One of our top clients came into the office this week to talk about a major project we are undertaking to set up a new business unit for their organisation. Chatting away, he told us the story of his best friend who insists on doing all of his recruitment himself to save money.
He talked about how proud his friend is of placing job adverts in lots of different media, then taking all of the CV’s from “applicants” that he receives, all the phone-calls he gets from interested people who just “want to have a chat” about the job, etc. He then spends the next few evenings & weekends going through the CV’s, calling up the 15 or so interesting candidates and chatting to them about their background, experience, etc.
I was sat in a coffee shop over the weekend and overheard two friends talking about cars.
One was exalting the virtues of his lovely German saloon, with leather interior, cruise control, faultless driving experience,etc. His friend was also exalting how cheap his “Far East” manufactured car cost was to buy and run, the low “upfront cost”, low cost for spare parts, servicing, etc.
Although the conversation was about cars – the two friends were coming from opposite ends of the scale in terms of car needs and wants. Kind of similar to comparing apples & pears.
This set me thinking about clients “buying” recruitment services and their wants & needs; be it “Transactional” or “Value-add”.
We are all in control of how we spend our time. After all, it’s our life and we are the ones making decisions on how we spend each and every minute of each day.
But in reality, most of us fritter away our time on many different things that truly add no real benefit to our lives.
We live in an unprecedented age of information technology. The internet and “social media” now means we could all spend 24/7 working through the mountain of information that invades our lives from every conceivable angle. If you don’t believe this – just take a look around you on the train, in the coffee shop. How many people are using the “window to the world” that is the smartphone?
With all these new distractions adding to the “old fashioned” attention grabbers of incoming phone-calls, e-mails and colleagues asking for your time – it’s no wonder anyone can actually get any meaningful work completed. So – let’s look at some easy to use ideas to double your daily productivity:
Practical Time Management ideas:
The No1 advice is to be in control of your working day. You make the decisions on how to spend your time, don’t let events overly influence you. So – don’t take that phone call, don’t look at that e-mail, don’t deal with that colleague until it’s the right time for you. It’s not 100% possible to do this, but if you work at improving your control over your time the results will be remarkable. Continue reading Timestealers – overcome your time management demons and double your productivity.
Interviews aren’t a scary experience if you focus on some simple preparation. At Wynne Consulting we have many years’ experience of helping high quality people to be successful at interview, so here are a few easy tips to help you succeed:
The single biggest reason clients use Wynne Consulting is our ability to find people that aren’t on the “Open Job Market”. That means we find people who aren’t applying for Job Advertisements, talking to Recruitment Agencies or using CV Websites.
Growth in permanent staff salaries are also growing at their highest rate since before the financial crash in 2008.
One of the biggest problem companies face is how to recruit high quality people in today’s competitive environment.
The major issue is that the vast majority of high performing people don’t ever look for a job on the “open market”, so don’t talk to recruitment agencies, respond to job adverts and place their CV’s on CV Websites.
So how do companies get hold of these people to have an opportunity to recruit them? This diagram gives an accurate breakdown of a typical company of 100 people:
As a headhunt search company we are in business to help clients find the high calibre people they need to be successful.
We find people by identifying and then headhunting target individuals who we believe have the right skills and attributes that we are looking for. That’s great – but when a headhunter calls you, what is it really like?
As a rule of thumb, we will firstly call the individual and identify that it is in fact them speaking (and not their manager who’s answered their line); then we will make them aware that we are a headhunting organisation and that we would like to have a conversation with them about an career opportunity. We’ll ask “is it a convenient time to talk?”
Ever since I started working in search recruitment back in 1997, a common objection I hear from clients is “What do your services offer us that we can’t do ourselves”? This is a great question – and one an employer should always ask any prospective recruiter.
As an employer, if you are in the fortunate position of being able to hire good people through your own advertising and word of mouth; then realistically a recruiter cannot offer you much.
For the vast majority of jobs, whether blue-collar, white collar or management – it’s hard to find good people and most companies struggle to recruit. This is where recruiters come into play.
As a market leading recruitment organisation we are in a somewhat unique position at the “cutting edge” of dealing with people leaving organisations on a day-to-day basis. A common misconception is that as a headhunt search company we somehow have mystical power to “spirit” people away from blissfully happy jobs. The reality is completely different. On average over 60% of individuals we pro-actively approach will rebuff our advances as they are happy with their present situation. Unless there is an underlying issue there we are unable to persuade that person to talk about moving.
