Recruitment Agency Budget Ideas

by Veronica Blatt

pink-piggy-bankThe end of the year is quickly approaching (gulp!), which means it’s a great time to think about next year’s business expenses. Here are a few areas you might review, whether you need to spend money or are looking to save some:

  • Telephone – A lot has changed in the telecom world over the past few years. We’ve been in the process of reviewing our telephone system and we have learned a lot! VoIP systems have improved greatly – you can probably lower your bill *and* get a system that allows for a more flexible work environment. While you’re at it, see how many lines you are paying for. Do you really need a dedicated fax line? How about that inbound toll-free number?
  • Internet – Slow Internet really doesn’t cut it anymore, especially as more and more software services move to the cloud. If you’re going to consider VoIP, make sure you have enough bandwidth to support it. Also, watch out for bandwidth ‘thieves’ – like streaming music and video.
  • ATS / Technology Tools – Again, the landscape has changed greatly. If it’s been awhile since you’ve been in the market for new technology tools, maybe it’s worth another look. Cloud-based subscriptions seem to be the current trend in software – this *might* mean an increase in monthly operating costs (no more skipping upgrade cycles). The upside is that you get upgrades as and when they occur, and you’re always using the ‘current’ version. Next, are you *really* using the full feature set with LinkedIn Recruiter, or could you switch to a less expensive option? What about job boards, aggregators, and advertising sites? Is there an opportunity to share a package with another recruiting firm? While you’re looking at software and tools, take a look at your hardware too. There are great deals on laptops between now and the end of the year! Can you move your email to the cloud and get rid of your mail server? What about a cloud-based back-up system? Money spent on that is cheap compared to the misery (not to mention time & expense) of recovering data after a catastrophic failure.
  • Website – If you haven’t spent any money on your website in the past 5 years, please, for the love of Pete, spend some next year! Invest in a fully mobilized site. Think about moving to a dynamic structure that allows you to easily edit and add content – instead of having to write constant small checks to your developer every time you need an update.
  • Marketing – Your recruitment agency budget definitely needs to include some money for marketing. That could mean investing in a tool to make it easier to send newsletters. It could mean outside help for print or digital advertising. It definitely includes printing and postage. How about your letterhead and business cards? Consider hiring a dedicated resource for social media, blogging, and SEO. Be careful you don’t get suckered by a scummy SEO outfit promising page one search results or anything else that sounds too good to be true.
  • Professional Development – Do you set aside money every year for your own professional development? What about your staff? There are a lot of affordable options for online and/or local educational opportunities. What is available through the Chamber of Commerce? Your local library? After that, look at memberships and professional associations. You may find a membership to a local chapter of a professional association offers educational, networking, and business development opportunities that provide value far in excess of the membership fee.
  • Business Process Outsourcing – Do you know how much time you spend on non-revenue-producing activities? How much does that cost in lost productivity? Consider outsourcing some of your business processes – you know, those nagging tasks that need to be done, but don’t directly tie to revenue. Data entry, database maintenance, research, sourcing, and email marketing are a few ideas worth pondering. Yes, it may seem like this is an additional expense, but it is probably cheaper than doing it yourself. You’ll be able to devote more time to revenue-producing activities. A few more placements each year could easily cover the cost of outsourcing.
  • Office Space – Are you still renting office space? Can you find less expensive space? Share with another firm? Relocate to a home office, and utilize flexible office space like Regus when you need to conduct interviews or have other in-person meetings. I’ve known solo-proprietor attorneys who share office space AND administrative support.
  • Taxes and Insurance – Review your insurance policies. Make sure you are covered for everything need, but aren’t overpaying. Errors and omissions insurance is worth considering, along with business interruption coverage. Remember to set aside enough cash for those pesky quarterly tax estimates – late fees and other penalties can add up quickly!

Do you have any great budget tips you can share? Comment below!

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Confirm Your Subscription Settings!

by Veronica Blatt

We are migrating to a new email distribution service for our blog in January. Please click the button at the bottom of this post to confirm your subscription via the new provider. NOTE: This is a double-opt in process, so once you add your email address, you’ll receive an email with instructions to confirm your subscription. (Check your spam/junk folders if you don’t receive this email in a short period of time.) Unfortunately, there is no way to automatically ‘move’  subscribers over to the new service provider. If you do NOT re-subscribe with the new provider, you will stop receiving email notification of new posts sometime in early-to-mid January. We are hopeful this new solution will last for years into the future!

A few other notes:

  1. We are running parallel with BOTH distribution systems until early-to-mid January. Once you sign up for the new provider (Jetpack), you will most likely receive DUPLICATE email notifications every time we post – one delivered from Jetpack, and one delivered from Google/Feedburner.
  2. Once you confirm your new Jetpack subscription and receive your first blog post from Jetpack, you can safely unsubscribe from the Google/Feedburner distribution service.
  3. To cancel your old Google/Feedburner email subscription, simply use the “unsubscribe” link located at the bottom of the email message.

Thanks for being patient with us as we work to improve email delivery! Please drop me a note in the comments if you have any questions.

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A Split Placement Story to Warm You Up This Winter

by Sarah Freiburger

man-reading-newspaperAs December approaches and Grand Rapids is already buried in snow, it is clear to see that winter has arrived. While this is no regular Christmas carol, this split placement tale from recruiters at NPAworldwide will at least bring good cheer. This network using a database connects different recruiters around the world and creates placements. With more than 400 member firms in 32 different countries, strong trading partners are always awaiting. Read the rest of this entry »


Job Seeker Salaries on the Rise

by Veronica Blatt

blue-arrows-growthI took a look at some of the placement data we capture from our members, and it is clear that job seeker salaries are on the rise compared to a year ago. In fact, two-thirds of the placements reported by our members this year involve a salary of at least USD $80,000 annually, compared to 63% of placements a year ago. In each of the past two years, the single largest salary category is $100,000 and above. The growth in job seeker salaries is consistent with a candidate-short market; traditional laws of supply-and-demand are clearly at work.

The highest salaries we have been seeing are in the chemical process and IT / hardware / software / electronics areas. Here is a sampling from the past four months:

  • Plant Manager, chemical industry, $180,000
  • Director of Operations, chemical industry, $175,000
  • Business Systems Project Manager, food & beverage industry, $163,000
  • IT Site Manager, food & beverage industry, $132,000
  • Senior Performance Analyst, software industry, $127,000
  • Senior Project Manager, oil/gas, drilling industry, $120,000
  • Test Engineer, electronics & semi-conductor industry, $118,000
  • Process Control Engineer, chemical industry, $110,000
  • Production Engineer, chemical industry, $105,000

It is interesting to note that in the chemical process segment, we have had both an increase in salaries as well as a decrease in the number of total placements year-over-year. Members are anecdotally reporting that clients are still too slow to hire, in the mistaken belief that there is still widespread unemployment. There is still tremendous demand for candidates (chemical process jobs represent about 37% of the total jobs in our shared database), in spite of the recent decline in the price of crude oil. Candidates have an extremely short shelf-life and are able to command multiple offers. Counteroffers have also increased as companies are reluctant to lose high-value employees, knowing they may not easily find new talent.

There has been a modest increase (6%) in placement activity in the IT / hardware / software / electronics segment, and another modest increase (7%) in the manufacturing / mining / construction /supply chain segment. Jobs in the IT / hardware / software / electronics segment remain especially plentiful and account for approximately 20% of the total openings shared by NPAworldwide members.

Independent recruiters should be in a position to financially benefit due to the rise in job seeker salaries and the continued talent shortage.

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You’re Not Just a Recruiter Anymore

by Veronica Blatt

Wishon-hi-resOur guest blogger is David Wishon, the Senior Director of Talent Fusion by Monster responsible for service delivery. Talent Fusion provides comprehensive recruiting and sourcing solutions to its customers by utilizing Monster’s products, patented technology and industry expertise. Prior to joining Monster, he was Senior Vice President for Bank of America responsible for internet sourcing and competitive intelligence.

Today’s recruitment professionals have to be able to market opportunities to a variety of generations, all of which think and behave very differently.

If you’re in recruiting — or any profession these days — you’re hearing a lot about one generation in particular. The “Millennials.” You know, the 18- to 31-year-olds who will make up nearly 50 percent of the U.S. workforce in 2020 (when they will be 24- to 37-year-olds). Read the rest of this entry »


Counteroffers: Just When You Thought You Were Ready to Leave

by Veronica Blatt

rope-tugOur guest blogger is Tanya Sobti of Arnold Group Australia in Melbourne, Australia. Arnold Group Australia has been a member of NPAworldwide since 2004. Arnold Group Australia has a number of specialist divisions that provide recruitment services in safety, injury management, general insurance, broking, sales and marketing, and shared service.

I recently had a counteroffer situation which has prompted me to put my thoughts on paper.

In my opinion, most people decide to look for a new job due to one of two reasons: the push and pull factor come into play here. These reasons are:

 

  • Seeking new challenges or career growth — essentially the “pull” into a more enticing opportunity and a positive environment.
  • The lack of financial rewards and career growth, poor culture etc. — essentially factors that “push” you to seek an environment that is better.

The cost of replacing an employee, especially in a candidate-short market, can be quite high. Hence, some employers make counteroffers to save themselves the trouble of recruiting a replacement and do everything they can do to keep the current incumbent. Sometimes these counteroffers are accepted. However, the statistics are 80% of these employees leave the organization within 6 months because the real reasons for wanting to leave have not disappeared.

Once you’ve made your employer know you’re not happy, it’s never the same again. From this day forward you will always be considered a fidelity risk. Having once demonstrated your lack of loyalty (for whatever reason), you are likely to lose your status as a “team player” and your place in the inner circle. Counteroffers are only made in response to a threat to quit. Will you have to solicit an offer and threaten to quit every time you deserve better working conditions?

Accepting a counter offer rarely eliminates the factors that drove you to look for a new job in the first place. Even in the rare instance that these factors were resolved, why did it take a resignation for you to get better working conditions, career progression, salary raise etc.? Did your employer not think it was worth it before?

Counteroffers should never be accepted….EVER! Those very few instances where accepting a counter offer is beneficial occur just about as frequently as being struck by lightning.

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Global Talent Shortage Continues

by Veronica Blatt

help-wantedManpower Group’s annual Talent Shortage Survey shows that 36% of employers worldwide are reporting talent shortages in 2014 – this is the highest level in seven years. Globally, Japan reports the most dire news, with more than 80% of employers saying they are having difficulty filling open jobs. Significant talent shortages are reported throughout Latin America, with 67% of Peruvian employers indicating talent shortages.

Other survey highlights include:

The global talent shortage is impacting employers in almost every part of the world. The five countries reporting the most difficulty filling open jobs are:

  • Japan – 81%
  • Peru – 67%
  • India – 64%
  • Argentina – 63%
  • Brazil – 63%

Other notable countries above the average (36%) are:

  • New Zealand – 59%
  • Australia – 41%
  • USA – 40%

Interestingly, Spain (3%) and Ireland (2%) are reporting little difficulty filling open jobs, despite being among the hardest-hit areas of the Eurozone recession. These two countries have also suffered from sustained weak job markets.

Once again, the worst shortages exist in the skilled trades. Engineers are the second-hardest candidates to find. Among the remaining top ten hardest-to-fill jobs are accounting & finance professionals as well as IT staff.

Over half of all employers participating in the global talent shortage survey indicate that the talent shortage is impacting their business. Negative impacts include a reduced ability to serve customers, reduction in competitiveness, lower productivity, and reduced employee engagement.

The survey also asked employers to indicate steps they are taking to combat the pervasive global talent shortage. Fewer than half have implemented strategies such as providing additional training or development. Only 25% of respondents have started to change their hiring process to include candidates who may not currently have the exact technical skills, but DO have the potential to learn and grow.

The Manpower survey puts the onus on human resource professionals to adopt three new critical roles in order to help companies develop a flexible and agile workforce. These new roles are:

Supply-and-Demand Experts: Understanding how the demand for their companies’ products and services impacts the demand for talent.

Marketers: Developing branding, messaging, and corporate image to focus on attracting and retaining talent, much as traditional marketing efforts have helped position a company’s products and services.

Designers: Adopting a focus on the outcomes of work as opposed to the traditional focus on jobs.

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Stop Making These Recruiter Mistakes

by Sarah Freiburger

stop-signAs independent recruiters, it is difficult to keep up with the rapidly changing industry and not get caught up in the standard pitfalls that come with the territory. In order to stay ahead of the competition, it is easy to make promises you can not necessarily keep, take on more than you can possibly handle, or let those tasks on your list fall off without completion.

It is important to stay true to your brand, and most importantly to treat each client and candidate with the same respect to keep your reputation of integrity. Below are some common recruiter mistakes that seem to happen when times are busy:

  1. Stop working dumb. This is another way of me telling you to find the smartest strategy to manage time and a full desk. Jeremy Sisemore speaks on how to build a $1 million dollar recruiting desk, and his strategy starts with planning. Use your time on clients who will give you full fees and fire those clients that won’t accept your competitive fees. Learn to walk away from low fees, and strive more towards getting exclusivity from those clients who have proven to be good clients.
  2. Strive for high level searches. Have influential hiring managers introduce you to other hiring managers within the same organization. On these, Jeremy Sisemore gives the advices to offer a performance guarantee if you are granted a retainer on the search. Tell your client that they will get the retainer back if you fail to deliver X amount of qualified candidates within a specific timeframe.
  3. Under-promise and over-deliver. In any aspect of life, always remember to only promise what is realistic. This will gain respect and clients will value your honesty. Once you begin to let people down by not being able to deliver, your reputation will be tainted as that is what you will be remembered by.
  4. If you don’t like them, your trading partners won’t either. If you happen to be in a split placement network such as NPAworldwide, have respect for your partners when asking for help filling a position. If you hate working with a particular client, chances are high that your trading partner will also be frustrated by the long wait, uncertain decision making, and unstable fees. Be upfront with trading partners as to how difficult a position may be to fill, and let them make an honest decision if they want to help you with the search. Same with candidates. If you have had difficulty placing a candidate due to several concerns that arise, do not place them in front of a trading partner in hopes of them having any better luck.
  5. Have a healthy desk. A desk should have about 20-30+ assignments and job opening with clients at any given time. If you have much more than that, you are probably not able to devote the appropriate time to the searches, and if you have less, look to adding split placements to your business model to build your business.
  6. Keep the relationships you have. With technology making things less personal, and the pressure to grow and quickly accomplish searches building, it is easy to forget about those clients that have been loyal and have made you successful. Strive to visit those key account or local clients on at least a yearly basis, quarterly if you are able.

If you have an interest in adding split business to your independent recruiting firm, feel free to contact me.

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Recruiters Have Rights, Too

by Dave Nerz

quill-pen-inkI recently saw an infographic called The Job Seeker’s Bill of Rights. It was a well done piece on what a candidate should expect or demand when working with a recruitment firm or recruiter. Some of the more controversial items were a right to:

  • Know your recruiter’s opinion on how you compare to others put forward for the job.
  • Register with as many recruiters and recruitment agencies as you want.

Many of the items were common sense items with no real impact on the recruiter, the candidate or the way the recruitment process normally flows.

It got me thinking about what should a recruiter expect and demand from a candidate? Here are a few…maybe you can add your favorites???

RECRUITER’S BILL OF RIGHTS (What recruiters can expect of candidates)

  1. Recruiters have the right to respect and civility when contacting prospective candidates. It is OK for a candidate to say they have “no interest in being recruited”…no need to be rude or hostile.
  2. Recruiters have the right to work with truthful candidates. Candidates should never say “yes” when they mean “no.”
  3. Recruiters have the right to work with candidates who honor commitments. If a candidate says they are ready to interview, and an interview is offered…take the interview.
  4. Recruiters have the right to speak the truth to candidates. If a candidate is not a good fit or is not at the right experience level, a recruiter can be direct and honest with a candidate.
  5. Recruiters have the right to timely feedback. Candidates need to call the recruiter with feedback immediately after an interview.
  6. Recruiters have the right to a motivated candidate who does not make excuses when they do not act in the best interest of gaining an offer. If a candidate is asked to do company research prior to an interview or send a thank you note following an interview, they do it. No excuses.
  7. Recruiters have the right to ask for exclusivity on a candidate’s search. The candidate can say “no” and the recruiter has the right to lower the priority of the candidate’s search if it is not exclusive with that recruiter.
  8. Recruiters have the right to know all the other potential jobs and opportunities a candidate is pursuing. Since most recruiters are working free of change until successful deal is done, they need to know what else is in consideration, so they know the potential for success.
  9. Recruiters have the right to assign action steps and hold candidates accountable for completing assignments. A candidate should complete the resume as requested, talk to spouse or partners about a potential move, do research on the company before an interview and anything else they are assigned to do.
  10. Recruiters have the right to “fire” any candidate that fails to live up to the expectations listed above. Many recruiters work on a contingent basis and only get paid if a deal is done…so it is only fair that they do not waste the precious resource of time on a candidate that is less than committed to being fair.

What would you add or change???

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The Value of a Recruiter

by Dave Nerz

silver-clock-with-coinsRecruitment organizations are being challenged from all sides. Employers and candidates are looking for alternate ways to locate talent or to seek employment. Specifically, as it relates to employers, the age-old recruitment model is being threatened by in-house recruiting functions, recruitment technology tools, off-shore sourcing models, and low-cost posting options. All of these tools, methods and services are about the “finding” component of recruiting. These options are all based on the premise that “finding” is the key to a successful new hire for employers. While this can be true for lower level and entry level jobs, the facts are that for the more mission-critical types of roles at the key contributor, manager, director and above levels, finding is the easiest component of the recruiting process. The key to success in these competitive and mission-critical roles is in the “selection and persuasion” of candidates. That is where the value of a recruiter is greatest. Read the rest of this entry »


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