Over There: Is the Recession just going to be another Groundhog Day for Recruitment and HR?

Over There with Andy Headworth

The latest installment in my recurring Over There feature takes us back to the United Kingdom where Andy Headworth takes a look at the ways in which UK recruiters have been dealing with the recession.

Does it seem like we have heard this before?  Naw……..

Just like it was yesterday

From Drop Box

Remember this? Eighteen months ago (pre-recession) the recruiters over here in the UK were busy. In fact they were so busy that they were pushing up their fees because they had SO MUCH business out there! The gen Y’ers were in major demand by companies everywhere, manically trying to get their hands on the ‘fabled talent salvations’, and companies were literally tearing their hair out to find talent out there in the marketplace.

Well, now of course we are currently on the full flipside of that, but I don’t think it will be too long before companies will be in exactly the same situation as they were many months previously. For some, it will be as if they have just come out of hibernation, and they simply haven’t realised a recession even existed at all!

The ability to learn from experiences or mistakes is absolutely essential to long term success, but many companies who have successfully got themselves through these tough times, will quickly revert to type and become groundhogs again!

Recruitment in the last year

Let me just take you through the experiences of some companies, and how they have dealt with recruitment through the last year.

Stage 1: Recession bites. Recruitment is cut back, if not completely frozen. Recruitment agency spend dramatically reduced or frozen. ‘Spare’ internal recruiters let go, Talent Managers re-assigned and staff cuts prevalent.

Stage 2: Realisation that recruitment still needs to go on, but companies are not sure how to address this and what it would do for their profile, having had to let staff go recently. They can’t be seen to be using external recruiters, but don’t know how to recruit new staff directly. They bring in an external (typically ex- recruitment agency person) recruiter to manage this recruitment, because they see it as a cost effective way to get the job done.

Stage 3: Initially, the ex-agency recruiter has success. They use their knowledge of candidate sourcing to start to recruit the staff needed. They also have direct contact with the line managers, as their internal clients, so think their job is an easy one. It is helped by the millions of unemployed, making it a bit of a ‘duck shoot’ for the recruiter. Client very happy – recruiter just happy to be in a job, but wondering how much commission they would have got if they had placed all these people in their last employment.

Stage 4: Recession is now really kicking in and application levels and speculative CV’s are arriving by the thousand. Companies are getting swamped. Some of the switched-on ATS (Applicant Tracking System) organisations quickly realise the potential and start to sell their products directly to companies more readily. It makes sense of course, as these systems are the only way of dealing with the now huge numbers of applicants applying.

Stage 5: The lack of recruitment skills now start to have an effect. The ex-agency recruiter that was hired (apologies to the few good ones out there!) is now struggling. They are not used to doing the full 360 degree aspect of the recruitment lifecycle. They don’t have the experience to deal with the situation they are now in. After all, they could ‘hide’, because they were the ‘agency’, and could pass the buck where needed. Now the focus is purely on them. They have little experience of ATS implementation, or more importantly how to manage expectations internally across the line management.
HR can’t help – they are far too busy with the increased levels of grievances, and all the other staff issues born out of the recession. For the first time in their career, the recruiter has to ‘take point’ and be answerable!

Stage 6: The recruiter starts to get stressed. They simply don’t have the experience for this. This isn’t what they joined for – they were told that they were there just to recruit staff! No –one mentioned the (obvious) fact that they would be responsible for something!

Stage 7: The companies, while inundated with CV’s, are being very choosy and only wanting very specific skills. They are not appearing in the inbox. The recruiter (who should be skilled in this part) has to look outside the incoming people. The problem is that this recruiter only ever knew how to place adverts on job boards and sift the response. They didn’t know how to properly search for candidates. Of course they could do a search on LinkedIn or the Monster database, but they hadn’t been trained or shown how to do that properly. They hadn’t needed to, to be successful before.

When they do find the candidates they like, they struggle to extract them from their current employer, as they simply don’t have the candidate management skills to be able to deal with all the objections.
The companies are starting to see staff needs develop. Line Managers don’t believe there is a shortage of people, and apply pressure.

Stage 8: The recession starts to show a few green shoots. Suddenly there is a little surge of demand from the company for some interim/contract resource for a new project initiative. The recruiter is now in a zone they haven’t been before. After all no-one told them it would be contract recruitment – they have only done permanent recruitment before! The struggles continue. The company is getting frustrated at the lack of direct candidates.

Stage 9: The HR Director, instructs the recruiter to contact a few agencies to see if they have any of the required skilled candidates – but at a reduced rate of course.

Stage 10: The agencies, desperate to impress, deliver the goods quickly.

Stage 11: The market picks up further. Recruitment agencies, buoyed by the increasing enquiries from clients, start to recruit new consultants again.

Stage 12: The recruiter receives a call from a Rec2Rec agency she registered with previously. Hallelujah! A way out of their repetitive pain has been found! The recruitment agency is keen to bring in someone who has been on the other side, and can provide valuable client-side insights (as well as that company as a new client!) Oh yes, they mention the ‘magic words’ commission and bonus! SOLD!

Stage 13: The Company is left without a recruiter. No problem. The agencies they used previously have delivered and at a reduced rate. The HR Director can happily now ‘justify’ the new lower fees to their Financial Director, and deals with them directly again. And anyway the recruiter wasn’t as good as they had thought!

Stage 14: The market is fully back on stream, and the company now has regular requirements. The agencies, starved of business for a long time, are very keen to deliver and are currently finding the required candidates. Yes there are fees attached, but the Line Managers are happy now!

Stage 15: Agencies are struggling to find the people the companies need. They try more agencies and the story is the same. Some agencies are now putting up the rates again – it is supply and demand after all!

Stage 16: The ‘forgotten’ generation – the gen Y’ers – are slowly being courted again as a solution to staff shortages. Yes they will need some development and training, but they will be grateful for a job won’t they?

Until Next Year

Full circle will arrive; I have no doubt of that – admittedly probably not until late 2010 – 2011. But there will be success stories out there. Many companies will have used the recession to change their ways, bring in experienced people and new methods, like social recruiting.

I hope that this recession does have some positives for our industry, but the many experiences of companies who have tried to use ‘so-called’ experienced recruiters to reduce their recruitment costs, will have a bearing on recruitment for the next decade.
Many people talked about the death of recruitment agencies and job boards as we know it, but the fact is they will always be needed. There are so many companies that just simply don’t know how to recruit effectively. I include some big-names here, who on the outside, give the impression they ‘have everything in order’, but when you delve a little deeper, you realise that they are struggling like many others.

Many of these organisations will just revert to type, and will end up where they were, pre-recession. And who can blame them? If it worked for them before………..

PS: I would like to point out that while I have seen way too many poor recruiters out there, I have also come across some excellent ones as well. The lucky companies that have managed to find these ones, have made leaps and bounds forward, in terms of direct recruitment strategies, and are now in a much stronger position going forward. They really are a testament to everything that is great about recruitment!

About the blogger

From Drop Box

Andy Headworth is the Managing Director of Sirona Consulting Ltd, a specialist consultancy that helps and advises companies on recruitment strategy, process, candidate attraction, staff retention and how best to use social media as a recruitment tool.

He lives in Worthing, UK and has been working in the recruitment industry for over twenty years and still very much enjoys it! Andy is also a passionate blogger, and writes a well read blog – Sirona Says which is his wry look on the world of recruitment, HR and jobs. He mixes a ‘tell it like it is’ approach with a good mix of humour! Andy is also very tuned into the world of social media and can be found sharing his wisdom on Twitter and on LinkedIn.

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