December: The BEST month of the year to Recruit.

December is nearly upon us and so inevitably we will start hearing about “not much recruitment going on before the New Year” and “it is difficult to be recruiting in December”.

Why?

We think December is a cracking month to be recruiting (or be recruited) and there is a very simple reason for that. January is rubbish!

• During January you are busy planning for the year ahead and find that everyone else is too. It is not that easy to coordinate diaries of interviewers and interviewees. By contrast in December diaries always tend to be a little less busy and interviewees can more easily disappear relatively unnoticed from current jobs to do some Christmas shopping/make an interview.

 

• Everyone recruits in January which means that as a candidate you are up against “the world and its wife” and as an employer you are slap bang in the middle of the War for Talent (and forever waiting for your competitors to progress with their interviews so your candidates can “compare and contrast”). In December you can get the Pick of the Bunch and progress the recruitment process at your pace.

AND most of all

• On the morning of 1^st January everyone wakes and looks themselves in the mirror and decides that this is the year to find something new and certainly the time to get paid more.

 

• As a prospective employer though can you be absolutely certain that the candidate sat in front of you though is actually interested in the job that you are talking to you about or are they fishing for a counter offer?

By contrast though in December you can be pretty certain that the candidate you ask in for interview at 4.00 on the last Wednesday before Christmas is damn interested in the job!

And how impressive and passionate do you sound as a candidate if you ask for that sort of interview and opportunity?

So if you are planning to be recruiting soon and are thinking about putting it off until January stop and think about whether this is the most sensible thing to do or whether December could work well for you?

 

                                                           

Wright Solutions is a specialist HR Consultancy. We attract, place and develop the highest calibre candidates in Executive, HR and Learning & Development roles. Our service is more than recruitment with our training solutions that give Leadership and Management teams the competitive advantage for today and tomorrow.

 

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Technology and Recruitment: Beating the process

We lamented in a previous blog how the increasing use of technology is making recruitment less about people and more about 'ticking the boxes'.

However much we would like to deny it though, a blog from us is unlikely to change things drastically!

So we thought that what might be useful is a secondary blog that points out where some of the technology leads the process, what pitfalls that they might present to the candidate and how to beat them.

Most Recruiters (including us) are probably using a piece of software called Broadbean (or similar) that allows them to write 1 advert and post it quickly with the click of a button to multiple job boards, twitter, facebook and linkedin. This clever piece of software also means that candidates who apply will probably find their CVs automatically loaded on to the database of the recruiter and a note made of the application

What then happens is that the consultant looks at the individual and sees instantly what they have applied for.

All sounds very useful so far.

But imagine if you are a job seeker who is keenly looking for work and prepared and able to drop back to an admin role, step sideways in to a team leader role or get promoted to a managerial/director role. You live in Leeds; have family in Birmingham and a holiday home in Exeter. Yes you can absolutely apply for the 6 or 7 jobs you saw advertised by one national recruiter and you can do so confidently and with justification.

BUT what does the process look like to that recruiter when they look at the system and see you have applied for 7 jobs at levels from HR Director to HR Administrator in Stafford, Birmingham, Wakefield and Bristol.

It might look confused, random and badly thought out. And even though you have written a cover letter that explains your situation as clearly as you can the recruiter may not be able to see it, or may not have the time to read it (they have 30-40 other applicants to respond to as well). There is a chance therefore that they might prefer to look at the candidate who seems to have taken a more thoughtful approach to their job hunt!

Look at it another way though. You have just seen 6-7 jobs advertised by 1 agency and they are all of relevance to you. Are they then not the perfect agency to be talking to and building a relationship with? What stops you picking up the phone to say, “I am looking for a job. I notice that you have about 7 that might be of relevance. Can I talk to you about my situation and see whether they might suit”.

Remember people buy people. And recruiters are people. Make a friend with them and they are the ones who should be able to recommend you to a Financial Services role as the ‘perfect candidate’ even though you have only ever worked in Distribution.

Don’t let the technology that is supposed to make things easier actually make things harder for you as a jobseeker.

 

                                                           

Wright Solutions is a specialist HR Consultancy. We attract, place and develop the highest calibre candidates in Executive, HR and Learning & Development roles. Our service is more than recruitment with our training solutions that give Leadership and Management teams the competitive advantage for today and tomorrow.

 

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Is LinkedIn becoming JUST a job board? (albeit a really good one)

Barely a call goes by at the moment without someone telling us that they don’t need to use Recruitment Consultants anymore because they now have access to Linked In and it is a key part of their direct sourcing method.

We agree that Linked In is good and it wont be difficult to find us using it. (you may have found this blog because of it).

BUT increasingly people are just using Linked In as a recruitment tool. It is surely becoming just a really good job board and is not the recruitment “magic bullet” that people want it to be.

Consider this

• Not everyone is on LinkedIn 
• Not everyone uses it regularly
• Not everyone tells the truth on it (although please note. I do! All the time! Honest!) 
• The vast majority of people do not have enough detail on Linked In for it to be considered a viable alternative to a CV. 

And actually whilst Linked In was supposed to be a referral, networking and recommendation site allowing you to (re)connect with fellow professionals it no longer is

• “I’d like to Link In because I am a friend” – Er?... Really?
• People are not (re)connecting they are collecting recommendations and contacts to make themselves look good 
• Linked In themselves are now selling access to the site so you can by-pass the recommendation/referral part and cut straight to the searching of a database.

So surely this is no different from totaljobs, monster, personneltoday or any other job board that might take your fancy?

Now don’t get us wrong there is nothing wrong with a job board and we do think that “Linked In is a really good job board”.

But if  you can find your ideal candidate profile (and there is no guarantee that you will) you still need to:

• Find out if they are any good
• Persuade them that your job is a good match for them 
• Interview them
• Find other candidates to compare them against
• Arrange interviews
• Negotiate an offer
• Keep in control during the notice period (possibly selling against a counteroffer and maybe even needing to start again once the candidate changes their mind)

No job board, even a really good one, will do this for you!

BUT

We are sure a good in-house recruiter can do this for you.

And we know that a good Recruitment Consultant will do this for you.

By all means have Linked In as part of your recruitment methods but know its limitations and don’t forget that there are other job boards you can use.

Remember also the value that can be added by a recruiter who has a real network and is talking to the ideal candidate who is not on Linked In, not using Linked In or has not wanted to announce to the world that they are looking for a new job.

 

                                                           

Wright Solutions is a specialist HR Consultancy. We attract, place and develop the highest calibre candidates in Executive, HR and Learning & Development roles. Our service is more than recruitment with our training solutions that give Leadership and Management teams the competitive advantage for today and tomorrow.

 

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"We've been hacked... We don't have time to waste"

Having recently launched what we feel is an exciting and innovative package of Compliance Training Apps. We are getting a lot of interest from a wide range of clients and perhaps that interest is because of recent news headlines about the repercussions of getting Information & Data Security Compliance wrong especially with the rise of BYOD ('Bring your own Device')

We all know that rarely do incidents just occur out of the blue, there are always signs, indications, suspicions, that are not noticed, are overlooked or just ignored. It is rare for organisations to take pro-active actions to encourage employees to red flag problematic behaviours, information and truly value this important process that could provide great insight into pending situations and potential lead to early resolution before the nightmare scenario become reality.

A critical factor to get right is the Compliance training, currently it is a large market dominated by bad products and outdated delivery methods. For employees, the experience is a universally despised requirement and results can easily be manipulated. But for employers, outdated workflow systems and text-based materials yield hazy results with no measurable data and consume vast amounts of time and money. 

Try this alternative

You're immersed in a computer game, designed to train employees about information and data security, picture the scene a fictitious company called Silverman Brothers. The game opens like a movie, with a view of a skyscraper, and then zooms inside to the office of CEO Thomas Crossman. He receives an email informing him that his wealth management company has been hacked by an outfit called Disrupt. Crossman tells his global security chief to investigate, and the security chief in turn gives the task to Margot Miller, who is in charge of U.S. security. She suspects an inside job.

Players interact with Miller and her suspects, two employees, to find the hacker. They tap on the characters to pull up conversations, touch objects in the room for clues and identify red flags. For instance, in Miller’s office, her password is written on a piece of paper next to her computer. Clicking her tablet reveals that she regularly emails work documents to her personal account. Both violate company policies.

Players also get to review corporate policies on a separate tab, with the most relevant portions highlighted. After the game, they take a quiz to find out how much they have learned. These results are tabulated so the company knows what areas it needs to strengthen, such as employee responsibility. After the quiz, the story unfolds to reveal the surprise culprit. In sum, it is corporate training transformed into a whodunit.

Contrast that with two hours of training that might be dreary and boring!

By interacting with the game, the company knows that the employee is active and engaged. In traditional training sessions, employees might not be paying attention. You have no idea if they’re daydreaming!

Can your organisation benefit from a better-informed employee? 

By letting employees play out actual scenarios in a game, they become better informed about a topic. This minimizes legal and other risks to the company. The twin trends of people flocking to mobile devices and the popularity of the IPad made this approach even more feasible. With the pricing at about half the cost of what organisation spend for training because the mobile game takes only 50% as long to complete, thereby tapping into another trend: corporate cost-cutting. 

To see these apps in action call Paul Wright on 0121 222 5599.

 

                                                           

Wright Solutions is a specialist HR Consultancy. We attract, place and develop the highest calibre candidates in Executive, HR and Learning & Development roles. Our service is more than recruitment with our training solutions that give Leadership and Management teams the competitive advantage for today and tomorrow.

 

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