subject: The Biggest Recruitment Mistakes Made – HR Recruits [print this page] I contact HR department's everyday of the week, some of the Directors I deal with are exceptional visionaries but unfortunately this is the exception rather than the rule. I am confronted with a variety of excuses as to why the company cannot deal with me, if these are company policy and the Directors and Shareholders are aware of these, then I am very concerned about the futures and profitability of these companies. It surprises me that companies still feel that just because they are advertising a position that of course the best people will just come and queue up outside for an interview. It is my experience that I spenda considerable amount of timewith a candidate "selling" the opportunity and company to them. This is even more the situation in these tough times where candidates need a very good reason to leave a secure position.
HR departments have mainly been used to care for the needs of the staff, ensuring legal obligations are met, handling daily employee problems, setting salary levels and increases and lately reductions! Such is the influence of HR that many CEO's actually allow them to define the company culture. Why not as culture is people and people are HR's domain right? The power that is now wielded by these departments defines company hiring policy often to the detriment of the company and its long term prosperity. The following points are common problems I face and an explanation for such; I invite replies from HR Directors.
I'm too busy to even look at the major achievements of your Headhunted candidate regardless of what you think they will bring to the company
Welcome to the corporate funeral parlor! Because of the methods used by HR to identify candidates they have been inundated by useless CV's, spent days trawling through them, interviewing and rejecting. Most of these irrelevant CV's have come from contingency search companies that source from the internet Job Boards and Job Adverts, I explain the folly of this in previous posts.
The result HR departments look for every excuse NOT to interview someone and have become a rejection business rather than focusing on hiring exceptional talent. They often surround themselves with people they don't want, taking up very valuable time and resource and all the while the company is losing potential to be more proficient, serve its customers better and to be more profitable.
I cannot see your Headhunted candidate even though they are just what we need as you are not on our "Preferred Suppliers List"
Yes I know what you are thinking but I was told this only last week. This is really evidence of the above comments, what they are really saying is that "we get inundated with all these trashy CV's from lots of companies and we cannot cope so we are only going to deal with 5 of them" Is this really how companies recruit? It is certainly my experience and it constantly staggers me what a real problem this creates and actually puts off the best candidates from approaching a company. A true Headhunt company is not even bothered about being on a "PLS" they work for their clients on a retained basis discreetly and confidentially, slipping in and out of competitors, suppliers and customers hunting out the very best talent and then presenting only the elite to the Directors.
You can compare the two companies to people, one goes to a greasy burger bar and consumes 10 burgers day in, day out, and he becomes obese, has major health problems missing out on real enjoyment in life. He cuts down to 4 a day but still has no real nourishment or quality of life. The other person frequents fruit and veg stores, enjoys good health, is active and people find him attractive and want to spend time with him. Bringing health and vitality to your company has to start somewhere and HR has the opportunity to lead the reversal.
HR Department conducts the interview.
Thinking of the comments I made at the start about candidates needing very good reasons to move to a new company, is the best person to conduct the interview the HR Director?
I do a considerable amount of work in Hydraulics, Pneumatics and other Engineering industries. If I had an exceptional Project Engineer working for say Rolls Royce and I was presenting him for a new position with a competitor, would I want him to be interviewed by HR? NO, I would rather the person he would be reporting to meet him, showed him the plant explaining why the company needed someone of his caliber, why it's a great company to work for, what he would be expected to do day to day, the prospects and goals of the company, of course the manager would need to be able to do this. Companies need to turn their managers and team members into recruiters and shouldn't place good candidates in front of company bureaucracy before they have a chance to be won over. As HR normally tend to the company staffing problems they could come over highlighting problems rather than the positive aspects of the company, you wouldn't send out your HR Director to sell your products would you, so why get them to front the presenting of your company to prospective employees?
We are using a number of Agencies for this role
The average number of contingency search companies I come across for a particular campaign is 5. Most HR Departments agree to 15-20% fee for each of these agencies payable on placement. These agencies will only be paid if they send the winning CV in first and all are pulling from the same pot - THE RACE BEGINS!
The result throw enough mud at a wall and see what sticks. How is this done?
Junior members of the agency will enter keywords from the job description onto internet job boards to match candidates to the position and send the CV's to the client. A good agency will call each one to see if they are interested in the job but really it's all about getting the CV off to the client before the competitors.
I have been talking to a Sales Director this week who is has received over 80 CV's to wade through, most of these will be a poor match and duplicates. He was pleading with me to conduct our Headhunt services so he could avoid all this frustrating and pointless timewasting selection. In my efforts to assist him I called the HR Director to be told "we are using a number of agencies for this role, we can work with you but we will only accept you sending us some CV's! When will companies realise they have to think outside the box when it comes to securing the right talent for their company, these conventional methods erode company moral, present the lowest grade of candidate and actually encourage poor service. 85% of companies feel "ripped off" by contingency search agencies, I wonder why?! Maybe it's the fact that these companies actually encourage this poor level of service. Most Headhunters will provide a far higher level of service with the added benefit of Client interviews and Head Office visits, Professional Candidate selection, interviews, liaisons and onboarding for a similar fee.
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