How to recruit recruiters for agency growth
It is said that ‘people’ are the greatest asset any organisation can have, and it is true. With the right consultant talent on board, your agency can realise its growth ambitions sooner rather than later.
But perhaps one of the greatest of all business ironies is that recruiters do - on the whole - struggle to recruit for themselves. Why is this, especially when we consider how buoyant the recruitment industry has been over the last few years?
With annual revenues exceeding £35 billion at last count and over 100,000 people employed across 29,000 agencies, the recruitment industry is without question one of the fastest growing sectors in the UK economy. It is also one that is seeing greater staff retention too.
Today, according to the Institute of Recruitment Professionals, 39% of recruiters have been working in recruitment for up to 10 years as those who are already in it are staying longer and seeing it as a genuine career choice.
Here we take a look at five of the most effective ways to attract the talent you need to help you drive your agency’s growth over the next 12 months and beyond.
1. Sell the ‘vision’
According to a survey conducted by LinkedIn in 2016, 65% of job seekers would be prepared to turn down a job offer if they didn’t know the vision of the hiring company.
While talking about where the business is in the here and now is good, sharing the vision of where you want it to be is what really matters. People want to feel like they can make a real difference to where they work. Be clear on the contribution they will make in turning your vision into a reality.
2. Communicate what you stand for
In the same survey, more than half (55%) of all recruiters admitted that they don’t communicate the values of their business. Yet it is your values that help to define you as an agency and can set you apart from your competition. Structure interview questions around your core values.
But don’t just ask the interviewees if they agree with them – ask what these values mean to them and how they demonstrate them. This way you are able to identify those consultants whose values match your own.
3. Ditch the superlatives
In 2014, a study conducted by LinkedIn found that 83% of recruiters say that their employer brand significantly impacts their ability to hire great talent. However, too many recruiters damage this through the overuse of stock phrases such as ‘innovative,’ ‘empowering,’ ‘dynamic,’ and ‘integrity’ to define what they are all about.
Focus instead on those mutually rewarding aspects of the role such as ‘career progression’, ‘long-term career support, ‘ambitious’, ‘team’, ‘professional development’…the list goes on.
4. Appeal to the top 5% of recruiters
We all know that the best candidates are those who are in rather than on the market. High-performers, or those with the potential to become so, are not motivated by potential earnings alone; they take a big picture view.
They look to see how the role in question fits in with their personal strategic career plan, which perhaps explains why 86% of agency owners surveyed by Undercover Recruiter acknowledged the importance of approaching recruitment more like marketing.
So define expectations of success in your job descriptions and outline what the potential new consultant needs to do to be successful within your agency and steer clear of just listing responsibilities.
5. Add PR to your toolbox
PR, like advertising, is most effective when done on a continual basis. But when we talk about PR, we don’t just mean sending out press releases here there and everywhere – there is much more to it than that.
Research shows that around 80% of employers turn to Google to see what they can find on a candidate before interviewing them – the same principle applies to job seekers. The more content they find on you, the greater their perception of you as an employer of choice. This is where PR comes into play.
From maintaining an up-to-date blog each week and sharing valuable content across your social media profiles (not just jobs!) to writing articles for your LinkedIn profile and appearing in the local or national media, you can build your online and offline brand, boost your SEO (or ‘findability’ factor) and raise your profile as an employer of choice – both for new and current consultants