Today’s guest blogger is Henry Goldbeck, of Goldbeck Recruiting. Goldbeck Recruiting is a recruitment and executive search firm located in Vancouver, BC. As true employment consultants, they bridge industry expertise and headhunting excellence with human resource support throughout the hiring process to improve the success of a new recruit.
Since 1997, they have filled challenging positions in industries and expertise areas like sales, engineering, biotech, accounting & finance, manufacturing & operations and the non profit sector.
Cross-regional recruitment partnerships, and indeed cross-sector and cross-specialty partnerships, represent a huge benefit that the NPAworldwide network provides to member firms, clients and candidates. While it’s true that sharing the workload also means sharing the fee, it’s also the case that such alliances can lead to otherwise unachievable recruiting victories, to the satisfaction of the client and the long-term benefit of your bottom line.
Geographical Advantages of Cross-Regional Recruitment Partnerships
The most obvious cases in which recruitment partnerships can prove beneficial are those where geography is a factor. Even in this age of virtual recruiting, it’s impossible to be on top of your game in all corners of the planet. Understanding the labour market in another region or country can be challenging enough but when language and culture become additional factors, the help of a local partner can be indispensable to filling the position as well as convincing the client of your ability to fill the position.
One of the great advantages of NPAworldwide is it allows members to use the network as much or as little as their recruiting business model needs. At Goldbeck Recruiting, we use the network irregularly, but when we do, it is critically relied upon and almost always a success.
Recently, we received an inquiry from a company looking for a technology sales engineer based in Tokyo, Japan, a position we would never be able to fill (or accept) on our own. As always, I contacted NPAworldwide. They connected me with a trusted partner in Tokyo who was able to find candidates within weeks, and together we filled the position and shared a substantial fee. That was the first position we filled with that client, but not the last.
In addition we have over the years utilized NPAworldwide partners to assist with searches across North America, South America and in Mexico, China, Europe, and Mongolia, among other places.
Utilizing Recruitment Partnerships with Sector Specialties
The advantage of local geographical expertise is a given, but sector-specific knowledge can also be borrowed from the right partnering firm. Those with an extensive understanding of a particular industry, and the candidate database to match, can be of great service. Partnering with firms that specialize in the same areas as you do can help both companies elevate their knowledge.
While linking with those who provide proficiency in an industry where you are less experienced can bring obvious benefits during a tough search, there can be other benefits as well. Recently, successful collaborations with NPAworldwide partners have supported us with great IT candidates, allowing Goldbeck Recruiting to accept more business in this lucrative space where we lack the internal sources to recruit.
Taking Advantage of the NPAworldwide Network
NPAworldwide is a useful resource, sufficient in size and geographical scope to meet most challenges at hand. Some firms specialize in exporting candidates while other firms use the network to fill their positions. The flexibility exists to use NPAworldwide in the way that works for your recruiting needs, with little commitment besides paying the membership fee and operating within the terms. Regardless of the location, type, or language of the search, there are valuable partnerships to be had.
Establishing Trust
Any good relationship can only exist in the presence of trust; in professional relationships that trust works best when backed by a formalized understanding of the terms under which business will be conducted. When working with another recruiting firm, it’s important to establish who has ownership of client and candidate, to agree upon non-disclosure and non-compete parameters, to define appropriate lines of communication, the payment terms and to outline a chain of command so that the blame game doesn’t emerge in the wake of a failed candidate or bad experience.
NPAworldwide is extremely well-founded from a legal point of view, with established terms clearly laid out. I’ve personally been a member of the network for over 20 years and have been both importer and exporter on multiple successful searches without any disagreements over payment, client ownership or other issues. This aspect of NPAworldwide should not be taken for granted. That fact that an NPAworldwide member can accept a candidate, or a position to work on, from another NPAworldwide partner who they have never spoken with before and have full confidence in the partner’s respect for the network’s terms of sharing business is essential to the organization’s success and a testament to NPAworldwide’s President, Dave Nerz, his management team and the successive Boards of Directors who have guided the growth of NPAworldwide over the years.
It’s true that collecting all of the revenue from a placement is better than collecting only part of it, but some is also better than none and, without the help of a partnering recruiting firm, sometimes a proper placement may not be completed at all. The risk of failing to provide your client with a winning candidate is having your firm demoted from top spot on their call list. Coming through for them, even when outside help is necessary, keeps you in control of the client relationship.
Recruitment partnerships allow firms to leverage their specialties, maintain or gain clients, build expertise, achieve success in difficult situations, gain business, and stabilize monthly revenue. Solid networks such as NPAworldwide facilitate such partnerships to the benefit of all involved with their inherent level of trust and structure combined with the flexibility to use the network as best fits the recruiting firm’s business model.