Last week I blogged on why so many recruiters have a shallow understanding of what ‘competitive’ in our business actually means.
And so how do we thrive in a competitive world? What is the way to differentiate in 2010 and beyond?
Well it’s not cool to say it out loud, but as far as I am concerned it’s what technology cannot do that our clients will continue to pay for.
It’s a source of constant amazement to me how many of us in this industry have been completely seduced by the technology spin doctors. We are terrified that the Internet will wipe out our business. We agonise over social networking and how it will change the talent-sourcing model. We quake at the power of LinkedIn, and we are hypnotised by the thought our competitors will develop a piece of technology that somehow will make our service redundant.
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Don’t get me wrong. Technology is reshaping our business and having leading-edge technology is crucial, in as much as it allows your consultants to compete on an even playing field, and gives them the tools to give clients and talent what they really want.
But technology will not destroy our industry. At least not all of it – and definitely not the part we want!
And here is why. Finding a job or recruiting a new staff member is not a commodity purchase. We are not dealing with the same psychology which drives i-Tunes, e-trade or amazon.com.
This is important because it means that the real value provided by quality recruiters will still have a market. That is, screening, evaluating, persuading, assessing, negotiating, advising, consulting and acting, as an advocate for employers will still have tremendous value.
It is on these competencies that we need to compete.
But it’s also more than interpersonal recruiting skills (which by the way were largely lost during the decade-long hiring boom that preceded the GFC). Talent management is where the real battle for recruitment dominance will be fought. Building talent communities and managing effective communications channels with those communities is where the holy grail lies.
And we will need to compete in other ways too. Customers will increasingly call the tune. And by customers I mean talent as well as clients. The customer experience will build or tarnish your brand like never before. This is where social media will be able to destroy your business. Get it wrong and your brand will be brought down at viral speed. That’s where we have to compete. How we deal with customers and manage their expectations and experience with us.
Lack of personal interaction is doing our industry no favours. In fact I consider it one of our deepest flaws. Many recruiters use technology to avoid connecting personally with talent, when in fact the real advantage of technology is to get much closer to many more quality candidates.
So social media and technology generally is a threat to you only if you fail to recognise this fact…
… there will continue to be a market for tailored, personalised, high quality business solutions based on an advisory, consultative model, where access to talent is the differentiator.
Don’t be sucked in to competing on the basis of who can commoditise what we do the best. Don’t play the low margin, process game.
As your competitors claim, “we are bigger, have cooler technology and therefore we can do it faster and cheaper” or technology-driven platforms push to cut out recruiters altogether, your premise for doing business is…
“I can solve your problem because I understand your need and I know where the talent live”
Great article Greg. I’ll quote this in a presentation I’m preparing.
John Hunt says
I absolutely agree business is built on personal relationships that develop trust and understanding technology is a tool to make connections
Greg
Well said. This may sound strange coming from a guy who runs a recruiting technology company, but technology doesn’t make great recruiting. At it’s best, technology can break down barriers, expose inefficiencies, and even stimulate more competition (sometimes painfully), but in the end technology only puts a greater spotlight on how recruiters are truly differentiating themselves.
Recruiters will struggle if they take either of two extremes – raging against technology and refusing to sense how the world is rapidly changing, or blindly accepting it in the expectation that just using LinkedIn or BountyJobs will “make you”.
Again, nice post and like previous commenter, I plan to forward your post to my team.
Hi Greg fantastic article (once again). I agree entirely with ” Finding a job or recruiting a new staff member is not a commodity purchase.” What saddens me is that whilst this is absolutely true as an industry we have tried to commoditise hiring with a constant drive for volume and sales growth. It is only when we wake up to the fact that whilst people are our product (so many innapropriate conortations) in no one case is our product the same. Each individual we represent has a unique set combined skills, values, talents and aspirations. Until we recognise you cannot have a one size fits all approach to people then we will continue to struggle to evidence value to the customer as an industry. For those of use however that share your views this gives us a fantastic opportunity!
This is an excellent set of articles. I am glad you said it out loud. Recruiting is much more than running through a check list. It is a profession, not a side-line activity. Show me someone who is being “taught” how to recruit, in addition to their 47 other responsibilities, and I will show you someone who is set up to fail.
Thank you for this post. I have been in the business as a 3rd party recruiter since 1973 working for a franchised agency until the terrible recession of 1975….when I went out on my own. Obviously I have seen my share of business downturns. Although this one has been different and deeper than the others I have survived, the same predictions were made in each about the end of our industry.
We have survived this long because most of us provide a service that can’t be automated. We are dealing with the most important decisions people make in their lives.
Your line “screening, evaluating, persuading, assessing, negotiating, advising, consulting and acting, as an advocate for employers” really resonated with me. This service is understood and valued by our clients and they can’t replace it by just using LinkedIn or Twitter.
My business now bears no resemblance to the one I started back in 1975. I still provide the same service but the way I deliver it has changed along with the technology, economy and the times.
I’ll keep it brief… well written Greg, bang on the money as usual.