It’s been a very tough last few years. The toughest period in living memory for the majority of people. Following the banking crisis of 2008 very few public and private sector organisations were unscathed by redundancies as management fought with keeping costs under control as income plummeted.
Many people were faced with an unemployment situation for the first time in their career, and sought advice and support from us. We were happy to help by giving good, honest advice at the most troubling of times.
Fast forward to 2016 and although the job market is much healthier there is still many individuals who approach us in an unemployment situation looking for help.
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 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 our clients; Transactional and Value-add.
As the domestic football season approaches it’s half-way point; I was chatting to a client last week and a football analogy worked really well to explain the difference between search recruitment and “job market” recruitment which Recruitment Agencies, Advertising and CV Websites use.
It’s generally considered the best football teams have the best players. True, great coaches can make lesser players exceed themselves with teamwork, organisation and hard work; but in reality the top 5 or 6 teams will compete for the English Premier League title every season. They compete at the top as they have the best players.
The best players will invariably have been signed for a transfer fee from another football team, usually of a lesser standing. The top teams spend a massive amount of time, money and effort identifying and persuading the best players to sign for their team. The best players don’t have to “look” for a move, the opportunity to sign for a better team comes to find them. Continue reading Why Search Recruitment beats “job market” recruitment in finding you the best 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 what is a call from a headhunter 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?”
How’s your 2015 going? For many the economy is improving and the stagnation and uncertainty we’ve all suffered in the last few years is starting to lift. Moving forward with your life is often directly linked to your career. This may be looking at progressing within your company, moving companies, changing your location of work or even more dramatic changes such as changing the industry in which you operate. You may be on the search for your dream job, or maybe just a “stepping stone” to get you out of university and onto the job market to enable you to work your way up.
Either way, your CV is the first thing that potential employers see, so it has to represent you in the best possible way. The average amount of time an employer spends initially looking at your CV is 10 seconds.
“I’ve been in many disciplines. I’ve been an operations director, a commercial director and a financial director – and i’m not an accountant. I don’t ever plot or plan it. I am fortunate. I can’t remember the last job I applied for. I just seem to get the opportunity to do interesting things.”
So – how is it the CEO of a company rumoured to be valued at over £500m is able to be recruited as an operations director, commercial director, financial director (without being an accountant) and then CEO; without ever having applied for any of these jobs?
The reason is quite simple. The vast majority of top jobs are never advertised openly nor come to the attention of recruitment agencies. If you are an “active jobseeker” many jobs simply will not be available to you.
Many jobs are filled by people who are not even “looking” for a job; intermediaries such as Wynne Consulting will act for client companies searching and sourcing the top talent for their clients. Wynne Consulting spend our time presenting new opportunities to “do interesting things” with prospective candidates.
Conversely, top talent will typically never apply for jobs, or talk to recruitment agencies. As a result, companies using conventional “reactive” recruitment methods which connect active job seekers with employers won’t ever access this talent pool that we call the “Hidden Elite”.
Visit www.wynneconsulting.co.uk to understand more about how we help the top companies recruit the “Hidden Elite”.
I was chatting to my father over the weekend about his experiences of job “interviews” in the 1960’s when he first left college. Morose interviewers firing open questions over an imposing oak desk whilst portraying the demeanor of a disinterested headmaster thinking “why on earth should I bother giving you a job?”.
This kind of arrogant interview style was commonplace where there is a rich choice of candidates to employ; where jobs are few and interviewees are plentiful.
Fast-forward to 2014 and the vast majority of the market sectors we operate in genuinely struggle to identify and recruit the best people. A shortage of highly skilled people coupled with an improving economy and falling unemployment makes the battle for talent even more intense.
As a specialist recruitment business we are continually asked by clients to recruit highly specialist skill-sets throughout the UK and Europe.
The nature of the high technology marketplace is that individual expertise and a collective capability of your people to deliver top quality solutions are the fundamental strengths of all successful businesses.
The critical part of that process is a companies’ ability to hire and retain top quality talent from a competitive marketplace. The other companies that you compete with are all looking to hire the same people so your ability to identify and hire the people you need often is the key difference between success and failure.
One of the biggest decisions many professionals take in their career is not just whether to take that great job opportunity, but is it the right thing to do to move lock, stock & barrel to the other part of the country (or continent!) that the new job demands.
On one side – limiting career progression to the commuting distance from your home can be very restrictive to your career in the long-term; whereas a full job relocation often means leaving behind your friends, family and the standard of living you’re accustomed to (whether that’s a good thing or not!). Relocation is a massive step to take but for the brave it significantly increases the scope and volume of job opportunities available.
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.
We are seeing genuinely exciting growth in the UK job market at the moment. Over 400 recruiting firms surveyed found that the present growth in job vacancies was at it’s highest level for 15 years. That was just prior to the .com boom around 2000.
