On Tuesday, TalentPuzzle were proud to present our first seminar for in-house recruiters. The focus of the day was “Recruitment Mix Effectiveness”: looking at how recruiters can define, measure and deliver effective recruitment.
Roger Philby of The Chemistry Group kicked off the morning giving his take on Building a Value of Hire Model. With his persuasive and energetic presenting style, Roger soon shook us all out of our sleepy morning comas (although the coffee may have helped). The main message was that hiring the right person matters; quality of hire and cost of hire are interwoven because there are massive costs involved in hiring the wrong person (either in severance or in managing poor performers). He went on to share the ways he has identified for ensuring high quality hires. This centred on identifying What Good Looks Like (“WGLL”) for a particular company and for specific areas within the business. This involves establishing what the best performers have in common, measuring this objectively and then seeking to replicate this in new hires.
Roger went on to toss conventional recruitment rules out of the window when he advised delegates to prioritise the qualities in a candidate that you cannot change, arguing that intellect, values, motivation, and behaviours should all be considered before experience.
Roger’s talk prompted a number of interesting questions such as: are the tools that you use to measure as important as what you’re measuring (answer: no, start somewhere and use whatever tools you can to measure something tangible), and was the basis of lively discussions around the room. One interesting point which came out of this was whether building a profile of WGLL would lead to you turning away candidates who didn’t “fit” the ideal, particularly people with specific technical skills. In response, Roger suggested that having a profile should actually open you up to saying yes to more people and also raises your awareness of the areas that they will need to improve upon or change if they’re going to work out.
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After a quick break, it was the turn of Matt Alder, self-titled Futurologist and founder of MetaShift, to step up. The topic of Matt’s presentation was Social Media and Value of Hire, and sought to demonstrate how social networks can be manipulated to achieve recruiting goals, e.g. to communicate the employer brand as an exciting and appealing place to work, or as part of a referral scheme. Matt’s presentation highlighted a number of key points to takeaway, for example that to use social media in the same way as traditional media (e.g. using twitter as a jobs board) is to miss out on its full potential as a resourcing tool. Matt also highlighted the ROI that you can expect from social recruiting: By enabling the dissemination of information about a company, social media not only raises the profile of the employer to attract top talent, but also facilitates self-selection of the most suitable candidates, thus delivering better informed interviewees and making the recruitment process more efficient. In the long run this is also expected to improve the quality of new hires, with improved performance and longevity at the company in question.
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The third and final presentation of the day was from Simon Ward, Interim Head of UK Recruitment for Legal and General. Simon’s own experiences of overhauling L&G’s recruitment mix formed the backbone of his presentation. Attendees benefitted from Simon’s ability to convey with humour the mistakes made, lessons learnt, and successes achieved throughout this process. Simon’s attitude towards the recruitment mix is that it’s not just a variety of channels to candidates, and its impact goes beyond the quality, cost and time to hire. An effective recruitment mix enables you to control your supply chain and your employer brand, and the experiences of the candidate, hiring manager and recruitment team. It also enables you to defend against attrition.
Simon also offered some interesting insights into management of relationships with recruitment agencies – particularly since he has experience of working as a recruitment consultant before going in-house. Although advising “there is nothing a supplier can do that we cannot do ourselves”, Simon went on to admit that L&G relies on third party suppliers for a good part of their recruitment, and so invest a lot into building and sustaining close working relations with these agencies. Ultimately, these third party recruiters, if managed well, will evangelise your employer brand to the job-hunting community for free.
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Questions and brief round table discussions followed, before the room gradually emptied, the buzz of lively conversations died down and delegates returned to their respective workplaces.
Overall, the feedback we received suggests that the morning was valued and enjoyed – with the average rating of the event being 8.2 out of 10 and many attendees saying they would like to attend the next event. Comments included: “Great event this morning; re-motivated and focussed!!” and “Very good event, great to meet other companies and learn how they recruit. Buzzing with new ideas, the speakers passed on some great insights.”
Thanks to all the speakers and delegates who made it such a success.