-to-pay arrangements were agreed by HMRC between November 2008 and June 2011, totalling ÂŁ7.7bn across all sectors. Nonetheless, 23,300 requests totalling more than ÂŁ1bn were refused. Crisis-hit recruiters should take a proactive approach by contacting HMRC or seeking professional advice about their tax problems at the earliest opportunity. This will improve their chances of obtaining a suitable repayment period for any

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outstanding tax liability. With a target to increase compliance revenue from ÂŁ15bn to ÂŁ20bn by 2015, HMRC has had to toughen its stance on time-to-pay arrangements, however, a well thought-out, robust plan will always be considered. Anecdotally, there has been an inconsistent approach to chasing arrears by HMRC. While some recruiters are chased, others are not. Some recruitment firms that pay taxes regularly but default once are often hit hard as the system flags them up, while those who pay sporadically are frequently left alone. It also appears that some firms that owe less are chased harder than those that owe more, depending on geographic location or past history. With HMRC allocated an extra ÂŁ77m â&#x20AC;&#x153;to increase revenues raised from tackling tax avoidance and evasionâ&#x20AC;? in the chancellorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Autumn Statement, that chasing will likely increase in both intensity and scope. PAUL SAUNDERS is a consultant at Leonard Curtis

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07/11/2012 11:50

Opinion

Letters Cornerstone of career progression IN RESPONSE to the publication of the ‘Richard Review into •Apprenticeships’ (‘Everyone likes apprenticeships, says former

Dragon Richard, but change needed’, recruiter.co.uk, 27 November), we welcome the findings of this thorough report, in particular the recognition that employer support needs to be embedded in apprenticeships and that course content must be rigorous. The engineering sector has a huge need for a steady intake of talented and motivated young people with the necessary skills to replace retiring employees. At the BITA Academy [established by the British Industrial Truck Association with the City of Bristol College], employers have been actively involved from day one to ensure apprenticeships are tailored to the needs of the lift-truck industry. This benefits employees and employers alike. A proper apprenticeship is more than just a route into work — the experience and skills it provides allow people to flourish in their careers and rise to the very top. As such, apprenticeships are the cornerstone of career progression in industry. This crucial point perhaps isn’t widely understood but is supported by a survey of our members, which revealed 45% of senior managers in UK forklift truck companies started their careers as engineering apprentices. At a time when the costs of a university education are higher than ever before, people are rightly reconsidering whether their job prospects reflect the debt they have to take on. With proper industry support, apprenticeships are an attractive option for school leavers. James Clark, secretary-general, British Industrial Truck Association (BITA)

Let’s be more ethical around tax greatly encouraged to see the breaking news article that •MPsI WAS were finally stepping up to take action on travel & subsistence (T&S) expenses schemes (recruiter.co.uk, 23rd November). The national debate and recent judgements relating to T&S schemes which led to the Early Day Motion 764 calling for an investigation and subsequent enforcement to prevent tax avoidance raise huge issues for the recruitment industry. It is so encouraging to see that something will be done to even the recruitment playing field, but most importantly one that balances out the need to protect low paid vulnerable temporary workers. I look forward to competing with our more illustrious colleagues on the basics of the quality of service and one that does not place vulnerable workers at risk either today or in the future and one that meets our obligations to Her Majesty’s Revenue. I truly believe that an organisation’s ethical values should consider the morality of tax avoidance that meets the spirit of the legislation and not one that survives on legal technicalities or interpretation. Rafiq Chohan, managing director, Goldteam Recruitment

Cut out the illiterate job specs ALASTAIR [BLAIR], IN your Bloggers with Bite article in November’s •Recruiter, I agree with you completely about shoddy recruitment

advertising, but I wouldn’t limit this to recruitment consultants. The question I ask is just because you can post everything online, should you? If 83% of global recruiting leaders (according to LinkedIn) believe that employer branding is a critical driver of their ability to recruit, then how does cutting and pasting a job spec or pumping out semi-literate copy really help? Maybe it’s time for a few less bullet points and a bit more communication? Dave Grifﬁn, MD, Publicis Engage, Ireland

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Soundbites

“Are you feeling positive or nervous about the prospects for recruitment in 2013 and what are your reasons?” Adrian Dalby Managing director, New Chapter Consulting

Here at New Chapter we have experienced growth of around 50% in the last two quarters and we’re expecting good things from 2013. We keep a close eye on the demand for talent in our markets and have been gathering quantitative and qualitative data for a number of years. Advertised vacancies increased by 15.5% in the consumer goods sector in Q3, while retail vacancies remained constant overall, with a decline in Buying vacancies being offset by growth in other head office roles such as ecommerce. There is a sense of optimism in our markets; in a recent poll conducted on our website 62% of participants predicted an increase in the demand for recruitment services. Let’s hope they’re right! Jonathan Ellerbeck MD, Gravitas Recruitment Group

Here at Gravitas, we are approaching 2013 with a spring in our step. The performances across all of our teams have been steadily increasing, with no noticeable regional variation. The demand for ‘quality’ IT staff is as strong as ever, and doesn’t show signs of waning across either permanent or contract. The majority of our key clients want to get ahead for next year, and the planning all indicates an significant increase in IT spend. Our only concern would be to find the quality, and numbers, of our own internal consultant resource to cope with their increasing demand. Chris Futcher Chief executive, The Pulse Umbrella Group

In general, I’m feeling positive about 2013, as are contractors. According to our latest Contractor Confidence survey, 78% of contractors are feeling positive about the demand for their skills into 2013. In the permanent market there looks to be little change as budgets are still tight and headcount closely monitored. In the interim market, however, there is a lot happening as business change continues to be driven from above, therefore with a lack of permanent headcount, flexible workers are being relied upon to deliver. Of course the continued economic uncertainty means that businesses must be prepared for change at any point. IF YOU HAVE A LETTER OR WOULD LIKE TO BE A CONTRIBUTOR TO SOUNDBITES, EMAIL... VANESSA.TOWNSEND@RECRUITER.CO.UK

RECRUITER

DECEMBER 2012

07/12/2012 09:49

Trends

The rise of selfsufficient recruitment CHANGE IS AFOOT IN THE RECRUITMENT AND TALENT INDUSTRIES BUT THE TRUE EXTENT IS MASKED BY COST-CUTTING MEASURES Organisations no longer need agencies to test the marketplace or build networks of people with the right skills; they can do it themselves. Welcome to the era of self-sufficiency, in recruitment terms. These days, whatever the size of an organisation, no recruitment strategy is complete without engaging with the full spectrum of social media. In-house recruiters now have social media targets added to their personal objectives; they must create Facebook pages, Twitter feeds, LinkedIn accounts and even YouTube videos. While all this activity appears to be changing the way recruitment works, in reality change is taking place at a more fundamental level. With almost all companies investing in LinkedIn licences and corporate pages to enhance their hiring capability, in-house recruiters now have direct access to a current database of candidates. Unlike the arrival of job boards some years ago, LinkedIn’s target market is the clients themselves. While job boards make it cheaper for agencies to use their services, LinkedIn recognises that the real spending power sits with the clients and ensures the tool is prohibitively expensive for agencies. Tools such as video and crowdsourcing are also gaining increasing traction in the recruitment sphere. Video allows employers to convey information and brand in a more engaging format, while crowdsourcing, assisted by employee referral software, allows companies to develop and manage a branded employee referral network across social networking sites. As an attraction tool, crowdsourcing can substantially speed up the recruitment process and arguably generates more loyal employees. Oiling the wheels of this trend towards selfsufficient recruitment has been the HR software industry, which has singularly failed to create a quality, integrated recruitment system that provides access to a comprehensive, up-to-theminute pool of talent. In the shadow of LinkedIn, these HR software tools are being reduced to recruitment process management systems or static databases with limited value. While some might assume that LinkedIn is a passing trend, the arrival of other, increasingly sophisticated, tools is inevitable. We can’t know what their business strategy will be in relation to the recruitment industry, but we can assume that it will accelerate the trend for recruitment self-sufficiency.

However, while employers can be more selfsufficient in accessing and building candidate pools through sites like LinkedIn, they still need skilled recruiters to manage and maximise those tools effectively. The assumption that using recruitment technologies or social media can replace or diminish the need for recruiters is mistaken. Agencies with strong niche networks, experienced recruiters and a solid reputation among candidates will still continue to build good businesses. Agencies can often be more agile and adaptable than large employers and have the ‘room’ and expertise to build valuable personal connections with candidates. While it’s vital that firms embed and promote their core values, talented recruitment agencies are vital in taking those values and using them at the frontline of the recruitment process to ensure that every element of the selection process — pre-screening, telephone screening and assessment centres — is focused on drilling down to ‘the right’ candidate attributes and delivering a candidate experience that matches the employer’s ethos, particularly in terms of community, family and passion for their own clients and customers. In contrast, those recruitment agencies that rely on job boards and on being the quickest to the requirement will be the most threatened. The contractor market, on the other hand, will probably see the least impact as very few clients in this space want any form of self-sufficiency, preferring a minimum risk model. So where does this trend towards self-sufficiency leave outsourcers? While the outsourcing industry could benefit, it will be under huge cost and margin pressures. The firms that win through will be those who can supply highly skilled onsite recruiters as part of a flexible, hybrid model that can ramp up or down as the economy fluctuates. Where previously discussions were dominated by the relative benefits of outsourcing and insourcing, they are now focused on transformation. Firms are under huge pressure to focus on accurate resource planning and outsourcers can add value by positioning themselves as ‘transformers’, in terms of resource planning, assessment and selection, and onboarding. Those agencies which have the flexibility, knowledge and network will be in prime position. For the rest, the realisation that recruitment selfsufficiency is not a temporary phase brought on by the recession but a fundamental paradigm shift may just come a little late.

Power Points As of September 2012 LinkedIn has 10m members in the UK ie. four out of five British professionals are part of the business network A growing number of employers are posting jobs directly through Twitter including Accenture, BT, H&M, HSBC and PepsiCo Recruiters using LinkedIn for free are now unable to view third tier group members unless they pay to upgrade, having a significant impact on their candidate reach In a recent Hudson HR survey, over a fifth of respondents stated that between 80% and 90% of their recruitment is currently done via direct sourcing and a third are using agencies for less than 10% of their recruitment needs. It also highlighted that the use of agencies was generally restricted to highly specialised roles.

PHIL CLARKE, CEO, INDEPENDENT WWW.INDEPENDENTLTD.COM

Have you researched any recruitment trends recently? If so, please contact the editor: deedee.doke@recruiter.co.uk

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The Challenge

Rank Group takes a punt with social media Sue Waldock HR director

THE RANK GROUP NEEDED MORE CONSISTENCY WITH RECRUITING ACROSS ITS BUSINESSES. RPOZONE HELPED THE GROUP INTERACT MORE WITH ITS CUSTOMERS

THE CHALLENGE The Rank Group is a gamingbased entertainment business headquartered in the UK, but with operations in Spain and Belgium. It also has a strong online gaming and betting presence. Employing around 8,000 people, the business operates around 35 casinos under its Grosvenor Casinos brand and more than 100 bingo clubs under the Mecca Bingo name. Rank Interactive is the online business, known for its Blue Square brand. Historically, recruitment for roles in these various clubs around the country relied on local initiatives, often using agencies, led by the manager of each establishment. There wasn’t much consistency throughout the group and the process could often prove time-consuming. HR director Sue Waldock told Recruiter that for the online side of the business, “more often than not this meant a heavy reliance on agency hires”. In 2009, specialist recruitment consultancy RPOZone started managing the high agency provision to try and streamline the recruiting process. Nick Boothroyd,

“There was a strong social media use from customers from a central location” ALAN WHITFORD

RPO director at RPOZone, explained that while managing the “large agency pool of partners”, RPOZone “improved the daysto-hire rate from 65 to around 30 days, as well as a 30% cost reduction”. It was during this managed service involvement that “we started talking about the mechanics of recruitment”, he said. Waldock wanted to rely more on direct channel resourcing methods, as well as a more streamlined approach to recruiting. But how could the different clubs and the digital operation of the business be more consistent across their hiring?

THE SOLUTION Following discussions with Waldock, the RPOZone and the Rank Group’s management team, the entire end-to-end recruitment experience was looked at. Boothroyd told Recruiter: “The employee segmentation piece looked at how internal employees ticked. We looked at their [past working] experience — did it ﬁt in with the employer brand?” The information informed the branding piece, both visually and through the language used to attract potential candidates. Project PRIDE (People, Recruitment, Inclusive, Diverse and Engaged) was born out of the discussions and research. As well as encompassing the employer branding of the Rank Group, the project was a complete re-engineering of the recruitment process. Because the Rank Group’s

Key Lessons “Customers are candidates and candidates are customers” Alan Whitford “Using social media for recruitment also resulted in increased visitors to Rank’s general Facebook pages and is having a positive impact on customer numbers” Sue Waldock businesses are very customer focused, the customer and candidate experience needed to be similar, so as well as going online for gaming, customers were using social media sites such as Facebook to interact with the company. However, they were not using it to apply for jobs at local Mecca clubs or Grosvenor Casinos. To capitalise on this consumer trafﬁc to attract new candidates, Boothroyd brought in the expertise of independent social media consultant Alan Whitford. Whitford told Recruiter: “There was a strong social media use from customers from a central location [the Rank Group as a whole company], but Facebook, for example, certainly wasn’t being used by customers to look for jobs in individual clubs.” Applications to local clubs were mostly paper-based, he added. To get managers involved and excited in their club’s Facebook page, for

Nick Boothroyd RPO director

instance, microsites were created to drive traffic from the page to a careers site. An important difference for managers of local Rank clubs is that the process of adding a new vacancy was simplified and made much easier. “Every job had predefined job descriptions,” said Whitford, which could be posted to additional channels such as Facebook, LinkedIn or local Jobcentres with a couple of clicks. The new microsites for the different parts of the business now all have the same theme: ‘An amazing team where everyone counts’. Another important innovation was the Talent Pool, giving applicants the opportunity to add hobbies, photos, videos and links to social media channels. Boothroyd emphasised that hobbies and interests are very important: “Candidates can add additional content to their Talent profile. Rank is a customer-facing organisation, so it needs to know what candidates are like on a personal level.” Waldock was most impressed with this aspect of PRIDE: “We are now able to save huge amounts of time on interviewing because we can target the softer skills and attributes that make our colleagues exceptional with the customer, and interview people who we already know have a good fit with the business.” And what of RPOZone and Whitford’s contribution? “If you are looking for a true partner to take on board your vision, give them a call!” she told Recruiter.

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

RECRUITER

DECEMBER 2012

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Profile

Ryan Broad DEEDEE DOKE MET THE MOVING PICTURE COMPANY’S GLOBAL HEAD OF RECRUITMENT “Do you see yourself corralling zombies? Battling aliens? Destroying cities? Taking care of giant lizards? Here at MPC you could do all of that and more.” What a recruitment pitch. That’s the offer Ryan Broad of The Moving Picture Company (MPC) can dangle to attract the creative and technical types whose artistry and skills give blockbuster films like Skyfall, Prometheus, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Parts I and 2, the recently released Life of Pi and upcoming World War Z their wow factor. Here’s how Broad explains the magnitude of what MPC’s artists create and incorporate into what you ultimately see at the local cinema: “If you were to see what was a visual effect and what wasn’t, you’d probably be pretty flabbergasted.” Broad is global head of recruitment at MPC, with post-production operations in Bangalore, Los Angeles, New York and Vancouver, as well as London working on high-end visual effects for major film productions and advertising projects. While the public still pays good money to go to the cinema, the Harry Potter monetary magic that ploughed literally millions of pounds of work into the visual effects industry has evaporated with the end of the series. But Broad is still a busy recruiter. “The challenge is, there’s no more Harry Potters. Production schedules are very dry at the minute — that means there aren’t a lot of movies going through. However, we have secured work,” Broad tells Recruiter proudly of MPC. “We’ll ramp up.” Yes, they will. For instance, Vancouver alone will require “a massive uplift” of 400 people over eight weeks (for projects Broad won’t identify) and nine months out, Broad has recently had to unveil to his North America colleagues his strategy for acquiring those workers. His plan involves recruiting both locally in Vancouver and in Europe, and a youth recruitment programme, while keeping in mind the ever-important wage costs. “The market in Canada is such that wage inflation

is just going through the roof,” he says. “We want to take people who want to work in the movies at a price we can afford to pay. I don’t want approvals coming through for salaries for 30-40% more than we’ve actually outlined in the budget, which we experienced 18 months ago, previous to me coming in.” The business of post-production and visual effects is cyclical. Most of MPC’s workforce is contingent labour, which must be mobilised quickly for specific projects then “reverse recruited”, as Broad puts it, when contracts and projects end. What adds an extra dimension to Broad’s challenge is the need to also keep this contingent workforce on side and engaged, even when they’re not working for MPC. Retention of these highly skilled contingent workers is crucial to the success of MPC’s business and reputation. However, it’s not retention in the usual long-term sense — when new contracts come in the door, it’s about being able to bring back in seasoned, experienced talent that have worked at MPC previously. “On my third or final interview here, they talked to me about hiring cycles, and having to ramp up and hire people as contingents and then drop down again and keep them in place so you could rehire them again, and drop and rehire, and they didn’t have anything in place to track those individuals, to rate them, rank them, their rates, anything like that — it was non-existent,” Broad explains to Recruiter in MPC’s Arctic-hued, minimalist London Soho offices. So when he got the job 18 months ago, Broad’s remit was to bring recruitment process and structure to MPC, along with a global perspective and oversight into a creative environment, which had laboured under a regional focus. He set out to build a proactive resourcing operation that could flex with the ups and downs of the workflow, and could keep in touch with and track the contingents. And at first he envisioned the right solution to the retention issue as creating a club of MPC’s experienced artists, as the creative and technical workers are called. Today, Broad says, “the club concept exists, but we

SECRET OF SUCCESS “I wouldn’t call it success! What’s the secret of my luck? Luck and a bit of ‘if you really want it, just do it.’ ”

CV Global head of recruitment, MPC August 2011-present

Director, recruitment — UK Ireland & Emerging Markets, dunnhumby April 2010-August 2011

Manager, recruitment — Europe, Cognizant Technology Solutions 2008-10

Talent acquisition lead — Europe, Yahoo! 2007-08

Resourcing specialist, AEGON UK 2004-07

Project manager, Resourcing, Lloyds Banking Group 2003-04

Account director, Obvious Solutions (through acquisition, now www.lumesse. com) 1999-2003

RECRUITER

DECEMBER 2012

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07/12/2012 14:25

PHOTOGRAPHY: PETER SEARLE

Profile

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Profile

don’t call it a club. Once you put a tag on something, typically people shy away from it. I didn’t understand that 18 months ago”, he acknowledges. “I understand it now. It’s about how you keep the relevant people in the relevant place and enable them to let you know what they’re doing, and then give you access to feed them information and get them involved with whatever you need them to get involved with. But ultimately, when you need to hire again, you’ve got 50 people that you can speak to straight away instead of, ‘Where do I find 50 people?’ “The concept of where we would keep all of our ‘club’ members — or guys we would want to be part of MPC — evolved to using the applicant tracking system in a completely different way,” he explains.

RECRUITER

DECEMBER 2012

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“Instead of using it in traditional career acquisition, we needed to keep members’ requisitions open so that we could pipeline. In effect, our address books, or pipelines, are just standard reqs that stay open constantly.” Breezy and California-casual in jeans, South Africaborn Broad seems an almost perfect fit with the film industry, flicking phrases like “cool movies, cool people, cool technology” into the conversation. He speaks knowledgeably about what his recruits and retainees do to ply their artistry, from lighting and modelling to animation, grading and beyond. Yet Broad himself may see the fit for himself and the industry differently. The switch from corporate cultures of previous employers such as retail media company dunnhumby, Yahoo! and insurance provider AEGON, to the more freeform MPC has meant a significant adaptation in mindset, he admits. To illustrate, he gives an example of how MPC’s long-term employees often progress through the ranks. “It’s not your typical ‘do your dues and work your way up the corporate ladder’,” Broad says. “If the business changes and there’s someone in there who wants to do something, then just let them do it. It’s kind of nice but it’s kind of scary when you come from a corporate environment. My learning curve has been, well, let’s just go with it.” He goes on to say: “It has opened up my mind a lot more, and even if I reflect on my past career, potentially I could have been holding people back because of my perceptions of what you need to do, rather than just let the person do it. They’ll figure it out. And that’s what you get here. It’s like, ‘You want to do it? Here are some guidelines. Here’s what I expect. Just go do it.’ “It does take a bit of getting used to it,” he concedes. And what does it take to attract and retain, MPC style, the artists themselves? The jobs themselves differ little between those at MPC and their competitors. “Typically, they will be driven by the productions — being able to do top-end films. We’ve got cool movies,

WWW.RECRUITER.CO.UK

07/12/2012 14:25

. / ) % %+ ) ) ' )/n% )% ' ') +)< . n- ) / ) ) ')%n ) %/n% ')n n) 7 !n '' %n) n % n '+!! %) ) % + +) ) !% ''< ( )+ ) - % )R n + ) n )3 n-n n n' % +! -n +n ) % +' ) / n) / ')< Jonas Anderson RDF Group Recruitment consultancies of all kinds choose Itris Recruitment Software because it adds value to their business. It delivers total functionality and a high level of integration with third party applications, without the need for additional modules or conďŹ guration. Inspired by recruiters, Itris can easily be conďŹ gured by you with no specialist training needed. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s built on the highly scalable SQL Server platform so it can grow as your business grows. Our total system support will help you maintain a competitive advantage and ensure itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s always working for you. And best of all, upgrades to new versions are included as standard. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s the total package, and probably the most cost-effective investment you can make for your recruitment business today. 0845 680 0660 www.itris.co.uk

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Profile

their friends work here, they think ‘I’ve got what I need to do my job, I know what’s expected of me, I have cool work to work on, so I’ve got a personal interest in being there’,” Broad says. He returns to the subject of tracking the artists whose contracts with MPC have ended. They are kept up-to-date with new projects coming down the pipeline that hopefully will tempt them to be involved. “That’s key to our strategy — then we can ramp up quicker,” Broad says. “We’ve got a lot of proprietary software and getting ex-people back means they can hit the ground running. Typically, it’s a 10-week learning curve for a new person coming in before they’re actually effective at delivering the shots we need to the grade we need.” Broad’s long-term vision for MPC has another dimension as well: ultimately, he would like to see regular MPC artists handling their own work project scheduling. “We’ll know how good you are, you can negotiate your rate, start the production you want, pick and choose what you want to do.” For Broad himself, the variety of geographies, cultures and issues inherent in his global role means that he keeps finding new points of interest in his work, as well as a wealth of business and life lessons to continue to absorb. “The biggest life lesson I’ve learned,” Broad says, “is, the theory’s important, but you don’t typically need it all of the time. Twenty per cent of the theory’s good, 80% is just get out there and do it. And never look back.”

KEY FACTS The Moving Picture Company

Specialities: VFX, post production, advertising, feature ﬁlms, TV Recent ﬁlm projects: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Parts 1 & 2, Prometheus, Skyfall, Life of Pi

For 2013: The Counselor, World War Z

Interesting perk: Weekly life drawing and sculpture classes are open to any MPC ﬁlm artist

Top London facility perks: 75-seat screening room and Skybar

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RECRUITER

DECEMBER 2012

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Christmas has come early. 50% off for all Eploy customers! Don’t you just love it when your loyalty to a brand is rewarded with a higher bill than that for a new customer? Well, at Eploy, we think differently. We’re offering ALL our customers 50% off mobile recruitment and multi-lingual options when ordering a new recruitment website, until April 2013.

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* Source: ComScore

06/12/2012 08:01

Mobile software

Recruiting on the go comes of age AS THE NUMBER OF MOBILE SEARCHES INCREASES EXPONENTIALLY, RECRUITERS NEED TO ADD MORE TO THE MOBILE EXPERIENCE FOR CANDIDATES TO KEEP AHEAD OF THE COMPETITION. SUE WEEKES INVESTIGATES

After many false dawns, there can be no doubt that mobile recruitment has arrived. Addressing the Mobile Recruitment Conference in November, Emma Frazer, senior industry head for recruitment at Google UK, revealed that one in five job searches are carried out on a mobile device and between January to September this year (2012), mobile recruitment search has grown sixteenfold.

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DECEMBER 2012

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Much of the talk in this area is still around the need for recruiters and employers to have a mobile presence, borne out by the results of a survey on Orange and T-Mobile users by Educate, an advertising sales house for recruitment and education, which found that 84% felt an employer should have a mobile website. What shape or form the mobile presence takes is only one part of the discussion though. As crucial is the

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06/12/2012 13:49

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