Working in recruitment, I took a natural interest when a blog post appeared on my timeline titled ‘Is the day of the recruiter gone?’ Clearly, along with many of my other fellow recruiters, I sincerely hope not, as that doesn’t bode well for my career.

The author made some very strong points, let’s start with his first issue and I directly quote: “Once the agencies took over it became an impersonal clinical exercise.” Well, I would have to disagree, we spend time understanding our candidates and understanding what they need and want. Throwing CVs at clients like mud to a wall and hoping one sticks is not good for either party. It shows that not only has the recruiter not listened to its candidate, it also doesn’t understand what its client wants to achieve.

During his rampage against the recruiter he refers to the ‘Headhunting’ process where the consultant calls but didn’t understand that “I’m not interested in taking a lower grade position with the company they are recruiting for.” Quite right, again this is down to bad practice on behalf of the recruiter in question. It’s all about doing your homework and making sure what you’re offering is actually tempting for the candidate to consider. That really is a no-brainer.
His final point of “It’s time to lose this tunnel vision when it comes to recruitment.” This I agree with entirely. What worked twenty years ago, doesn’t work now. Social media has opened up a new platform for both candidates and clients alike.

No longer does recruitment need to be a numbers game, it’s not about hammering the phones until they refuse to work, nor is it delivering more CVs to a client than the Royal Mail. Having said that, team, don’t forget it’s 9 for an outside line.

What it comes down to is research, an understanding of your client, listening to their needs and finding out what makes your candidate tick.

LinkedIn really has become a recruiters dream – perhaps a candidate’s nightmare? Yet the wealth of information about a company and its employees is there to read, digest and take on board before even picking up the phone to make a blind call.

But to be a good recruiter, you always need feedback – how can we do better? What can we do better? And how can we tailor our process to make your recruiting experience easier?

Times have changed, the way we do business has changed and most importantly the way we look to recruit has changed. What we need to do as an industry is keep up with these changes and adapt the way we work, just as any other industry would have to.

by Insightresourcing