The world of recruitment is changing ....

You know what? Sometimes I am beginning to think the recession/down turn was better :)!!

On a serious note, contrary to popular expectations, more hiring opportunities doesn't really mean more revenues for recruiters!! Yes, it is more activity, more 'hit and runs', and lot more decisions/administrative issues to be handled.

Personally, I have been wanting to post a blog for a while-on how things are changing for us recruiters-but somehow, I have not been able to get around to posting regularly in the past few months.

Well..just now, I came across yet another masterpiece from the recruiting thought leader Greg Savage in his latest post. Extremely well articulated, I realise I would do my best..if I were only to quote from his post verbatim on some of the trends that he believes will impact the recruiting profession-necessitating a change in our strategies & business planning :

-Expectations of clients are rising and will continue to rise. Clients want insights, not just résumés. They want better service. They want specialist level consulting advice. And they want it faster and globally.

-Clients and talent are savvier, more discerning, and more sensitive to quality. Right now, publicly listed recruiters are reporting rising revenues and profits. But at the same time we see increasing numbers of small recruiters going into liquidation. Clients will not accept the second rate, the cumbersome or the old-fashioned,

-Employers will continue to aggressively build their in-house capacity to recruit staff. Clients will develop corporate in-house recruitment teams, build recruitment technology, enhance employer branding, and use social media. And all of these will be used to cut recruiters out of the process. It’s a major issue for our industry and we have to offer something measurably different to be seen to be providing value.

-An increasing majority of vacant jobs will not be advertised anywhere. Forget web advertising vs. print media. More and more jobs just won’t get announced at all. Networking, social media, and skilled, specialised recruiters will fill most jobs before they ever hit the mainstream media. That has huge implications for us in the way we develop business, access talent and make the match. And also for the skill-set of our recruiting staff.

-Talent will become smarter and wiser to the way our industry works. They will be far more discerning about the recruiter they work with. They will take charge of their job search and of their employee brand. Technology has made things so much more transparent for job seekers and the pathway for them to connect with employers is now wide open, potentially leaving third-party recruiters out in the cold. This raises massive questions around the way we engage with candidates and our entire talent acquisition strategies.

-To sum it all up, yesterday’s “delivery” market will become tomorrow’s relationship market with both clients and talent.

I think we can already see the way most large companies have adopted benchmarks from supply chain management to 'source' candidates. They use various models to employ full time talent, engage temporary staff and hire associates from vendor rolls-depending on the ABC analysis of the degree of difficulty of attracting talent!

We, at Options, have been overwhelmed off late, with the increasing quantity of referrals from our (past /new ) clients-that we have had to choose between those who 'engage' us with a monthly retainer fee, if not with a search fee for specific mandates-and those who do not, as yet, believe that we can provide better service/accountability than that they have been familiar with-in the established practice of contingency placements...