Don’t Go At Recruiting Alone

by Liz Carey

I recently read an article called What Nobody Told Me When I Started Recruiting, in which the author, a recruiter, suggests that newbies to the industry are not given a good foundation on which to build their craft. And it really is a ‘craft’ – something which you can learn quickly, but spend a lifetime perfecting.

He says: “…given the lack of formal training in the field (aside from somewhat new certification programs), here’s what I’m here to tell new recruiters: Don’t go at it alone. Lean on your community of recruiting peers. It doesn’t matter if you’re agency, corporate, contract, RPO, consultant. We are not competing against each other. We are collectively responsible for the humans we serve — including ourselves — and their experience in the world of work.”

The NPAworldwide recruiting network members would likely agree – sometimes your “competition” can turn into your best partner.

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Recruiting Resources Worth the Cost

by Liz Carey

I am what you call a frugal person – I use coupons whenever I can, I search for the best gas prices on an app, and I happily accept hand-me-downs. But even the thriftiest person knows that there are some areas where you just shouldn’t cut corners. As a recruiter and business owner, you should weigh whether your resources are an expense or an investment, and allot your budget accordingly.

For example, a number of NPAworldwide members are currently attending our Global Conference in Ft. Worth, TX. When you consider the ticket, airfare and hotel, yes, this is another cost to add to the expenses. But when you consider the agenda includes professional speakers presenting topics from candidate sourcing, to marketing strategies, to diversity recruiting – not to mention the opportunities for networking – there is a significant return on investment in attending. Read the rest of this entry »


Recruiters, Pause Busywork to Think

by Liz Carey

The end of the year is a great time to look back at your processes and see what’s working, what isn’t, what can be improved, etc. It can be hard to reflect and make a change when you’re trapped in a cycle of constant demands – which is especially true for recruiters, who are so busy it’s often hard to “come up for air.”

An article about resolving to do less busywork has been floating around our office. In the article, from Associations Now, it suggests that to grow professionally, you have to stop spending so much time on “busywork” – i.e. logical tasks that don’t require much brainpower and are often done while distracted.

In the recruiting world, what comes to mind is the endless daily “to-dos” and quantitative goals to accomplish (i.e. send X # of InMails or emails, make X # of cold calls to prospective clients, checking social media, entering candidates into your ATS, pulling reports/data entry, etc). But while you’re glued to the phone trying to achieve a certain amount of phone calls, you might “look” busy but actually be achieving nothing.

“Busywork” often does have inherent value and needs to be completed, but tends to not create “new value.” The article stresses you need to carve out time to just think. It’s easy to get caught up in the endless cycle of calls and emails, but it’s important to step back and create time where you can reflect on the bigger picture. Block out an hour say on Thursday morning to work on something that will get no attention unless you break free of the email catch-up game.

This is an opportunity, the article states, to focus on “deep work” opportunities, which create new value, improve skills, and his hard to replicate. For a recruiting firm, a good activity to ponder might be your current marketing processes or business development strategies. If your team each had an hour or two each week where they were free from the phone/email, it would allow them to research, brainstorm new ideas, and possibly create new processes for your business that could save time and/or money, or increase productivity. It also places value on the employee – for their skills and thoughts, and encourages them to think outside the box, rather than thinking they’re just another cog in the wheel.

Do you have a process in place to allow yourself time to just think?

 

 


Split Placements Add Value to Recruitment Businesses

by Dave Nerz

hand making a flow chartIndependent recruiters are risk takers. Recruiters typically strike out and leave the comforts of the corporate life behind. Many of these entrepreneurial ventures grow and prosper. One of the things I am seeing more frequently is the desire to create an “exit strategy” from the recruiting franchise that produces value in return for the risks taken and the successes achieved. In some cases the founding entrepreneur has been better at creating and growing the business than they have been at making the business saleable. Those buying a business want to see what value has been added to the business. They are not buying the entrepreneur; they want to buy what is left after the founder is gone.

So what can be done to add value to a recruiting business?

Add Process: The buyer wants to know that the success of the business is not dependent on any one individual. There needs to be a process for recruiting, doing the books, hiring and retaining, marketing the recruiting franchise, and even keeping the place clean and stocked with pens and toilet paper. A rule of thumb: if it is not written down, it is not yet a process.

Add Quality People: What people stay behind when the entrepreneur leaves? They don’t all need to be employees but they should be part of the process and the relationships might be better if captured in writing. This one is a little trickier as some buyers may want to use their own bookkeepers and cleaning services, so don’t get locked into irreversible contracts.

Add Connections: Develop and document the relationships that separate your business from others in the same niche or market. Trading partners that work cooperatively with your business can be the difference between a good year and a great year. They can add the revenue that represents the total profit for any year. These connections add value, but need to be documented in order to produce value at the time of sale.

Add Sources of Revenue: The number one value added source of revenue for any recruiting business is contract placement. These contracts smooth the peaks and valleys associated with contingent recruiting. The ongoing revenue adds to the basic value of the business and increases the likelihood of a sale for a recruiting business.

A second way to smooth the ups and downs is the inclusion of split placements. Split placement revenue is not guaranteed, nor is there a guarantee of continuation on the departure of the founding entrepreneur. But if properly documented as part of the recruiting process, split placements can be demonstrated to add value and reduce the risk of long dry spells for incoming revenue. The ability to work others’ jobs when you have none—or to seek the help of others (without adding staff) when the business is overwhelmed—is a great value that needs to be documented and sold as part of the business.

Add a Formal Split Fee Network: Showing a potential buyer that you have formalized the process to the point of being an active member of a split fee network is a bonus for any potential buyer.

Make your years of risk-taking pay off. Plan ahead and add value that a future owner would potentially pay for.

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