Listening To Your Recruiter

Would you walk into your doctor’s office to announce your diagnosis and dictate a prescription?  Not likely.  Even if you suspect what the problem is, you still want input from your physician.  What’s the latest treatment?  Are there alternatives?  Is there any new information that you should be made aware of?

Your recruiter can offer you the same kind of up-to-the-minute advice and direction… but only if you listen.

Recruiters have their pulse on the job market.  They know what the best candidates are looking for and how to find them.  They also know what’s happening within their client companies and can tell fairly quickly if a candidate is a good match.

The next time you speak with a recruiter, ask them some really pointed questions about the job market or employer expectations in their area of expertise .  You may be surprised at their level of knowledge — and it just may bring your relationship up to the next level.

The Snapshot That Creates Alignment

Make sure everyone in your firm knows these 3 things:

• Who your ideal client is
• What is important to these clients
• What your value proposition is

From that information, you can produce a snapshot to align the team around who you are and who you want to be.  You may want to include a mission statement that identifies target industries, geographic scope and specialization.  Try something like this:  We help clients in Vancouver’s financial sector reduce risk by deploying audit teams on an as-needed, just-in-time basis.

Creating clarity around what you do will build pride and drive the right kind of activities.

Ghost Posting Job Ads: Best Practice or Bad Form?

Why do staffing agencies place job ads for positions that don’t exist?  People who disagree with this practice may say it’s unethical and misleading.  Those who engage in the practice will tell you it’s a necessary part of business, not designed to deceive but to prepare for imminent job orders.  Like most issues, gaining perspective can change the way we view a situation.

Ghost posting – that is, advertisements enticing workers to apply for non-specific positions – applies mainly to temporary work.  Permanent job openings usually come with so many specifics attached to the qualifications and experience desired, they don’t lend themselves to recruiting in advance.  Temporary work, on the other hand, is usually focused on an identified skill set for a short time period – like data entry for 3 months, or warehouse workers assigned to a 6-week reorganization project.

Agencies are expected to be both thorough and speedy: two qualities that don’t always go well together.  In order to make things work, we post jobs in advance so that when the call comes in from our client, we are ready to begin phoning a pool of prescreened, interviewed workers.  The time to recruit for a temporary work order is before the phone rings, not after.

Honesty is a key component to building and maintaining a good reputation.  So how does an agency employ ghost posting with integrity?

In one word: transparency.

Applicants should expect to see wording like this: “Recruiting for upcoming temporary work orders from multiple clients”.  This gives potential recruits the opportunity to decide whether or not to invest their time.

Client Relationships: Shifting From Troubled to Trusted

Sometimes the best client relationships are those that have undergone the refinement of fire.  While there are no shortcuts to developing deep ties, here are 3 best practices to help you redirect a relationship that’s barreling down the wrong track.

1.  Ask questions and listen really well.  Get to know the client company’s objectives and challenges from their perspective.  Make sure you understand well enough to be able to articulate the client’s market position and objectives to your colleagues on the servicing team.

2.  Once you understand the client’s objectives and challenges, paint a very clear picture of how you can assist.  Be honest.  Don’t shy away from the weak areas of your solution.  Point them out and state how you will bolster those areas.

3.  Integrate and stay connected.  Form a cross-functional team within your firm with the goal of developing relationships with their corresponding functional heads on the client’s team: HR to HR, accounting to accounting, etc.

It Isn’t Your Grandfather’s Workforce Anymore

Social media has thrown employers and workplaces into the limelight.  How?  Workers are using social networking to share their employment experiences.  Even people you interview and don’t hire are invited to rate your hiring process.  You can see this for yourself at GlassDoor.com.

Candidates have become savvy shoppers when it comes to choosing their next job.

Employers should regularly check out their employment brand by searching for comments about the company on Twitter, Glassdoor.com, Facebook.  Use Google or Bing to search for comments about your firm.  This will help you gauge the temperature of your employment brand.

The opportunity here is to form a community around your employment brand.  Invite comments and online discussions – and then use the conversations to build on your brand.  You need to showcase your work environment and the career opportunities you offer.  After all, it isn’t your grandfather’s workforce anymore.