While this growth has encouraged the recruitment industry to develop into a dynamic and fast growing sector, with it has come a saturation of recruitment consultants, all competing to find the right candidate for the right client. Unfortunately, in my view this has meant that the process of recruiting has now become more of a race to place candidates in jobs rather than a carefully considered procedure which can never be a positive situation. This ‘race’ scenario inevitably leads to less and less time being spent on interpersonal contact between recruiters, candidates and clients.
This attitude to recruiting has ultimately led to the ‘scattergun approach’ favoured by many of the larger recruiting firms. Often they don’t take the time to listen to their client’s needs which would enable them to find the right candidate for the right job, but they will simply send as many CVs over to a clients vacancy as possible, ignoring the specific needs of both sides and in effect making the client do the search and select work which we get paid to do. This in turn devalues our industry leading to resentment from both candidates and clients. Candidates, because it is seen that we do not understand what they require for career progression and putting them forward for unsuitable roles. Clients, because they feel that we are “all” not worth the fees we charge. In the long run this will be very damaging to our industry.
I believe it is very important in this industry to develop a relationship with both the clients and the candidate, creating a more personal approach to the recruiting process. Recruiters should take the time to assess and establish exactly what the client requires for the specific role they are looking to fill. This leads to a much more professional style of recruitment, and the personal one to one service ultimately gets the best results for both client and candidate.
A recruiter must be an excellent communicator and highly skilled in assessing their clients requirements and offering a much more consulatative approach, after all we are “Recruitment Consultants”. It is vital that they provide that extra care and attention right from the start of the process in order to deliver a top rate service. A good recruiter will have an excellent understanding of the goals and expectations of both client and candidate. This obviously takes time and effort to achieve, but the results will be well worth it. I have been in the recruitment industry for 9 years and I have learnt that if consultancies want to succeed in the long term and aspire to be at the top of their profession then attention to detail is the only way forward.
