| Product: |
Recruitment Consultant |
| Date: |
21/03/08 (366 review reads) |
| Rating: |
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Advantages: Rewarding, stimulating, mentally challenging, and well paid.
Disadvantages: Demoralising and tough industry, requires high amount of sales activities.
Have you ever wondered what the profession of 'Recruitment Consultant' entails? For those of you that believe all they do is put people into jobs all day, then you've only acknowledged the tip of the iceberg. This review is designed to give you a holistic and accurate account of the role of a Recruitment Consultant from a man that has been doing this role for years.
In virtually all towns in the UK, you will find a recruitment agency. The most common are Reed, Adecco, Manpower, Brook Street and, the one I work for, Randstad. These agencies are populated by Consultants sat behind desks, who are specialists in their marketplace and job groupings.
This review will primarily concentrate on how a Recruitment Consultant from a High Street Agency would operate. However, there will be vast similarities with Consultants at different types of recruitment companies.
Premise of the job
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A Recruitment Consultant exists to provide a service to a job-seeker looking for work and an employer looking to recruit a quality worker for their team. For the Consultant who takes their job seriously, the science behind finding a candidate their ideal job, and resourcing the ideal worker for an employer is a challenging one, and one which they have to administer a lot of time to.
Agencies primarily concentrate on recruiting for Permanent, Temporary and Contract roles, and therefore resource candidates searching for these respective classifications.
A 'Permanent' role is one where you become an employee of a company. You sign an Employment Contract and become a permanent member of staff on the payroll of the company that has recruited you. You will have a guaranteed yearly salary and be entitled to certain benefits.
A 'Temporary' role is just that - temporary, and your status is essentially 'self-employed'. You will sign a Contract for Services, and begin a role that will terminate as of a stipulated end date.
Normally, you will look for a temporary job because:-
a) You do not want the commitment of a permanent job
b) You need a job in between your last and next permanent job
c) You are on holiday from University
d) You are building up a portfolio of skills in preparation for a permanent career
e) You need a job to supplement a permanent job that isn't providing sufficient money
If you are temping through an agency, you will be on their payroll, and usually paid on a weekly basis.
A 'Contract' role is like an in-between. You will be taken onto the payroll of the company for a non-permanent, fixed term basis, which can normally be anything from 3 months to a year. A fixed term contract is usually a choice a company explores when looking to cover a worker on maternity leave. There is the option for the employer to extend that contract based on the circumstances around the time it ends.
Types of Recruitment Agencies
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It is important to recognise that there are different types of recruitment firms that exist out there. These are:
High Street Agency - Obviously, you will find these on the high street. As a candidate, the way of approaching a high street agency would be to walk in off the street and request to be a registered candidate for the agency.
Professional / Executive Consultancy - these can also be found on the high street, but you are normally invited in by appointment only. They are less accessible and rarely see people that walk in off the street. These firms usually advertise jobs on the Internet and request that a CV is sent in on the first instance before any meeting is set up.
Head-hunters - These recruitment firms have a different approach in that they will normally poach people that are already doing a job they are recruiting for, and persuade them to take their role for reasons that will benefit them.
The recruitment cycle
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Recruitment Practice takes process of a cycle, of which there are a few main parts.
Stage 1 - Vacancy Generation
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Starting from the beginning, the first step in the recruitment cycle is to generate a vacancy. Any recruitment agency works from a database, which comprises of a multitude of companies, which can range from local to national. In order for a Consultant to place a job seeker into a role, they will need to get a job to work on. The primary method of obtaining a vacancy is via sales.
Sales tend to incorporate calls and visits. The calls aspect takes the form of market research, canvass and appointment making calls. The visits can be classified into of New Business Development, active/existing and fly-in visits.
Market Research Call
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This call tends to be the first contact you have with a prospective client. It will normally take the form of information gathering and validation, to find out initial information about the company and to validate whether they are the correct kind of client to service.
Canvass Call
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After registering a candidate, you will normally have a very good idea of what skills are marketable and desirable. You will normally then canvass out these candidates to new and existing clients in order to generate interest or vacancies.
Appointment making calls
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Most consultants will be targeted on a certain number of visits per week. In order to achieve this target, Consultant's need to make Appointment making calls, when they call their prospect or existing customer to set up a meeting.
New Business Development Visit
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A n NBD visit is normally the first proper sit-down meeting that you set up with a prospective client. The two main aims of getting an NBD visit are to gain a thorough understanding of the client, and to give them a comprehensive overview of the service you can provide. Firstly, a consultant needs establish what the company does, how long they've existed, how many employees and departments they have and, importantly, how they normally recruit when a position becomes available. This information will then allow you to explain the appropriate unique selling points (USP's) of your agency which will add value to their recruitment processes.
Active visit
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This is a meeting you set up with one of your existing clients. This usually revolves around after-sales care, making sure that things are going well between your client and the candidate you have placed there, ensuring that the service you have provided was an effective one, and sometimes to discuss repeat business.
Fly-in visits
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These visits are the visual equivalent of a call. You basically turn up on a client site, without appointment, and carry out some market research. Usually you will try to establish who the decision maker is, how often they recruit, and try to set up a proper NBD meeting.
Having received a vacancy, the consultant gets into stage two of the cycle, which is resourcing candidates.
Stage 2 - Sourcing candidates
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The method of obtaining candidates can be a reactive and pro-active exercise. The reactive part involves relying on footfall. When you work in a high street agency, people walk in off the street, and at that point the consultant will initiate a 'doorstep', which is an initial interview with the candidate to make sure they are the correct type of person for the job groupings the agency recruits for. If they meet the criteria, they will normally get booked in for an appointment to register formally. This is a process that has to take place in order to legally put candidates forward for roles we are recruiting for.
The pro-active element of resourcing involves CV searches on particular websites such as Monster.Com and advertising in local papers and on the internet. Then from this, you can conduct a brief telephone interview with that candidates you have found and if they meet the criteria you are looking for, you can invite them in to register.
Registration
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The registration process involves the Consultant and candidate sitting down at a desk, and the consultant getting basic contact details, employment history, and referee details. The Employment Agencies act requires Recruitment Consultants to see and photocopy 'Eligibility to work' documents for a registration to be legal. The candidate has to provide one of the following pieces of essential documentation:
- A British or EU passport
- Birth Certificate with National Insurance card.
- Holiday Visa / Visa documents (if not from UK)
- Letter from the Home Office to exhibit permission to work in the UK
For people looking for temporary work, the Consultant must reference a candidate back two years, and should normally ask the candidate to bring in two employment referee's details so they can be contacted for background information.
Stage 3 - Arranging interviews
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Once you have the job, and have suitable candidates, you will need to put them in front of the client. Normally, a quality agency will not bombard a client with CV's but each client is different. Usually, sending the details of 3 or 4 of the most suitable candidates' exhibits efficiency and effectiveness in the service.
Once the client has seen the CV's, you will usually call them to obtain feedback, and if it is positive then you will arrange an interview. Firstly you will need to get the client's availability to see the candidate, and then secure that particular time and date in your candidate's diary.
Stage 4 - Pre-Interview advice
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The best course of action, once an interview has been arranged, will be to get your candidate into your office. This is so that you can make sure they have a thorough understanding of the job and the company before they go in. You can also use this opportunity to grill your candidate to see how they will answer typical interview questions. You can then give guidance if they require it, to make sure they are in the best form possible before they get in front of the client.
Stage 5 - Collecting feedback
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After the interview has taken place, you will need to get the candidates feedback first. This is so that you can gauge their enthusiasm levels and check if they are interested in going further. If they are, you can sell this enthusiasm to the client so that they know they have a keen candidate on their hands.
You will then need to obtain the client's feedback, to check whether they want to take things further with that candidate. If they want another interview to be arranged then this feedback collection process will need to be repeated again afterwards. At that point, if they are happy the candidate can do the job, the final stage will be the offer management.
Stage 6 - Offer management
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When the client wants to offer your candidate the job, they will inform you of the salary they want to offer. As a Consultant that has been involved in every step of the recruitment process, particularly the initial registration and feedback stages wit the candidate, you will be in a position to judge if that offer will be accepted. Although you need to ask your candidate if they are happy first, if they are not happy, a consultant needs to do some negotiation on behalf of the candidate to make sure both parties are happy. You need to be very careful in this stage not to anger the client, but you also do not want your candidate to be offered an unfair salary, so it will be down to powers of persuasion and ability to sell to get success.
Type of Search
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Agencies offer two main propositions to clients when they are given the opportunity to work on a vacant position. These are Contingency and Retained.
Contingency
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In essence, contingency based recruitment is 'no placement, no fee', meaning that when a client gives you a vacancy to work on, there is no cost to the client unless you place a candidate with the company. This type of search is offered as standard by almost all agencies. For the client, this is of benefit because they can use a variety of agencies at the same time, and only have to pay the one that successfully places an candidate into the position.
Retained
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This is an approach used by Executive recruitment agencies to give the client the most effective service in looking for an extremely high calibre person, like a Director. In this type of search, a company can retain the services of an agency to work for them on a contract basis. The main differentiation is the way the client is charged. In retained recruitment, an agency divides the percentage of the salary they will normally charge, and split into three amounts. They will then invoice the client at three stages - firstly, for the initial search, secondly for the shortlisting, and finally for the placement. This is of benefit because a dedicated search can make the recruitment process a lot quicker and more effective.
Prices / Fees
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For a permanent role - the Recruitment Agency will normally charge the client a percentage of the first year's salary as the fee for placing a candidate. Most agencies in the marketplace will charge 20% of the guaranteed salary.
For a temporary role, the charge is less straightforward. The agency normally charges an hourly invoice amount that includes the hourly pay rate for the temp, the national insurance cost they bear on behalf of the client and a standard profit margin. To give an example, an agency could invoice the client £14.50 per hour that a temp works for them, and pay the temp £7.50 from that. It is a very profitable part of the business.
Guarantee periods
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These only normally apply for permanent placements. If a candidate that was placed at a company, and leaves within a rebate period - which is normally 2 or 3 months, then the client can be eligible for a refund. This is always included in the Terms and Conditions of an Agency.
Salary
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For high street agencies, this varies from company to company - hence it is very difficult to give an average. Some companies reward heavily with commission, meaning salaries start at £16,000 basic. Other recruitment companies do not offer commission, meaning salaries are around the £22,000 region.
In Professional and Executive recruitment, salaries start at around the £25,000 region, especially because profits at these companies tend to be significantly more substantial.
Conclusion
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I hope this review of the role of Recruitment Consultant has highlighted the various tasks that need to be achieved in order to successfully place people into vacant positions. Being a Recruitment Consultant is immensely challenging, but it is one of the most rewarding jobs you can do. As a Consultant that places temps into organisations in my local area, I see a lot of people whose lives I have made better and allowed to make money to pay bills, and feed their families. I find the challenge of being a recruiter a very enjoyable one, and I feel a personal sense of accomplishment when I make a difference in people's lives.
Conversely, in reality, there is a side to Recruitment Agencies that is not so pleasant. The business is quite a demoralising one - unlike most sales jobs, you cannot really create a need to sell to, because a company is either recruiting or they are not. So when you make 50 calls a day, and 50 clients are not recruiting, you can feel like you are banging your head against a wall. Therefore, the managers at these companies encourage their consultants to do everything they can to make the money and commission, including sending barrages of unsolicited CV's to prospective clients or bombarding existing clients with many CV's of people who are not necessarily suitable. Recruitment is an extremely tough industry, and consequently a disfavourable side sometimes manifests in their service.
However, hopefully, this review has given you an overview of how the job should be done, and how it would look if the pressure to do reprehensible things to get substantial commission did not exist.
If being a Recruitment Consultant appeals to you then by all means apply, it is one job that has certainly proven hard to recruit for!
Summary: A challenging but hugely rewarding occupation!
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