Some would say we are currently in a candidate driven market. While true, it’s
always
a candidate driven market. The perceived shift from a buyers’ market to
a job seekers’ market is a myth often spoken of in the staffing and
recruiting business. Even the very best of firms won’t fill every job,
yet, they can find assignments or jobs for quality candidates regardless
of market conditions. Candidate acquisition and retention always rules
the day.
While building a strong business development capacity is important
for success, even more attention must be paid to strengthening and
expanding the capacity of recruiting. This includes three important
rules, from the
Ten Rules of 21st Century Staffing, that my best clients, who are also the most profitable, have incorporated into their strategies:
1. They sell who they recruit instead of recruit for what was sold.
While sales may be highly effective at acquiring a variety of orders,
closing those orders requires the ability to actually fill them quickly
and efficiently. The strategic failing of many companies is in allowing
the sales organization to drive the business. We may never know if the
chicken or egg came first, but effective leaders know that the candidate
always comes first if they are to sustain growth and profits.
2. They treat recruiting like the sales job it is.
HR knowledge, especially employment law, makes a recruiter more
valuable in their role. However, this does not mean an individual with a
personality and skill-set suited for HR will be an adequate recruiter.
Recruiting is a sales job and is treated as such by leaders of the most
profitable firms. Recruiters with sales acumen open minds of candidates
as they open doors and close deals for the company.
3. They rarely chase purple squirrels; when they do it’s with a gold net.
While it may seem noble to prove your worth to buyers by vigorously
working to fill their most difficult and labor intensive orders, it’s
poor business. That is unless your ROI is equivalent to the effort it
takes. Hard-to-fill deserves lots of hard cash.
While myths often perpetuate lies, trends do not. Companies following the Ten Rules of 21st Century Staffing
are growing faster, reaping increasing margins, and acquiring wider and
deeper swathes of the market. The rest are too busy to notice while
they’re chasing squirrels.