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It’s “a business about people” and other things you don’t practice.

Feb 18 11 - 4:51PMAlex Charraudeau, Account Manager Marketing

All companies say “our people are what make us special”.  A cliché banded around recruitment is that “it’s a business about people.” 

"Our people are what make us special"

I do not disagree with these statements.  In fact, having been a recruitment consultant myself, I know them to be true.  What I do disagree with is how you are marketing this message. 

How much do recruitment organisations market their people?  With most agencies not that much.  There are two main reasons for this;
1) Managers don’t trust their employees,
2) If a person leaves they take their “brand” with them.

What should you be doing as a business?

You need to have faith in your people.  Offer individuals both the support and tools to get their message across online.  If you trust them to pick up the phone to a client and you trust them to email a candidate, then you should trust them to represent themselves and your business online.  Most people want to be rewarded financially for a job well done, but many just want to be shown that they are doing a good job.  If you market a consultant as an expert you are telling them that you believe in them.  This can be as valuable as a bonus or a pay rise in many cases. 
 
What can you do to help market your stars?

Your consultants spend the whole day selling themselves to prospective candidates and clients.  They try to impress everyone with their market knowledge, expertise and demonstrate how much they know about their industry.  These bits of information are gold dust.  Get them to share these to a wider market and they become a goldmine. 

Gold dust


What tools do you give them?
 
With online marketing there are so many tools that consultants can use on a day to day basis to help get their message across.   Social media is perfect!  If your consultants aren’t on LinkedIn then they should be.  Get them to post up relevant information to their network.  Advise them to share content, news, articles they have read in LinkedIn groups. 

Twitter is a fantastic way of spurting out little bite size chunks of knowledge.  Get your consultants to have an account where they can share stuff.  If you have consultants is passionate about other things beside just recruitment, and they aren’t socially inept, let them share this with their clients/candidates.  Allow them to mix business with pleasure in their Twitter stream – after all it is called social-networking. 

Social Recruiting

Social networks allow your business to go from being This Corporate Company to a business that is made up of its people.  This injection of personality could make the difference between being the third person a line manager calls when they need a role filling, to the first on the list.

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David Johnston, 19 February 2011, 07:37 PM
I think this hits the nail on the head. Its about personality and individuality. People relate to people. When I first started in recruitment in the age of the Rolodex and candidate trolleys, you spent time getting to know your clients and candidates, building relationships. I used to call it pie and a pint recruitment, as I got to know someone far better over lunch in a rural pub. What this meant was that I built up a referral network, a group of clients and candidates who trusted me. 15 years ago this took a lot of time, but the principle hasn't changed, social media just gives you the opportunity to build a 'name' more quickly and more widely. BUT at the end of the day these relationships are then cemented by meeting. Recruitment is all about people and if you don't give your team the time to build relationships, you will never move away from a transactional model.
Jon Binstead, 21 February 2011, 04:26 PM
I completely agree and I think that most people would but the biggest problem faced would be willingness to engage over being given the freedom and tools with which to do so. Often consultants are judged by time spent developing business and phoning clients/candidates, so convincing them that time spent reading LinkedIn/other social media channels (convincing their manager actually) is more difficult than it may seem. In an ideal world, all consultants would be self contained branding machines, contributing and sharing intelligent, considered and inspiring content with their peers and potential candidates.
Alex, 21 February 2011, 04:02 PM
Certainly I agree with the frustration that junior level staff feel with regards to the perception of the "old school" methods of recruiting and where their time is spent. So many times I've heard from directors that their consultants need phones and desks - that is all. They honestly don't think that their people are using social networks, but then when you speak to a consultant you find that they have a network of several thousand and regularly make placements via it. The disconnect is huge! Some times it is more about educating the management. Possibly even getting them to watch a successful consultant at work for a day. What tools do they really use? How do they engage with candidates / clients? That would work, especially if the manager hasn't been on the "shop-floor" for a while.
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