Why does the Recruitment Industry have such a poor reputation?
1. Sending irrelevant profiles
2. Not following up with candidates or feeding back to them
3. Not meeting deadlines agreed with clients
4. Charging very high fees to service massive bureaucracy
5. Divorcing the research from the search
6. The sales person over promising and the work being done in the back office
7. Research done by people who do not understand the role.
8. Research consisting solely of a Linkedin search
9. Not using networks and reliable contacts.
10. Data bases not maintained or shared
11. Over dependence on advertisements – the best are usually happy and do not peruse advertisements.
12. Recruiters failing to challenge the client on unreasonable requirements and the need to introduce reality.
2. Not following up with candidates or feeding back to them
3. Not meeting deadlines agreed with clients
4. Charging very high fees to service massive bureaucracy
5. Divorcing the research from the search
6. The sales person over promising and the work being done in the back office
7. Research done by people who do not understand the role.
8. Research consisting solely of a Linkedin search
9. Not using networks and reliable contacts.
10. Data bases not maintained or shared
11. Over dependence on advertisements – the best are usually happy and do not peruse advertisements.
12. Recruiters failing to challenge the client on unreasonable requirements and the need to introduce reality.
It was 5 years last July that I started Mentys.
Having come from a Corporate background, with my own Personal Assistant, with an office that was suitably stocked with appropriate computing, messaging and data storage facilities, privacy, canteen and coffee availability. I was well placed with lots of support when needed in all sorts of areas. Even my business flights and hotels were paid for
What a change! Mentys was not my first venture into setting up my own company but brought it all back to me that from now on you do it yourself or it doesn’t get done. I found myself very quickly immersed in the myriad of issues needed to set up a company from scratch.
Apart from my wife’s valuable advice and regular supply of coffee, I was lucky enough to have a home office so was ahead of the pandemic! Then of course there is the need to choose a name and logo, email domain and addresses, company and VAT registration, setting up a website and creating letterheads. All that before even beginning to engage potential clients and to find work!
I realised very quickly that I knew very little about recruitment! What I knew was from my client-side positions in trying to fill roles on my various teams. I remember the long wait for HR to bring me candidates and how often I would phone down to check what’s happening after weeks of silence, only to be presented next day with a few CVs which proved to be rather irrelevant.
After insisting that a Head Hunter be brought in to meet me, I would find myself sitting opoposite a bright, young , besuited individual, who would extoll the virtues of his or her company and their capacity to find excellent candidates for even the most obscure position. But as I went through a somewhat detailed explanation of the skills I was looking for, maybe someone with a career in supply chain integration, world class manufacturing, digital technology or commercial leadership, I would notice the eyes glazing over. I’d get questions about personality type, which is fine, but the detail of what the person must do was lost, seeming unfathomable. How can a person who does not understand what I want find the person that I need?
This is why I started Mentys. I felt my USP was that I had been in or led the positions that clients want to fill, especially in the consumer goods or power generation industries.
What I didn’t know, though, was how the recruitment industry worked. I found out very quickly that its reputation is not good and so set about trying to understand why. After all, if I’m going to be in the industry I need to understand the pitfalls.
I engaged the services of an old friend who was in the industry and I trusted to give me good advice. He taught me a lot about mandated search, how that element of the recruitment industry works and we discussed many of the pitfalls and practices in the business.
My question of why the industry has a bad name was answered gradually over the next couple of years. Learnings that resonated with my own very limited exposure on the receiving end of recruitment company service.
I learnt the need to be able to fully represent the client. Understanding the client’s needs is obviousland vital. Irrelevant CVs are time wastng and irritating.
What a change! Mentys was not my first venture into setting up my own company but brought it all back to me that from now on you do it yourself or it doesn’t get done. I found myself very quickly immersed in the myriad of issues needed to set up a company from scratch.
Apart from my wife’s valuable advice and regular supply of coffee, I was lucky enough to have a home office so was ahead of the pandemic! Then of course there is the need to choose a name and logo, email domain and addresses, company and VAT registration, setting up a website and creating letterheads. All that before even beginning to engage potential clients and to find work!
I realised very quickly that I knew very little about recruitment! What I knew was from my client-side positions in trying to fill roles on my various teams. I remember the long wait for HR to bring me candidates and how often I would phone down to check what’s happening after weeks of silence, only to be presented next day with a few CVs which proved to be rather irrelevant.
After insisting that a Head Hunter be brought in to meet me, I would find myself sitting opoposite a bright, young , besuited individual, who would extoll the virtues of his or her company and their capacity to find excellent candidates for even the most obscure position. But as I went through a somewhat detailed explanation of the skills I was looking for, maybe someone with a career in supply chain integration, world class manufacturing, digital technology or commercial leadership, I would notice the eyes glazing over. I’d get questions about personality type, which is fine, but the detail of what the person must do was lost, seeming unfathomable. How can a person who does not understand what I want find the person that I need?
This is why I started Mentys. I felt my USP was that I had been in or led the positions that clients want to fill, especially in the consumer goods or power generation industries.
What I didn’t know, though, was how the recruitment industry worked. I found out very quickly that its reputation is not good and so set about trying to understand why. After all, if I’m going to be in the industry I need to understand the pitfalls.
I engaged the services of an old friend who was in the industry and I trusted to give me good advice. He taught me a lot about mandated search, how that element of the recruitment industry works and we discussed many of the pitfalls and practices in the business.
My question of why the industry has a bad name was answered gradually over the next couple of years. Learnings that resonated with my own very limited exposure on the receiving end of recruitment company service.
I learnt the need to be able to fully represent the client. Understanding the client’s needs is obviousland vital. Irrelevant CVs are time wastng and irritating.
