Now, you know I don’t like to talk about my charidy work, mate…

http://www.saferlondonfoundation.org/ 

A while back I mentioned the Safer London Foundation (SLF) as being somewhere that I have volunteered in the past, and if it weren’t the pesky Tube Strike on Tuesday I would have been running a workshop on CV Writing for the mentors of the Aspire Project, which is an initiative to help ex criminal offenders get back into employment or get them started on training courses.

The role of the mentor is to provide encouragement, support, and guidance to people from all walks of life, and the SLF work with any number of initiatives on all sorts of different types of projects (I was last year mentoring a Police officer - and he didn’t even try and arrest me!! Oh - how I have become respectable in my old age… What - turning 30? Yes.  It did hurt. I spent the day watching Season 4 of The Shield, as my legs wouldn’t work.)

The simple fact is, they are always looking for people to volunteer in many different ways, and it is incredibly rewarding to do so - I have personally learned a lot about myself, and from the brief glimpse I got of how Jitinder (my Police chappy) worked it made me respect not only the hassle the Police force go through, but also made me massively grateful for what I do in my job.

The SLF partner with companies like KPMG and the Met Police so there are also potential networking opportunities, but really if you live in London and want to contribute to making it a safer place for us all to live, and you can spare some time (it really doesn’t have to be more than a couple of hours a month in some cases) then follow the link below and get in touch with Julie, Clodagh, or Paul.

www.saferlondonfoundation.org/index.php?p=vacancies 

Charidy, mate?

Not ‘alf!!!!

(For those of you confused, this is a reference to Smashey and Nicey from Harry Enfield’s Television Programme. Sigh.)

“Are you having a mid-life crisis…?”

I was asked a couple of days ago (in a semi joking way!!) whether I was having a mid-life crisis, as I recently got married and then left my job.  I also turn 30 tomorrow which is somewhat surprising as according to one of my old school teachers no-one was sure that I would get this far.

Then I realised that if I am indeed having a mid-life crisis, that would mean that I am halfway through my life, which means that I won’t even reach the new retirement age (cheers for that Gordon, btw). 

 And that is a somewhat bleak thought, as I’m quite enjoying proving my old teachers wrong.

Still, I don’t think I am having a crisis.

But then, would I really know?  Apparently, as you get older things start to slow down, but I’ve also heard that life begins at 30.  And at 40.  And that it definitely begins at 50.  And if you ask my Mum (Mama Rowe is a font of philosophical altruisms), it begins when you get up in the morning (early!!) and doesn’t stop till you fall back to sleep at night.

I wonder if turning 30 will hurt…?

I’ll let you know - I’m sure the day after will!!

So I resigned…

That’s right - crazily, I got back from honeymoon and decided that it’s time for a new challenge.  What have I learned?

 Well, 4.5 years working for Selecture is a long time to be anywhere, and when I joined it was as the number 3 employee.  My remit was to build the business, and as I leave we are now at about 20.

We are?

Sorry: they are. Have to stop thinking like that!!

I put together a strong Training and Development programme, hired in a large number of trainees and some strong experienced recruiters, and went back to basics with everybody who worked for us to ensure that they all had a solid level of knowledge to grow from.  I won and developed accounts for the team to work on, and helped others do this, and the company is on track to have another record year!!

 The main thing I’ve learned is this:  hire the people who have the drive and intelligence to do the job - don’t worry if they don’t fit a stereotype.

Back 5 or 6 years ago we would all look for young, hungry people with 12 months of telesales experience in a hard environment like Advertising who were cut-throat and mercenary and who would sell snow to Eskimos, sand to the Middle East, and over priced glassware to old ladies who couldn’t afford it.  And people wonder at the state of the Recruitment market in the UK - it’s our fault!!  We created it.

I have spent the past 2.5 years trying to make sure that I pay very little attention to background and experience, and look at whether I feel the prospective employee has the potential to do the job.  Potential is a difficult thing to find in an interview though, and we / they have lost a few people along the way in the search for the current team. Remarkably, I have to say that rarely have I had to let someone go on their inability to do the role, it’s usually a disciplinary thing, and I’m glad to say that it is the still the least favourite part of my job.  It really doesn’t get easier with time.

Working with and building the team at Selecture has been the most stressfully enjoyable, frustratingly fullfilling rollercoaster of a ride and I would recommend anyone to go to work there.  It’s the people who make a company, and happy people make a happy workplace.

I’m glad to say that my guys were some of the best in London.

Obviously I’m biased, but they genuinely are great.

Big love guys.  I’ll miss you.

Just a quick apology!!

Helloooo!!

 It’s been a long time since I Posted here, and I can only apologise.

 In short - got married 3 weeks ago, and have been doing a lot of internal work at Selecture culminating in a full restructure!! More on that another time…

So.

I will be back blogging again, and I’m hoping that my hairline will return as well now that the stress of the past few months has dissipated.

In the meantime, if you live in London and fancy doing some volunteering / mentoring work a la the Princes Trust, please follow the link to The Safer London Foundation who are fantastic and can always use more volunteers - be sure to mention my name!!

 <http://www.saferlondonfoundation.org/>

Big love

Will

“I don’t believe in Training people!!”

Just finishing the 1st full week with my new Trainees, and an interesting comment came out from one of them.

His previous employer (an AS400 recruiter) had hired him with the promise of full training and lots of development.  4 months in, he asked where said training was.

“I don’t believe in Training people” was the reply from the owner of the company.

Which is obviously a very forward thinking approach.

Upshot is: he left, and came to us where he is actually being trained.

So the moral of this story is: if you don’t develop people, they leave.  Remarkably, many companies seem to forget this fact and focus on the idea that ‘Money makes everything better’. 

It will to a point, but we don’t just move for more money…

How can we better educate Clients?

I was talking with a Resourcing Manager from on of our key clients last week, and she said that something that made frustration become the order of the day. Again. I was trying to point out that she wasn’t getting the best from us because the Job Descriptions that she had sent over were generic to the point of vagueness (‘Must have strong IT Security experience with large projects’ type thing – and that was the most specific) which meant that our potential Candidate pool was so large that it was impossible to source the right Candidate, and so we weren’t really able to work them effectively. 

I pointed out that in other areas of the business we are beating 4 major national recruitment companies in terms of our Ratios: CV to 1^st Interview (1.4:1), 1^st Interview to Offer (1.5:1) and Offer to Placement (1.1:1), and Volume of Placements (25 in Q1 versus 7 from the next best agency) and that this was solely down to our understanding of our Search Criteria, and how to sell the role to a prospective Candidate. This caused some confusion in said Resource Manager. 

“But none of our other agencies do this.  Why can’t you just work from the spec??” Now, I could have said several things. 

I could have said: “Who the hell are you dealing with??”  Or “How much time are you wasting looking at the wrong Candidates?” 

Or “The spec is so vague that I could send you anyone and according to this you would interview them.” Or “Don’t you have a clue about what it is that you should be doing to help you hire for these positions??” 

What I actually did was try to explain that by allowing us access to this information it would mean a more targeted approach, with better Candidates, and a swifter turn around for her.  All we needed was one conversation with somebody who knew the technical aspects of the role to allow us to narrow down our Search. Apparently, this was just not something that could be entertained, as everyone is ‘too busy’. 

Too busy interviewing the wrong Candidates? I thought, or too busy wading through the mess of useless CVs? Why, oh why, can Clients not be better educated about how to work with Recruitment companies?  Some do it very well, and I appreciate that different agencies will require different things, but with more knowledge comes a smoother Recruitment Process, which means that Clients can get their hiring done more efficiently. 

So often we see this in any number of Clients: a stressed Resourcing Manager who is doing the best they can, but who ultimately does not know enough about what they are actually hiring for to facilitate a swift and painless placement. And because of this they try to retain control of the process grabbing it with both hands and preventing anyone from getting the answers needed, which means that the people who can help (i.e. me!!) cannot. 

And so the cycle goes on.   I always try to let our Clients know how they can get the best out of us, and it always comes down to one thing. 

We need information.  Lots of it.  On all sorts of things. And it might take some time (who knows? A full half hour or more – the Horror!!!!) But it will mean that we get the job done right for you.  

In closing, a Recruiters job is doing 3 things: Identifying what the Client wants, identifying what the Candidate wants, and then acting to introduce them when there is a match. 

If we can’t find out what the Client really wants we may as well not work the roles, as it is a strong bet that we won’t make the placement.  And even if we do fill the role, for me that is just as bad as we won’t actually know why we managed it, it was just that Lady Luck was smiling that day…

Has anyone noticed that Interviewing is a lot like Dating?

I have recently gone through a round of interviewing for some Trainee roles, trying to find the next wave of talent that will break upon the sandy shore of
Successful Recruiterdom, and as always, it has been incredibly time consuming but ultimately rewarding.  And it got me to thinking.

Interviewing (and Recruitment in general) is incredibly like Dating (actually, the recruitment process can be transposed to many aspects of life in general, but that’s for another day!!)First of all, you figure out what it is that you are looking for.  Now, when looking for a new partner this might not be something that you actually want to write down in the form of a job description, unless you are using the interweb to try to find romance: (Wanted: One partner for the opportunity to become married!! Ideally with significant experience of dogwalking and who might want to learn about snake-herding…) but it is useful when clarifying your person profile as an employer: (Trainee Recruitment Consultant with the opportunity for fast-track promotion into Team Leadership and Management!! Ideally with significant experience in an outbound sales environment who is interested in strong training in a structured recruitment methodology…)

Then, you need to know where your target Candidate is to be found!!  When looking for Trainees I advertise in a well known London paper which apparently is the Standard for the Evening press. When I was single and on the lookout for the next (and hopefully only!!) Mrs. Rowe, I would begin my search in pubs, clubs, social gatherings, parties, in fact anywhere until my friends took pity and set me up with someone. 

I guess you would say that they were the Recruitment Consultant to my Client.  Cue comments about fees…  There were none.

It was a charitable cause.

Before finding the ideal Candidates for my Trainee roles, I have a 3 stage interview process beginning with a telephone pre-screening (do they have the right communication skills??), then 1^st face-to-face meeting (Sell the company, sell the role, sell the training, grill them – can they sell to me?? Get commitment…), after which there is a finally face-to-face interview where the poor unfortunate has to give a presentation to my boss and I (Do they come back, and do they impress him?? Regain commitment…) and you have to go through a fair few candidates to whittle down to get the one you want to offer!!

So.  Dating. 

I struggled to get my interview process quite that regimented, but it went something like this… Meet someone you like.  Have a chat (Sell yourself, try to make them laugh, carry on Selling, they’re not laughing… “A horse walks into a bar…” Sell some more, Close and get the number whilst they’re still interested. Get commitment to a further meeting)

Go out for drinks / dinner (Sell yourself, can they sell to you, try to make them laugh again, do we have actually anything in common – will this be a Permanent role we are looking at or a short term contract / temp opportunity? Not laughing – tell the ‘Horse’ joke again – it never fails… Regain commitment!!)

And from there it gets blurry (the process, not necessarily my recollection!!) but if it is going well then there should be another meeting, maybe the Cinema or perhaps just another dinner with some sort of dancing afterwards.  

Can you tell I rarely got to the 3^rd Interview?  Apparently I have 2 left feet and a face for radio. 

Regaining commitment is crucial:

“So, are you interested?” is a good way of opening, but should be used probably with Trainees only as it might be misconstrued as somewhat egotistical.  “Do you want to come back for coffee?” also is useful, but should probably not be used with Trainees as it might be the opening gambit for a harassment case.

Once you have your Commitment, you can then move to presenting your Offer to them, although you might want to make sure that there is no money involved with anyone other than the Trainee, as this might again be misconstrued…

Recruitment: it’s not just about finding people jobs, and helping people fill jobs.

Ok – it is. 

But it’s so much more!!!