ìThe times they are a-changinî sang the visionary poet Bob Dylan. And he was right, of course, although he probably didnít have recruitment in mind when he formed this prophetic lyric. But maybe he should have. At NRC.com, we believe that recruitment ñ an economic process that touches all of our lives ñ deserves to be given some airtime. It may not be the stuff of inspired lyrics, it may not be sexy or chic, but it is, all the same, fundamentally important to the modern world and the success and, by implication, the happiness of the people that live in that world.
Thatís what motivates us to change recruitment ñ itís too important to all of us to be left to chance. But what exactly do we mean by this? What is the problem with recruitment as it currently stands? And how can we effect meaningful change?
The problem
Well, firstly, there are many perceived problems with recruitment. The biggest by far is that candidates are treated poorly. We have much anecdotal evidence to back this up and we are currently carrying out several online polls to define the issue in more scientific terms. We will publish the statistical analysis when it is ready, but we have already cited the results of a recent Reed Consulting survey, which seem to confirm our hypothesis ñ that candidates often feel disempowered and degraded when they subject themselves to a recruitment process. We believe that this is wrong, both in moral and economic terms. And we do not shy away from the moral argument. Socially responsible and ethical business is no longer just the unheard mantra of the academic locked away in her ivory tower. Far from it. In fact, ethical business is very much on the boardroom agenda because directors know that this is no passing intellectual fad and that, indeed, it has developed into a critical success factor for their corporations. But we will explore the economic argument in due course. The important point to grasp here is that ethics have a part to play in corporate life and values. We have moved beyond the era in which the profit motive and the surplus value of labour held sway as the lynchpin concepts of capitalism. Today, management theory and modern corporate governance standards are just as comfortable dealing with the stakeholder as they are with the shareholder, just as concerned about environmental impacts as they are with EPS and EBITDA. Business must continue to drive profits, of course, but it must do so in a socially responsible and ethical manner.
And since candidates are affected by the businesses they interview for, companies must prima facie address their needs and concerns. There are, of course, sound economic arguments for doing so (which, again, we will explore in due course), but above and beyond these we contend that candidates, in giving freely of their time (including the behind-the-scenes time involved in preparation and research) deserve a certain amount in return. In particular, we believe that candidates deserve to be treated objectively (and, of course, in the UK at least we now have legislation which attributes this as a legal right) and professionally. This means that candidates should receive constructive feedback after an interview (regardless of whether they have been successful or not) and that they shouldnít be left hanging around in some foreboding lobby for an undignified length of time. Of course, there are other behaviours that we could stipulate, but in summary we believe that candidates should be treated with courtesy and honesty at all times during a recruitment process.
Recruitment consultants
Which brings us on to the subject of recruitment consultants. Again, we should emphasise that we are dealing here in anecdote, reams and reams of it, but it is still anecdotal evidence. Our polling initiative will drape a cloak of scientific respectability over us in the near future, but ultimately if we have got it badly wrong then the market will determine our fate. Our central argument here is that recruitment consultants view candidates as a means to an end. To quote a recruitment consultant who recently posted to our forum, ìAfter all registering with an agency is a free service to the candidate and therefore you have to see it this way. If you were paying lots of money for the service then things would be different but that isnt (sic) the case.î Perhaps this is at the root of the problem. Candidates donít pay and therefore they donít get the service. Well, we will attempt to deconstruct this argument and then move on to assess what the employer gets for its money.
Candidates do not part with cash, no. But then, neither does a prospective property buyer. And no one would suggest that property buyers deserve shoddy treatment. In any case, it is beside the point because a candidate is best viewed as an asset and not as a service-seeking entity. Now, while a recruitment consultant does not have legal title to that asset (slaves, of course, having been legislated out of existence an awfully long time ago), it does have a contingent right (contingent on the ability of the recruitment consultant to place or ìsellî that asset with an employer) to receive economic inflows based on the use of that asset (to use the technical accounting jargon). Once you view the candidate as a contingent asset, something is brought into sharp focus. No good businessperson neglects an asset, since it is only with the proper care and maintenance of this asset that it is possible to harvest a maximal return. The neglected candidate is a disenchanted candidate and is to that extent far less likely to interview with success. Consequently, only the false economist shies away from investing the proper care and diligence in a candidate, since it raises the spectre of a slimmer top line.
But what is it precisely that we are accusing recruitment consultants of? What are the specific value-limiting issues that characterise a recruitment consultantís attitude toward a candidate? Well, to get specific (and again, we must emphasise that this is based currently on anecdotal evidence) we are saying that the recruitment consultants should not:
- Put candidates forward for inappropriate jobs (i.e., play the ìnumbers gameî);
- Feign to have more contacts and opportunities than they actually do have;
- Fail to keep a candidate fully informed about the success or otherwise of an interview on a timely basis;
- Fail to secure adequate feedback from an employer (i.e., feedback from which lessons can be learned to improve the chances of future success);
- Pretend that they know more about an industry and its disciplines than they actually do;
- Pretend that they are ìin a meetingî or ìaway from their deskî when a concerned candidate phones through for an update or guidance;
- Advertise jobs which do not exist to ìreelî candidates in;
- Urge candidates to retain their services exclusively on the basis that employers get annoyed when they receive the same CV (resume) more than once;
- Fail to request a candidateís permission before they send through a CV (resume);
- Refuse to accept a candidateís first response if they are not interested in an opportunity;
- Cold call candidates at their place of work ñ especially if they know that a candidate has only recently accepted an appointment;
- Use candidates to gain inside information of an organisationís personnel.
Of course, this list is not exhaustive. But we believe that it fairly represents some of the chief complaints that candidates justifiably have of recruitment consultants. It certainly demonstrates that recruitment consultants do not view their candidates as contingent assets. Rather, it suggests that candidates are viewed as little more than fodder ñ as we said at the beginning, a means to an end. And if thatís how they view their candidates, then what does that say about their view of employers?
To us, it suggests that recruitment consultants do not take their service to employers very seriously at all (remember, this is the ìbells and whistlesî paid-for service). If they did, then they would not send candidates along for inappropriate opportunities. They would not try to lure recently-inducted employees away from an employer (knowing full well that this is the most vulnerable time for any employee and therefore a time when they might be prised away cheaply). In fact, their whole treatment of candidates is, we contend, reflective of their attitude to employers as well ñ again a means to an end. For the all the protestations to the contrary, for all the serious talk of forging meaningful and long-lasting relationships with employers, recruitment consultants seem to behave in just the same way to employers as they do to candidates. Cold calling, inappropriate CVs (resumes), over-selling contacts, unreliable feedback from candidates (i.e., saying what the employer wants to hear), insufficient resources invested in advertising opportunities ñ these are just some of the issues facing employers who use recruitment consultants. And when one considers that recruitment consultants demand a pretty penny for their services (up to 30% of the face value of a salary), it seems incredible that this situation has endured for as long as it has, which brings us neatly on to the economic arguments for what we are trying to do here at NRC.com.
The economic arguments for change
The most important point to grasp is that candidates are not just candidates. They are actually stakeholders as well. Perhaps they are also customers or friends of (or related to) customers. Perhaps they are affiliated in some way to suppliers. They will almost certainly be residents of the local community in which a recruiting company operates. Most importantly, they have the ability to form opinions. A poor recruitment process will shape those opinions negatively and, moreover, create the impetus for the communication and dissemination of those opinions. Conversely, a good recruitment process (and we will come on to what we mean by either a good or bad recruitment process) will tend to frame positive opinions and again create the impetus for the communication and dissemination of those opinions. In fact, candidates ñ as entities that come into direct physical contact with an organisation and its employees, are a hugely significant stakeholder. They will take their first-hand experiences away with them and because of the emotionally-charged nature of a recruitment process, a process in which aspirational dreams are toyed with, these experiences have a powerful influence on a companyís external environment. It is, therefore, self-evident that companies need to manage recruitment carefully.
In fact, what we are talking about here is the continuation of a broadly-accepted and influential concept ñ brand management. Companies invest a great deal of resource in marketing, advertising and customer relations because they know that the brand ñ that most intangible and valuable of assets ñ is king. The old adage, that a brand takes time and care and an awful lot of perseverance to create, but only one PR disaster to destroy, is a truism. And nowhere is it more relevant than in the interview room. That is why it is so important to manage recruitment with the brand as central focus. But letís get more specific. What exactly do we mean by a good or a bad recruitment process? A good recruitment process, we contend, is one in which the brand is evocatively and enthusiastically conveyed. Central to the achievement of this goal is the proper care and respect for the candidate ñ an appreciation that the candidate has chosen your company to interview for. This may sound strange to those accustomed to perceiving recruitment as a buyers market. Maybe it once was, but not any more. The explosion of the information age has seen to that. Candidates are empowered now to make choices. They are mobile. They are information-rich. They will avoid companies that do not ìlive up to their standardsî. And, crucially, they will reject an offer of employment if they feel that they were not treated well at an interview. Even if some do accept, for instance on the basis of a salary offered (which is hardly the most economic way for employers to attract the talent and skills that they need), these candidates will begin their employment with doubt lingering in their minds. And this can hardly be the basis upon which a successful career is built.
So, companies need to make sure that they create a positive impression during recruitment. This can mean all manner of things, but principally it means a recognition that the candidate is an equal party to the recruitment process, that the company must do as much to sell itself as the candidate. Thatís what our feedback system is all about. It produces metrics to quantify recruitment performance (for each interview round) so that companies can monitor and improve upon certain fundamentals. For instance, a company needs to know if someoneís interviewing style is off so that the proper investment in training can be made. In fact, we have identified nine criteria against which a company can benchmark its performance (enthusiasm, accuracy of role described versus the role advertised, timeliness, preparedness, quality of the premises in which the interview took place etc). No doubt these criteria will evolve and we are happy to customise them for companies and their specific circumstances, but fundamentally they provide quantifiable and therefore measurable results. We very much hope, in fact, that these Key Recruitment Performance Indicators (KRPIs), as we call them, become an established part of companiesí internal reporting practices and that the CEO reviews them just as closely as revenues, costs and margins in the never-ending mission to drive an organisationís success. And in return for such valuable information, we believe that it is incumbent upon organizations to return the favour by taking the time to provide each and every candidate that they interview with constructive and timely feedback. Candidates are anxious for personal success just as much as you are anxious for corporate success. Without this feedback, we believe that candidates have no way of knowing what they are doing correctly and what needs improvement. And we believe that honest, transparent feedback will be hugely appreciated by candidates, which can only be to the good of the corporate brand.
The times they are a-changin sang the visionary poet Bob Dylan
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