Wednesday 2nd November saw the UK Recruiter End of Year Conference organised by Louise Triance.
Alex Charraudeau and I attended on behalf of 4MAT with the aim of meeting and learning from some key players in the recruitment industry and its supporting suppliers. Alex and I will be summarising some of what we found interesting in this and over the next few blogs.
In the morning we saw Ann Swain, Chief Executive of APSCo, founder of Learning Curve and former Director of Computer People. Ann immediately established herself as an excellent orator, with a good sense of humor. She spoke openly about her love of recruitment as an industry and her experience of the huge opportunities it brings to so many. Recruitment allows people to help to others make a difference and is worth £30billion in the UK.
Ann then addressed what she felt are the most pressing current trends and importantly how to capatilise on them. Some of these included:
Globalisation:
With the current global economic and political instability, many are being more cautious than ever. However for some recruitment firms this actually presents a huge opportunity to capitalise in the right areas around the globe. For instance Antal has recently launched in Mongolia, a largely unexplored area of the world for recruitment agencies. What’s vital is that recruitment agencies stay nimble; the global market is a state of flux and agencies need to be able to respond to changes quickly.
Some good examples of recruitment agencies launching in new global markets:
www.firstpointgroup.com.cn
www.redcommerce.com.br
Technological Revolution:
There is no doubt that modern technology has made the hiring process easier for many. However it has never been more difficult to employ the right person. 25% of hires made are an ‘error’. In a climate where differentiating yourself and adding value is more important than ever, the delivery of the recruitment agency is vital. Ann advocates that recruitment agencies should spend a good proportion of their budget on ensuring they make the correct hires both internally and in delivery to clients.
Customer sophistication.
There is no doubt that the type of decision maker has changed over the years with senior procurement now responsible for the majority of most hiring decisions (69% of supplier choices made by procurement).
So if we have more senior and experienced people in charge of hiring we need better and more experienced salespeople in front of them. Sales people need training. Do you have a training budget? If not, why not?
Professionalism of the temporary market:
The numbers for recruiters in the temp market stack up, particularly in areas of specialism.
5% of the UK market is made of temporary workers. In IT, it is 19%.
In the Interim market 78% earn over £500 a day and 13% earn over £1,000 per day. The rates on interim are big, often 30+%. 53% of Adecco’s revenue in the UK comes from the temp market.
Ann contends that for recruiters to be successful they should go to a candidate short market, be niche and, where possible present themselves as an Interim specialist.
Based on this trends Ann finished with what she would call her company if she had to set it up tomorrow. I’ll have to keep that one a secret for now though...
Here is a video taken at the event of Ann
