I’d like to open a debate on the merits of direct recruitment strategy, the use of agencies and why job boards don’t do a better job.
At the end of last week I had a long conversation with my mother of all people, who had in some daily tabloid read about the basics of recruitment, how it works and fits together and why it works the way it does. She took a lot of what was said as gospel and instead of considering asking her son who’d work in the industry of recruitment for the past ten years she came up with the following overview of recruitment.
- Why do firms use agencies? They are expensive, and their fees often prohibit the very process they are trying to create (to recruit someone)
- Why do job boards not work directly with employers? Surely cutting out the middle man would make life a lot simpler for everyone, if specifics were put in place
- And finally, if the market dictated the recruitment trend then how come so little has changed in the downturn, and why hasn’t someone come up with another idea of how to do recruitment?
My response was initially a rather typical ‘I work in recruitment, and I know what I am talking about’, but actually she got me thinking…
As I understand it, Mr. Alfred Marks one day decided that if there was a demand for a person and a person wanted a job then he could get paid for introducing the company and the person together. In essence this is recruitment, but why don’t we compare this to booking a holiday, a flight, ticket, buying your supermarket groceries, car insurance, even clothes?
When I was a child and went off on our family holiday we used to wander down to the high street and walk into one of the ‘Holiday Shops’ and the woman would ask us (in a rather funny voice, with a rather funny tan) where we’d like to go, when we’d like to go, what we’d like to do and ultimately how much do you want to spend? Result was often a rubbish holiday that never lived up to expectations.
So, who’d have thought about LastMinute.com. LateRooms, Expedia, BA.com?
Just last year, my wife was about celebrate a significant birthday. Two days before her birthday I turned to her and asked what she’d like to do?
Her response?
‘I think I’d like to go to New York.’
‘OK, darling… when would you like to go?’
‘Thursday.’
‘As in two days time?????’
‘YES.’
So, there I was at the desk, cup of coffee looking very recruitment consutltantesque looking for flights, hotels, etc… on the internet!
So why do we now use the internet? Why do we in the main no longer wander down the high street? Why do we no longer use an ‘agent’?
Well, the internet gives you so much more; it gives you detail, offers, exclusive deals, I could view the room I was booking, I could even choose where I wanted to sit on the plane, I viewed the hotel inside and out and I am making an informed decision based upon the criteria I want; not that of a third person that is driven by the desire to sell me the one they want to.
So I suppose the debate is:
‘Is it time to review the way that recruitment works?
And if a business was really committed to recruiting the absolute best, the absolute most suitable would they really put their recruitment in the hands of a third party that absolutely can not communicate the message of the business as well as someone that works there? Surely a website/jobsite/resource that has a large market share in a sector can offer you the choice, the control and the ability to recruit the best people at a more cost effective rate?
And I think that the following quote sums this issue quite well:
‘If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got.” Anthony Robbins.
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