What future for recruiting? (Guest blog from Bill Boorman)
For a while now I’ve been changing my views on the future of recruiting. I have a feeling that the market is going to look quite different once we have shaken off the shackles of recession. I didn’t always think this way, but over the last year I have been building a fantastic network via social media channels. My network consists of an eclectic mix of HR professionals, Recruiters, Vendors, technologists and others that live around the talent area globally. This combined input which has come via twitter, my 3 radio shows on blog talk radio, various blogs, linked in, latterly the wave and other channels have led me to these conclusions. This is how I see recruiting evolving over the next 3 years in a nutshell.
1: Corporate companies that have looked to cut cost during tough times will continue to do so in the boom times. I see this taking over much of the generalist market with HR teams taking on much of the lower end recruiting and traditional recruiters retreating further in to specialist niches where they can show real expertise.
2: The upshot of this will be more generalist recruiters opting for a very low cost option based on the job boards. The latest figures out of Australia demonstrate that the post and pray method still dominates the sector. This was very much the standard delivery model during the boom year’s post 94, where speed was valued ahead of quality of service to either the candidates or the clients. I don’t blame recruiters for this; both the clients and candidates drove the market this way by creating intense competition for limited resource. Post recession, the corporate recruiters have wised up to this and realised that they might as well do this themselves at a greatly reduced cost. Those recruiters that are unable or unwilling to change what they have always done have increasingly resorted to low fee or flat fee charging relying on volume. I believe this model combined with direct recruiting will dominate this end of the market.
3: Recruiters will continue to find new ways of offering the same service. Packaged and priced differently. An over populated market means more need to change their offering to differentiate. Over the last months I’ve seen models that pay large bounties for referrals from the network, that charge a fee based on time spent regardless of result or volume of recruiting, recruiters who have switched to providing a managed consultancy service charging for outputs in work over hourly charges and even Aquent have moved to a purely exclusive or retained basis, changing the way they interact with clients in the process. I applaud this creativity but equally believe it will change the recruiting landscape. Essentially the job we do will be the same, but we will package it very differently.
4: Recruiters will continue not to get social media. Despite the outraged posturing of the many bloggers and commentators this is actually o.k. I say this because the majority of the global population are much the same. Forget the stats you see, if you conduct a poll on LinkedIn asking how many recruiters have recruited via LinkedIn, unsurprisingly the results look favourably on the channel from where the opinion was elicited. Rather controversially I also believe that those recruiters that don’t get it won’t disappear. Personally I’m rather glad not many do, because it leaves the field open and unpolluted for those of us that understand the best way to network. The volume of recruiters that do nothing in LinkedIn groups other than posting jobs demonstrates the risk of damage to recruiter’s reputation as a whole by not contributing.
5: Relationships between clients and candidates will become the currency of the market. Increasingly, wise recruiters will return to managing fewer candidates that they understand properly (as a result of interview over registration) will change the way candidates choose who they want to represent them. Candidates in skill short markets will know they hold the balance of power and will be looking for real partners in their job search over those that do little for them. Equally, clients will choose to work with fewer recruiters and will expect regular contact, feedback and help. They will also look to their suppliers to be subject experts that can advise and help rather than purely process.
These are my thoughts for the coming year. I’d love to hear if you disagree! Be ambassadors for the business!
Twitter: @BillBoorman
Blog: http://recruitingunblog.wordpress.com/
Website: http://www.billboorman.co.uk
Email: bill@billboorman.co.uk
- Posted by Greg Savage
- On December 8, 2009
- 5 Comments
5 Comments