What's Our Aim?
When starting a new company, no matter what type, sector or size, one question always needs to be answered.
What's our aim?
This then leads onto questions such as what is it we're trying to achieve and why are we trying to achieve it? What difference do we want to make? Tom and I have felt for a while that the approach widely used in the recruitment sector needs to be updated. The practices used by a lot of companies in our field are either completely outdated, demonstrate an absence of market knowldge or, show a complete lack of care for both candidates and clients.
Take the mailshots. We've not got a problem with sending out an email to multiple candidates notifying them of a role. Email communication is extremely effective and is critical to a recruitment business. However, having a candidate sign up who's interested in permanent JavaScript developer roles only to be emailed seven times the next day, by five different recruitment consultants, with freelance Java developer roles is not acceptable. GDPR may prevent this to a point, but it shouldn't take government legislation for companies to improve.
There's also the matter of market specialisms. I'm sure every client has had a recruiter tell them they're a market specialist in, say, software development, only for them to then ask the client what the different is between front-end and back-end. Since the recession in 2008, the market has been changing from client short to candidate short. We're constantly reading nowadays about the lack of good talent in the Tech world, no matter where you're located. I read that for every 16 IT vacancies in the Netherlands, there's only one suitable candidate (sourced from research by intelligent group). Recruitment companies can no longer just post an advert online and expect 10 suitable candidates to apply. Recruiters now have to be able to demonstrate real market knowledge and actually earn their position. Let me be clear, by market knowledge I do not mean they have to be able to understand code. We leave that to our candidates :)
What I mean is that recruiters must work hard to build strong, long-lasting relationships in their specific market disclipline. They must not only know the best JavaScripters on the market right now, but also the names of those who will be looking in three months time. They must know that particular candidate can't travel more than 30 mins because they have a newborn baby to get home to. That is what I consider to be good market knowledge and that is what a client wants from their recruiter. Anyone can post an advert online!
Lastly there's the matter of candidate care. I've always thought it extremely important to make sure you look after your candidates currently working for you on a client site. But all too often I hear that candidates are placed with a client and then don't recieve a call from their recruiter until their contract is up for renewal. Then suddenly the recruiter is interested again! A recruiter should want to build a meaningful relationship with their candidates through frequent communication. Firstly, it helps build trust as the developer is able to see that the recruiter actually cares about their wellbeing. It also alerts the recruiter to any issues that need to be dealt with rather than them being allowed to fester. Lastly, it's just a nice thing to do. Picking up the phone once in a while and asking "how's it all going" makes a big difference.
So coming back to the orginial question, What's our aim?
We want both our clients and developers to feel that they are part of a community, not just a number on an excel spreadsheet. We want people to come off the phone from dealing with us and think, those guys sound like they know what they're on about. And lastly, we want people to trust us with their job search (Yes I know trust and recruitment don't normally go well together), but feel confident that we can deliver for them, or be honest when we can't!
If we can invoke these kinds of emotions with our customers, then I think we will be achieveing our aim.