The Talent Initiative

Those of you who know me will know my Recruiting background.  Started in a Recruitment Agency, well fell into it, as we all do.  Went to an in-house role for 8 years, somehow ended up back in Agency land again, went back in-house, and now, in keeping with the pendulum, I’ve put up my own shingle and doing it (well Recruitment) my way. Don’t do the maths but I feel like I’m closing in on 30 years… That’s a lot in real people years you know!

One of the things I learned whilst working in house was the utter despising of Recruiting Agencies by most people I came across, both from the business point of view and the candidates.  I had been blinkered maybe, “Did people dislike me that much when I was working for an agency?” Well I didn’t think it was me, but the function.  Really?  Sadly the answer was YES.

The reasons are not too hard to fathom.  So many cowboys and cowgirls out there, giving everyone a bad name.  It is the industry where a quick and hefty buck can be made, and I’m sure we all know a few or know of a few that have done that.  I knew a guy who placed the same person into a permanent role 3 times in a year! Twice in the same company, just asked her to go by her maiden name the second time around so as to not arise suspicion.  He made a fee each time upwards of $20k (in the days of 3 month replacements), and would brag about it.  I’ve heard of agents blatantly using their sexuality to try to get work to the point of offering “the full service” for work. I had a boss, who actually tell a young “lady” that she’d better go to the ladies to fix her dress as the straps kept falling off, “it’s not accidentally happening” he was told.. (True story)  Worse, agents, who once in to a company try to pilfer people out once they’ve sniffed around a little and learned the lay of the land.  Heard of one agency, threaten to “empty your car park” if said company wouldn’t use their services!

These type of stories, along with what can and has been perceived as the exorbitant pricing has started a shift away from the model, with more and more in-house teams popping up (bragging about their lack of need for agencies), LinkedIn’s Recruiter tools, “Social Recruiting” as it was called and now the next scourge to kill off Agencies, Artificial Intelligence (AI)!  For those a little older, the move from newspaper advertising to job boards also sounded the death knell for our brethren.

In past lives as an in-house recruiter it was inconceivable that I would use Agencies, roles I couldn’t fill would remain unfilled and pressure would just build up on my team.  The amount of cold calls, warm calls and reverse marketing calls I would have to knock back probably didn’t do much for my popularity in the Recruitment world.  It was a directive from the people that paid my salary, an unbreakable rule, and we were able to deliver most of the time.  (* I remember telling one boss that he was notorious in the IT Recruitment industry for being a hard ass and putting people through the ringer.  I used to put his name deliberately on young Recruiters working for me who’d made too much money and were over confident, just to bring them down a peg so I could work with them once more!)  

I did soften a little in the latter stages of my inhouse tenure, maybe bias entered into it, maybe not.  Of course, there is a need and a place for this multi-billion dollar (Euro, Peso etc) industry.

I don’t see a need for businesses to use Agencies for their day to day “normal” hiring, you know those role types that you will need to fill 80-90% of the time.  That is for them and their TA teams to build a successful, engaged and prepared talent pool of people, (unless you want us to do it, then who am I to say NO) who just need the final tick to get started.  That is your core business, that’s where you should be spending most of your time and money.  If you used Agencies for this, then why would your company pay your salary?

However, for those “different” roles, for sectors of the market where your TA teams don’t have expertise, don’t have the network, where there is a speed to fill urgency, why wouldn’t you use an Agency?  Take on a Contracting resource makes a hell of a lot of sense to me.

If you’re smart you can also get a fair bit of industry knowledge of your Recruiter (if they are any good), I have in the past felt a little insular when I worked in house, a little blinkered to the wider market, my focus (rightly or wrongly) being on my company alone.  Recruiters should have a great deal of industry knowledge in their mind, they are talking to companies, people and yes competitors on a daily basis.  Why not get an industry overview from them?

This model was a paradigm shift for my company, it worked well.  We formed some strong working relationships, we hired some great contractors in very timely fashion and solved both our and our clients problems in the process.  I am yet to feel or perceive the “stereo-typical” Recruiter push or sleaze (for lack of a better term).  I used Recruitment agencies as another channel to market, you cannot know everything and everyone.  You know what? It didn’t diminish the value in what the Recruiting team provided in that company, it’s actually allowed us to solve more problems.

With most businesses, Recruitment Agencies should exist to solve a business’s problems.  Do that, agency land, and you will be here to stay (nobody say like cockroaches!)