Is Recruitment a Profession like Architecture, Accountancy or Law?

Yesterday I had lengthy telephone discussion with the CEO of a GSM Tracking, Security & Surveillance Company which has prompted me to make this post. The CEO mentioned the following points:


• Didn’t use recruitment companies

• He has used recruiters in the past

• He has been charged a 25% fee for a placement

• Recruiters just advertise on job boards and search CVs

• Recruiters do not add any value

• Why can’t a recruiter charge like any other profession such as a solicitor, Architect or Accountant?

• Transparent fees, quoting a daily charge for a set piece of work


This was music to my ears, as I believe recruiters need to be more transparent about the fees we charge but also clients need to understand the labour intensive process a good recruiter will go through to identify, target and successfully recruit a candidate for any given role.


So we discussed how the recruitment process could be split into four parts:

1. Research: A realistic time frame is agreed to identify the target skills required and make contact with targeted candidates to ascertain weather they are interested in your opportunity and receive CVs of interested parties

2. Shortlist: Time frame agreed to speak to each interested party and shortlist most suitable candidates for review by client

3. Manage interview process e.g. set up of interviews and manage candidates expectations

4. Manage offer and close stage of the process

Essentially what the client was asking for is a retained search model rather than a contingency recruitment model, which I believe to be the best option for both the client and recruiter as both appreciate the work involved in delivering high calibre candidates and both understand the fees associated with each stage of the recruitment process.

But how many clients out there are open to a retained search when the purse strings are drawn tight and internal recruitment and HR teams are looking to hire directly or drastically reduce contingency based recruitment fees.

So what I am trying to ascertain is how realistic is it for a recruiter to quote a fee for a set recruitment campaign just like a solicitor, accountant or architect would for a given project or piece of work?

I am interested in hearing the thoughts of recruiters, HR professionals and hiring managers, and would love to hear your take on the following questions?


• Is recruitment a profession on par with accountancy, architecture and law?

• Should recruiters charge a set price for a recruitment campaign whether a candidate is hired or not at the end of the process?

• What do you believe to be a fair price for carrying out a recruitment campaign weather a successful hire is made or not?

• What is a fair fee for a successful placement utilising a contingency based recruitment model?

IT Recruitment & The Lost Skills

Since the dawn on the internet job board and certainly over the last 10 years the skills of the IT Recruiter have slowly eroded. Internet job boards and CV database search has resulted in a generation of recruiters who have relied upon the posting of online advertisements or searching the same CV databases, to create a shortlist of candidates for review by the client and then pick up a fee at the end of the process.


During the early years of the internet job board there was an abundance of candidates eager to post their CV online or apply for the exciting job that promised exposure to the next big technology or the “break into banking” and the mega bucks on offer, but the candidates soon cottoned on that not every job posted exists and the recruitment agent did not always have the candidates best interests at heart!

This abundance of online talented resulted in recruiters being targeted on the number of new business calls they make and the number of new clients they can bring onboard, a pure sales mentality, there was no need for recruiters to be able to research and recruit talent, because it was readily available online at a click of a mouse button!

So where are we now? Companies, hiring managers and HR departments now have access to the same tools as any recruiter, LinkedIn, Twitter, FaceBook and all the online job boards. However, from my experience online CV databases certainly do not offer an abundance of highly skilled IT technologists and online advertising rarely yields a good return on investment. The age of social media has resulted in information over load and posting a link to a job on your corporate Twitter account will certainly not generate high quality candidates.

So what about recruiters who have relied on these mediums to source candidates, unfortunately they have lost the fundamental skills required to be a successful recruiter, especially in a downturn. They can now only offer the skills required for any telesales or telemarketing role and do not have alternative tools that will deliver candidates internal recruitment and HR teams do not have access to. The conclusion is many of today’s recruiters do not possess the skills required to target and source candidates who are protected by well trained gate keepers, the walls of buildings or confined to the deep web.


What do we bring to the table?

We still use job boards and online advertising, because from time to time a great candidate will post their CV online or apply to a job posting, but this is a rare and hell of a lot of luck is needed! We have always ensured we use a host of mediums to target and source a variety of candidates for our clients, we deliver candidates or clients and our competitors can not find!

How?

Simple, we use the following strategies to search, target and attract the very best talent:

• Client mapping: we search for companies with similar technical skills and industry specific knowledge in your locality

• Telephone name gathering: we build organisational charts to find out who does what within an organisation

• Boolean search of the main internet search engines and Meta search engines

• Data mining of databases and search engines

• Deep web search of social media, blogs, online communities, groups and forums

• Proactive candidate marketing (head hunting)


The skills mentioned ensure we deliver candidates that are not found by HR and internal recruitment teams or by many of our competitors who have been heavily reliant of online job boards. We are actually providing a service and adding value to the recruitment process!

We are eager for companies to use all the online tools and social media available to them to cut their cost per hire, but when there is a position that can not be filled using your normal recruitment channels we are available to demonstrate the skills many recruiters have either lost or never learnt.

We are keen to demonstrate our ability to deliver hard to find and niche skills and prove that there are recruiters who are skilled and can add value to the recruitment process.

If you have exhausted your normal recruitment channels and would like to find out how we can help you hire the niche and in demand skills your organisation needs to grow why not email info@eventus-it.com to arrange a call from one of our team.

Latest C# VB.NET ASP.NET Eventus IT Jobs

To apply for any of Eventus IT’s latest UK opportunities, please follow the link or send your CV to jobs@eventus-it.com
quoting the reference number in the subject line:


Ref: J000239
Position: .NET Software Development Team Lead
Industry: Financial Services
Location: Winchester, Hampshire
Salary: Up to £50K plus benefits

Must Have: VB.NET or C#, ASP.NET, AJAX, Javascript, XML, SQL Server and Team Lead experience

Nice to Have: Silverlight, Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF), Windows Communication Foundation (WCF), Agile, Scrum, Test Driven Development (TDD)


Ref: J000240
Position: .NET Software Developer
Industry: Financial Services
Location: Winchester, Hampshire
Salary: Up to £35K + 25 days holiday, Pension & Health Insurance

Must Have: VB.NET, ASP.NET, Winforms &SQL

Nice to Have: C# Silverlight, Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF), Windows Communication Foundation (WCF), Agile, Scrum, Test Driven Development (TDD)


Ref: J000241
Position: C# ASP.NET Developer
Industry: Media
Location: London, NW1
Salary: £35K + Bonus + pension

Technology: C#, ASP.NET, Visual Studio 2010, Web Services, WinForms, Silverlight and GUI


Ref: J000242
Position: C# ASP.NET Software Developer
Industry: Ecommerce
Location: London, W1
Salary: Up to £50K

Must Have: Microsoft.NET (all versions but 3.5 upward preferred), C#, LINQ, ASP.NET, IIS 6 and 7.5, SQL Server 2005/2008.

Nice to Have: ASP.NET MVC (Razor preferred), XML/XSLT, Design Patterns, Microsoft Commerce Server (all versions), Refactoring (ReSharper preferred), TDD, DDD, BDD, Subversion (exposure to GIT would be useful), TeamCity


Ref: J000243
Position: C# ASP.NET WebDeveloper
Industry: Media
Location: West Sussex, RH16
Salary: D.O.E + 29 Days holiday & Benefits

Must Have: C#, ASP.Net, SQL, HTML, CSS, Javascript, AJAX

Nice to Have: Agile, SCRUM, TDDD, DDD


Ref: J000244
Position: C# ASP.NET MVC Developer (multiples vacancies)
Industry: Media &; Ecommerce
Location: London, EC2
Salary: Various Levels, D.O.E

Must Have: C# OR VB.NET, ASP.NET MVC, Javscript AJAX, JQuery, NUnit, Nhibernate

Nice to Have: Ruby, Pair Programming, TDD/BDD, Refactoring, Continuous Delivery Windsor, StructureMap, OpenRasta, RhinoMocks, ReSharper, NDepend Cucumber, RSpec, Rake, Selenium, Watir, Git, Subversion, SQL, Solr/Lucene, TeamCity

Ref: J000245
Position: ASP.NET Web Developer
Location: London, EC1
Salary: £30-45K

Technology:
C# ASP.NET Microsoft .NET framework version 1.1/2.0/3.0/3.5, HTML/XHTML/JavaScript/AJAX/JQuery/CSS, Visual Studio 2005/2008, SQL 2005/2008,XML, ASP.NET MVC

Great Things We Can Do For You!

During my time as an IT recruiter I have been successful in both boom and recessive times and it is easy for me to say the job has been a lot easier in past years when job boards and online advertising were all the rage and recruiters were paid for posting an online advert, short listing the best candidates and managing the recruitment process. How things have changed!

The rebounding economy is increasing the demand for talent at all levels within the world of IT particularly in core development areas such as C#, .NET, Java and SQL. In vogue is the science of recruiting, technology and all things social media. Technology and the internet can help find potential candidates but you need an experienced recruiter to evaluate, recruit and secure top talent.

Relationship recruiting expertise is needed now: Direct sourcing. Referral-based networking. Engaging potential candidates. Identifying, evaluating and motivating scarce talent. This takes experience and know-how. This is the art of recruiting.

Are You Looking to Hire Top IT Talent?

Then Eventus IT will do these 6 things for you:

1. Provide Deep understanding. You can tell high caliber recruiters by the questions they ask. We research your company, industry and competitors. We ask insightful questions about the position and your company’s culture. We listen with a consultative style.

2. Direct sourcing. Great recruiters don’t rely on “Internet resumes”. We tap into our network and cold call high potentials. We develop relationships with high performers who may be open to a career move for the right opportunity. We identify top talent.

3. Focus on your open positions. Time is limited and you have multiple priorities. The best recruiters work closely with you on your schedule. We get to know your preferences and company’s interview process. We understand the urgency to look fill you most pressing openings.

4. Execute a proven process. Great recruiters know what they will need to accomplish for you: Research. Sourcing. Screening. Interviewing. Arranging interviews. Negotiation. Closing. On-boarding. Feedback and follow-up every step of the way.

5. Deliver consistently. Top recruiters work quickly and are quality-oriented. Give them exclusivity and your positions will be a high priority. They know more recruiting assignments will come when hired candidates perform and stay with your company.

6. Manage the Candidate. Great recruiters effectively counsel on counter-offers. We will know if the selected candidate will accept an offer, before it is made.

For a confidential discussion on how Eventus IT can help you hire the technical staff you need Email Us or complete the contact form

IT vacancies rise in Q3 2010 - is now the time to hire?

Last month Computer Weekly published an article IT vacancies rise in Q3 2010 - is now the time to hire?

The article highlights the fact that even though we are barely out of a recession the demand for talented IT technologists in particular development skills such as C#, .NET, Java and SQL are in high demand and short supply across the UK. A situation which is going to become ever more apparent as the sluggish economy picks up and spending and investment increases.

So is now the best time to recruit? Yes, IT salaries are still suppressed due to recessive forces a situation which is bound to change as we slowly move away from recession. As we enter 2011 and head to 2012 demand will increase for C#. .NET, Java and SQL skills but will the supply? Very unlikely!

Therefore simple supply and demand dictates salaries of IT Technologists with C#, .NET, Java and SQL skills will only receive upwards pressure as demand for these skills increases sowhy not act now and secure the talented development professionals you need to help your business grow and meet your project needs.

For a confidential discussion about market trends or to discuss how Eventus IT can provide you with talented developers by opening up accessible rich pools of talent not found on job boards or through running online adverts then contact us via email.

Why use an IT recruitment consultant in a recession?

Contrary to belief a professional IT recruitment agency and IT recruiter can add real value to companies existing recruitment and talent acquisition channels even in the current economic climate not just providing a CV and a candidate to interview but also providing a host of valuable information.

It’s true the UK is experiencing ever increasing rates of unemployment so many clients are looking to get their hands dirty and delve into the world of recruitment and source candidates themselves using online job advertising mediums such as www.monster.co.uk, www.jobsite.com, www.totaljobs.com and a host of other online mediums out there. Only last week I spoke to a client who was looking to hire a C# developer for their team in London. They were extremely pleased because their online job advert had netted over 100 CVs in a week.

However, the client wasn’t best pleased when I pointed out that fun had yet to start and out of those 100+ CVs he now had to whittle out:

Candidates not eligible to work in the UK
Candidates with no relevant skills
Candidates not located in required geography
Candidates too experienced
Candidates with not enough experience


Even if the time spent of each CV was only 30 seconds they have already lost 50 minutes removing the definite no’s from the maybes.

Then deciding out of the remaining candidates say 30% look good on paper, are you going to want to invite all 30 for an interview? Probably not, so you need to telephone screen each of these candidates. As the employer, you can’t just spend 2 minutes on the telephone with a candidate as this presents many dangers

1. brand damage
2. bad press
3. damaged reputations
4. disgruntled candidates who may be customers now or in the future

So if only 10 minutes was spent with each potential new hire, however 20 minutes would be a more realistic figure:

10 minutes X 30 calls = 300 minutes + 50 minutes = 350 minutes

Before the client had even met a candidate face to face they would have already spent almost 6 hours of their time! Being realistic this figure would be more like 11 hours, which ever way you look at it 6 or 11 hours could certainly be put to better use else where within the business!

A professional IT recruiter and IT recruitment agency can also offer knowledge of sensitive market information, market trends, salary banding as well as access to networks and inaccessible pools of talent.

During a recession the high calibre candidates companies are always eager to hire are less likely to be trawling online adverts or posting their CVs on online databases therefore making them inaccessible to employers. However a good IT recruiter or IT recruitment consultant will have built up relationships and methods enabling access to these high calibre “passive” candidates.

An experienced IT recruitment consultant or IT recruitment agency also provides an employer with a professional advocate who can understand the candidates’ wants and needs and acts as a third party negotiator. A good candidate who posses strong technical expertise within their field, coupled with excellent communication and client facing skills will always be in high demand! This calibre of candidate will always have more than one opportunity on the go at once and an experienced recruiter knows the most effective ways to deliver opportunities to gain an acceptance.

And finally a professional IT recruitment consultant can provide real value for money, Eventus IT work on a payment upon delivery basis, therefore limiting the risk for its clients.


Eventus IT has been helping companies across the UK and Europe source high calibre IT professionals by providing a competitively priced individually tailored staffing solution. To find out more information about our services feel free to visit our website www.eventus-it.com , drop us an email info@eventus-it.com or us on 0845 496 0000. You can also follow us on Twitter www.twitter.com/eventusit

Professionalism in the Recruitment Process

You constantly read about unprofessional tactics employed by recruiters as they continue to chase the next deal and how contractors and permanent candidates are the innocent victims within the recruitment process, but from my experience as a recruiter it works both ways!

All too often candidates feed recruiters with a pack of lies regarding their experience, past roles and their current situation which makes a recruiter’s job almost impossible to provide a professional service to its clients and candidates alike.

Just yesterday I had a conversation with an unemployed IT candidate looking for a permanent role. I discussed the role and the client in great depth, ensured the opportunity I am recruiting for matched his skills, his salary expectations and the location he desired to work in. I then asked if he would be available for an interview the very next day which he agreed would be fine, so I passed on his CV to the client!

While discussing the candidates CV with the client, a few concerns emerged relating to the candidate’s previous experience so I suggested obtaining references from the candidates last few positions. The candidate agreed to this, but since that last phone call the candidate has not produced references as agreed and no longer returns my calls! Strange behaviour for somebody out of work and looking to get back into employment!

Another favourite of mine is candidates who cancel interviews the day they are suppose to be attending. I do ensure I call all candidates the day before interview to answer any last minute questions they have about the role and client so give them an opportunity therefore providing an opportunity to withdraw from the interview process. I just don’t understand why people are not open and tell you there and then, rather than send an email or not even bother to inform you at all!

Not for one minute I am saying all candidates behave in this manner, as the majority of people I deal with are professional and I am rarely let down, just as not all recruiters are sharks looking to line their own pockets. I just hope I am seen as a recruiter who provides a professional service to both the clients I recruit for and the candidates I represent.

If you are a candidate or client and want to learn more about the professional recruitment service Eventus IT aims to provide, feel free to visit our website www.eventus-it.com or email us at info@eventus-it.com. You can also follow me on Twitter www.twitter.com/eventusit