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Agency Recruiting Under Counteroffer Attack

by Dave Nerz

Agency recruiting firms have long repeated the stories of employees accepting a counteroffer only to be fired weeks later. We have all heard the numbers. Eighty percent of employees accepting a counteroffer are gone within a year of accepting the deal. That doesn’t stop counteroffers from happening. More and more employers are using counteroffers as an active strategy. They have become aggressive during recent years.

At one time, many employers refused to make counteroffers. Instead they accepted the resignations and asked employees to pack up immediately. Where there was no competition to the recruiter, now there is an all-out battle with agency recruiting businesses. Companies are aware of the cost-to-hire, the cost of positions left vacant and most importantly how easy it is to offer a candidate a big increase that they will never fully payout. Employees are by nature willing to entertain the counteroffer as it means less change in their lives and if the employer is creating a perceive windfall, all the better. This change may be largely a result of the shortage of good employees. Employers, desperate to hang onto top talent in this tight labor market, have been increasing the use of the counteroffer. Yet experts agree, accepting a counter is typically a poor career move.

What are agency recruiters to do?

Those working the agency recruiting side of the equation need to prepare for the counteroffer on the initial candidate contact. Make sure you know the motivation for change and confirm it on every call to the candidate. The motivators are rarely just money. While the existing employer can beat the agency recruiter’s new job’s salary offer, they cannot effectively address poor company culture, bad managers, and the host of other reasons the candidate started a search with an agency recruiter in the first place.

What have you experienced? How many recent turn-downs are a result of a counteroffer? Are the wage increases significant? Have those accepting the counters stayed? How long? Do you see this in one industry or profession more often than in others?

3 Things Every International Recruitment Agency Should Do Right Now

by Veronica Blatt

In order to remain relevant with clients and job seekers alike, every international recruitment agency should do these three things right now:

1. Review your website on a mobile device. Google has recently announced that it will begin penalizing websites that offer a poor experience for mobile users. Since 57% of all job searches are being done from a mobile device, no international recruitment agency can afford a penalty from Google. What is meant by a ‘poor experience’? Lots of things, but particularly broken navigation or interior pages, as well as redirects from a mobile site to a ‘regular’ site. What’s the best way to tell if your site is as risk? Check it out on a mobile device or two. What to look for:

Does your site automatically resize and/or re-orient depending on the device?
Does the navigation still work on a mobile device? I have encountered many sites where the home page looks great on my Android phone, but when I try to use the menu to go to a different page, nothing happens.
If you have a mobile site, (one with an “m” in the URL, like m.domain.com or domain.com/m), are all of the pages included in your mobile version? Or do some pages link back to your main site?

If you notice that your site doesn’t perform as expected on a mobile device, fix it NOW.

2. Get a social media dashboard (especially if you are using Twitter). It’s hard to imagine an international recruitment agency that is not using some form of social media these days. Invest in a good dashboard to help manage the activity, especially if you are using Twitter. A social media dashboard is simply an organizational tool (software) to help you manage your social media activity. It can include features such as the ability to monitor one or more social networks, automate posting to multiple channels, schedule posts, and reporting/analytics to help you measure results. If you are using Twitter, a good dashboard is even more essential because the volume of Tweets can be overwhelming to follow. There are lots of great dashboards available. Here is a good blog on what to look for in a dashboard.

3. Switch your browser to Google Chrome. Google Chrome offers some powerful plug-ins that can be really useful for an international recruitment agency. A few to consider:

Brandwatch – Brandwatch is a social listening platform. It’s a great way to get a lot of data, fast, on what a particular candidate is doing/saying across the web. In other words, you can use ONE social media profile to find OTHER social profiles belonging to that same person.
WhoWorks.at – Let’s say you are looking at the website of a potential client. Click the WhoWorks.at icon and you will immediately see a list of all your first-degree LinkedIn connections who work at that company. Pretty nifty, right?
TalentBin – Similar to Falcon, but for recruiting in the IT/tech space. TalentBin drills down into sites like Stackoverflow and Quora, where techies are known to hang out. The downside is that you may need to pay for a premium account to access all the functionality.
PageMonitor – PageMonitor allows you to set up an alert that will notify you anytime a particular webpage you are interested in gets updated. How would you like to be notified whenever your clients updated their career pages?

What’s the best tip you can share from YOUR international recruitment agency? Add a comment below!

How Agency Recruiters Can Work More Effectively with Clients

by Veronica Blatt

Today’s post is courtesy of guest blogger Kimberley Chesney. Kimberley is the owner of Prime Management Group in Canada, with offices in London and Kitchener (Ontario). Kimberley is a long-time volunteer for NPA, currently serving as Chair of the NPA Board of Directors.

Why is it that clients are asking for so much information before they make a hiring decision? One of the frustrations agency recruiters have is working with clients who are slow to pull the trigger and HIRE!

When this type of thing happens, it is a good idea to learn something. For example, if this is a new client and you haven’t worked with them before, chances are, you don’t know much about their decision-making style. Many so-called hiring authorities are just one link in the chain of command and really have no sole discretionary powers to actually create the offer of employment. Unless you are dealing directly with the owner of a firm, you are likely faced with a situation where there are multiple inputs coming from different parties before the hire actually happens. Your contact may be asking people’s advice from inside as well as outside of the company. Suddenly, everyone becomes “recruiting experts” and they start adding layers of opinions, sometimes clouding and delaying the big decision.

A good practice is for agency recruiters to evaluate how decisions are going to be made before starting the search process. In a bureaucratic “cover your behind” type of environment, you will just need to breathe and take it one step at a time. Delays will happen. On the other hand, in an entrepreneurial environment where decisions can happen quickly, agency recruiters must be prepared to provide the required information in a timely fashion so the client can respond.

For example, how many of you actually do a Google or other type of internet search on the name of your finalist candidate? Sounds simple, but you can be sure those so-called recruitment experts are searching Facebook, LinkedIn, etc. and looking at what your candidate is all about. Agency recruiters who skip this step could end up in an awkward situation if the client finds out something before they do!

Successful agency recruiters never assume they are being paid to provide a name and a resume. A robot can do that. What are you doing to allow the client to make an informed hiring decision? When you send them that invoice for a nice big fee, will they look at it and say, “That was worth it,” or will they be left wondering, “What did I really get for that price?”

Stop and think about what you are actually sending your clients. Is it what they want and need or is it just something you think they should have? Too much or too little? You need to decide — and it will be different for each client!

Summer Reading for Independent Recruiters

by Veronica Blatt

I came across the following recommending summer reading list on SlideShare and wanted to share it with the independent recruiters who follow this blog. As an added bonus, each book also includes a recommended beverage. Yes, I know it’s winter in the southern hemisphere. It’s also currently 11:17AM US ET, but in the immortal words of Alan Jackson and Jimmy Buffett, “It’s Five O’Clock Somewhere.” Hopefully recruiters from all over the globe can find something interesting on this list.

From the list, I’ll be adding Blink by Malcolm Gladwell and Lean In by Sheryl Sandburg to my reading list. Independent recruiters will find other recommendations on a good range of topics and authors.

And in case you’re interested… as soon as I finish up the ~~bodice-ripper~~ romance novel I am currently reading, I’m looking forward to starting The Last Boy: Mickey Mantle and the End of America’s Childhood. You see, it’s summertime in Michigan. And that means baseball. Since nothing goes with baseball like an ice-cold beer, I’ll be enjoying a locally-brewed Bell’s Oberon.

Independent recruiters, what are you reading right now?

Books Every Recruiter Must Read This Summer [and Beverages to Consume Along] from LinkedIn Talent Solutions

5 Reasons eHarmony Won’t Threaten Agency Recruiters

by Veronica Blatt

So eHarmony, the popular online dating site, is developing a career site to match job seekers to employers. Puh-leeze. As far as I am concerned, agency recruiters shouldn’t spend even five minutes worrying about this new ‘competition.’ I’ve written before about how job boards compare to online dating services, and my sentiments haven’t changed.

Here are my top 5 reasons why eHarmony’s new endeavor won’t threaten agency recruiters:

1. Hiring is not dating. Sometimes you go on a date and realize there won’t be a second date. Sometimes you date for a few months and realize the relationship isn’t going anywhere. Many times (most?) when you break up, you never want to see or hear from the other person again. How does that make sense for employment? Most employers don’t want to hire someone only to hear, “It’s not you, it’s me” 3 months later. And most employers also don’t approach most hires with a “try it before you buy it” mentality. Applying a dating ‘strategy’ to the employment process really doesn’t make a lot of sense. Agency recruiters, on the other hand, cultivate long-term relationships with candidates BEFORE they have a job that is suitable. And they stay in touch with their “exes,” knowing that people move on and create new placement opportunities.

2. Really long ‘application’ process will turn off job seekers and employers alike. To use eHarmony as a dating site, users must currently complete a 250+ question profile. 250+ questions! Just to see if eHarmony will even accept you as a user! Now complicate it by factoring in the high probability that job seekers will be using a mobile device. 250 questions on a phone? Not gonna happen.

2. High rejection rate, which could be discriminatory in an employment context. According to some reports, approximately 20% of all people who try to use eHarmony’s dating platform are rejected as unsuitable. True, many of them are already married, which doesn’t bode well for a site that wants to help people find lasting relationships that lead to marriage. BUT, a significant number of applicants are rejected because the answers they give on the eHarmony profile are inconsistent or too hard to match. eHarmony believes that people who think a lot like each other are more likely to be compatible. Translation: eHarmony works best for black-and-white “yes/no” people. People who think “it depends” is usually the right answer are harder to match in this system. Lots of jobs require flexibility, creative thinking, and nuance — in other words, “it depends” answers. If it turns out that there are certain types of people who are more likely than others to be rejected because of the way they answer questions, this could potentially lead to discrimination-related lawsuits.

3. Lies and TMI (Too Much Information). People exaggerate or outright lie on both their resumes AND their online dating profiles. Savvy users have figured out the keyword game and know how to stuff their profiles with words they think others will search on. TMI is another issue, with some people “oversharing” and an increasing number of employers reportedly turning down candidates based on what they have posted on social media profiles. Agency recruiters struggle with these same issues, which can’t be solved (yet) with an algorithm.

4. Poor job descriptions / employers don’t know what they want. The best matches come when both sides to the party know what they are looking for. Unfortunately, many employers still struggle with poorly-written job descriptions that are based on what a candidate HAS and not what the candidate can DO. It’s the old garbage in, garbage out concept – if the employer doesn’t know what they want, no one will be able to find it, whether it’s an agency recruiter OR a service like eHarmony.

5. The people you want aren’t there. People who aren’t actively looking for a date OR a job probably aren’t using these sites. I don’t care how good the site is, you can only find the people who register.

Hiring is a complex process. It involves a lot more than comparing yes/no tick boxes on an online profile. Agency recruiters understand nuance and culture, which can’t easily be analyzed with software. If job boards haven’t put you out of business, this won’t either. Share if you agree!

Image courtesy of kanate / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

7 Guaranteed Ways to Kill Split Placements

by Veronica Blatt

NPA is a member-owned recruiting network that helps foster split placements. We’ve been doing this since 1956, so we have learned a lot about how to make splits. Today I’m devoting this space to the opposite side of the coin – with a tongue-in-cheek look at some actions you can take if you’re NOT serious about making splits. And if you *really* want to kill a deal, feel free to combine 3 or 4 of these all at once:

Hoard your best positions. One sure way to fail at split placements is by only sharing crappy jobs. When you get a great job – great fee, great salary, great company, great hiring process, great relationship with the hiring manager – keep that one all to yourself. Only let your partners ‘help’ you on the jobs that are the complete opposite.

Hoard your best candidates. When you get a rainmaker that’s a perfect fit for your partner’s job, hold out for an opportunity to place them on your own for a full fee. That way, you can up the odds that everyone walks away unhappy. Got a marginal candidate that you wouldn’t send to your own best client? Feel free to send that one along to your trading partner. Conversely, when you get a great candidate from your partner, be sure to present your OWN not-as-great candidate instead so that you can keep the whole fee.

Send speculative candidates that have not been qualified for a current opening. Nothing says, “I love split placements” like expecting your partner to do something with a candidate they didn’t ask for and doesn’t match any of their current positions.

Be paranoid. When you’re working on split placements, make sure you speak in code and withhold a lot of details, like the candidate’s name or the client’s name or the job location. Your partners *love* that.

Don’t return calls/reply to email. Providing timely, accurate feedback to your partner (whether on the candidate side or the job side) is really important when making split placements. If you want to kill your deal, it’s a good idea to avoid your trading partner.

Don’t make any proactive calls for help. When you have a job to fill, send out one email blast to everyone you know. Then sit back and lament the poor response. After all, email *always* gets delivered, and *everyone* loves being on an email distribution list.

Don’t have a 50/50 mindset. This can be achieved by expecting your partner to accept a smaller cut of the fee (20-25%) OR by expecting to receive half of the fee for doing way less than half the work. Most recruiters I know would be *thrilled* to have an arrangement that unfairly rewards one partner over another.

Recruiters who are successful at split placements know that “50% of something is better than 100% of nothing.” They openly share their best candidates and jobs, and treat their partners “fair and square.” My snarky comments are exaggerated, but these behaviors will — and DO — impede splits. What’s your ‘favorite’ deal-killer?

NPAworldwide Split Placements: What is HOT!

by Terri Piersma

NPAworldwide member-firms are part of a global network of recruiters working together to make split fee placements. 2013 is almost half over. In which niches/industries are our member recruiters making split fee placements? In other words, from an NPAworldwide perspective, what is hot!

The information shared in this post represents split placements through May 2013.

Placements of positions with US$90,000 and above salaries were 54% of total split placements
Placements of positions with US$100,000 and above salaries were 35% of total split placements

Top 4 Trading Groups based on the number of split placements, listed high to low. Click here to view industries/niches included in NPAworldwide’s Trading Groups.

Chemical Process

Cross Industry

Manufacturing / Mining / Construction / Supply

IT / Hardware / Software / Electronics

Trading Group with the largest percentage increase over 2012 based on number of split placements

Chemical Process

Overall split placements are down slightly compared with the number of split placements during the same timeframe in 2012. However, the number of positions with US$90,000 and above salaries increased compared to 2012 split placements.

What niches/industries have you found to be HOT in 2013? Please comment below, and share this blog with others.

When is a split not a split?

by Dave Nerz

I’ve been spurred to action by what some are calling “split networks” for recruiters. These new providers are positioning themselves to be split networks like NPA, The Worldwide Recruiting Network, but they are really something else. These providers serve a purpose, but they are brokers not split networks. Breathe Dave, breathe…fill the lungs, rest, exhale and repeat…

There is a new breed of provider to the recruitment industry and they are hijacking a long-established recruiter language to repackage what they do and to make a killing doing it. They call themselves split networks.

In the recruiting industry, a split has always been a deal that was shared by two recruiters. Even within the walls of a recruitment firm, a deal that gets worked on by two recruiters is a split. There are other industries that work on a similar model, for example realtors who share the commission/fee that results from the sale of a home. There is a split that is shared between the selling agent and the buyer’s agent. In a split fee environment, the fee is shared and so is the work.

This new breed is acting as a clearing house for job openings, much like the multi-listing service in property sales. But rather than taking a small percentage off the top, some are taking as much as 50% of the fee collected without doing half of the work. Can you imagine if LinkedIn said, “We will allow you access to candidates but if you do a deal, we are going to take 50% of the fee.” The recruiting community would go ballistic!!! Then why is it that recruiters seem to be OK with giving 50% of the fee earned to these clearing house sites for employers? Recruiters end up doing nearly all the work but get half the fee. “ALL the work and HALF the fee,” that would be quite a marketing tag line, right?

There are some very good split networks. I think NPA is one, but I am not an unbiased source of information. TE, IPA, First Interview and NBN, just to mention a few, are great organizations built to help recruiters do splits. There are some commendable online groups, many of which are doing the hard work of connecting recruiters to do splits. Some of these organizations take a small percentage off the top; others are even free or just charge dues. Until recently, no one promoting splits has been taking 50% for themselves unless they were doing at least 50% of the work. So be careful, a split is not always a split…sometimes it is a huge commission for a broker of jobs.

In a community that worries about “LinkedIn’s intentions” and “will job boards compete with recruiters,” there are other threats in the mix. Be careful out there! Look for services that are providing HALF the fee for HALF the work.

Now tell me about where I went wrong…feedback, comments and shares are always welcome.

Nimble Markets & Old Habits for Recruitment Agencies

by Veronica Blatt

Today’s guest blogger is Geoff Crews with Forsythes Recruitment in Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia. Forsythes Recruitment specializes in engineering and technical recruitment; corporate recruitment, including executive, sales, HR, and finance; office support recruitment including admin, accounts, and clerical; trade and industrial recruitment; and organizational consulting including psychometric assessment, outplacement, and OD. Geoff serves on NPA’s Board of Directors where he is a member of the Tools, Knowledge, and Services Committee.

We have decided to unplug the TV at our house recently. A kind of family experiment. We were spending longer in front of it for an ever-decreasing return in entertainment. It was losing its value.

It has opened up a new world of communication with our young kids. Creativity. Paper planes. Uno. Board games. Taking turns. Dice. Encouragement. Strategy. Winning. Losing.

The TV experiment means I miss a lot of advertising. And so this business – www.nimble.com.au – was new to me when I stumbled across it recently.

Nimble is an online business providing simple, short-term loans of less than $600. The online form takes 5 minutes and the money is deposited into your account within the hour.

Nimble launched in 2005 and recently rebranded, incorporating an impressive website. Their journey has been challenging but inspiring.

When did the market emerge for such small loans?

And while we’re retrospecting (spell check likes it, so remain calm), I note 140 characters suddenly became enough to communicate something meaningful.

And putting your resume online, in full view of your employer, even though you actually quite liked your job, became acceptable.

What is Nimble providing that credit cards can’t? Twitter providing that emails can’t? LinkedIn that recruitment agencies and job boards can’t?

Speed?

Simplicity?

Accessibility?

Transparency?

Specialisation?

Authenticity?

Whatever your answer, can you use those same words to describe your industry?

This economy, as frustrating as it is, is an oddly exciting time for recruitment agencies. Fertile ground for experimenting with established markets. Being creative. Putting value under the microscope.

A good time to consider unplugging old habits.

Agency Recruiting Under Counteroffer Attack

How Agency Recruiters Can Work More Effectively with Clients

Summer Reading for Independent Recruiters

7 Guaranteed Ways to Kill Split Placements

NPAworldwide Split Placements: What is HOT!

When is a split not a split?

Nimble Markets & Old Habits for Recruitment Agencies

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