by Richard Triggs | Aug 8, 2023 | Blogs
As an executive recruiter with over 20 years of experience, I am regularly asked by both jobseekers and employers what substantive changes or trends are affecting the recruitment industry.
The reality is that technology and human behaviour (in relation to finding jobs) have significantly changed, yet in many respects, both in-house and third-party recruiters continue to operate using antiquated models that are not effective any more.
Traditional recruitment
In the pre-LinkedIn world, employers would rely on third-party recruiters for the bulk of their hiring needs.
As an example, a mining company requires a new chief financial officer, so they go to a recruiter who specialises in these roles. That recruiter has, over time, built a database of candidates with these skill sets and experience, which the employer requires. Recruiters were able to charge substantial fees for access to their talent pools.
The rise of LinkedIn Recruiter
With the introduction of LinkedIn, millions of professionals created profiles in order to connect with former and current colleagues and business associates. It wasn’t long before LinkedIn realised they had created a goldmine for recruiters, so they, in turn, created LinkedIn Recruiter licences. This product allows recruiters to use sophisticated search tools to mine LinkedIn for candidate profiles.
Larger employers were quick to start to build internal recruitment teams, believing that by arming them with LinkedIn Recruiter licences, they could dramatically reduce their recruitment spend.
Why pay a third-party recruiter $60,000-plus per placement when they could hire their own recruiter for not much more per annum, who, using LinkedIn, could potentially recruit dozens of employees per year? Using the example above, if virtually every CFO in the mining industry has a LinkedIn profile, why do employers need the third-party recruiter’s database anymore?
The pitfalls of internal recruitment
Unfortunately, for a lot of employers, building out an internal recruitment team has not resulted in the fantastic outcomes they were anticipating.
I would say that the vast majority of business owners and senior hiring managers I speak to are consistently underwhelmed with the quality and quantity of candidates they are presented with by their internal recruitment teams. As a result, they still need to rely on third-party recruiters for many of their vacancies and continue to pay high fees. This is unsurprising for a few key reasons.
Most internal recruiters are failed external recruiters who go in-house to escape the pressures of working for a consultancy.
They bring with them their bad habits, including not putting their name and phone number on job advertisements (so candidates are unable to call and ask questions to decide if they want to apply), not acknowledging applications (so candidates don’t know the status of their application), not processing applications fast enough (so good candidates find another job in the meantime) and just generally regarding candidates as a commodity and treating them extremely poorly.
I am sure every job applicant reading this article will have had this experience.
Don’t get me wrong; many third-party recruiters deliver an equally underwhelming candidate experience. It’s just that these third-party recruiters won’t survive long in a competitive industry, so most who wish to remain in recruitment will probably end up in-house.
So what does the future look like?
Job applicants are human beings with emotions and aspirations. They expect and deserve to be treated with respect and to have human interactions prior to and during their application process.
Organisations that truly wish to be regarded as “employers of choice” must radically assess and redress their recruitment processes. The reliance on current technologies like LinkedIn and new technologies like ChatGPT and artificial intelligence, while useful, will never replace a human’s desire for connection and emotional engagement.
Organisations that focus on building their employment brands, and the personal brands of their hiring managers, are able to attract top talent from their competitors. Organisations that are looking at ways to provide greater value to their employees through flexible working arrangements, professional development, healthcare and other benefits also have a competitive advantage when recruiting.
Likewise, third-party recruiters need to critically examine their value proposition and look for ways to partner with internal recruitment rather than compete with them.
New hybrid models are emerging, which play to the strengths of both third-party and internal recruitment teams, allowing for great candidate experiences while also substantially reducing costs.
While the traditional recruitment industry may be dead, the requirement for excellent recruitment practices is even more critical in this new employment environment. For employers to win “the war for talent”, it’s time to make the necessary changes to attract and retain excellent employees.
By Richard Triggs, author of “Uncover the Hidden Job Market – How to Find and Win Your Next Senior Executive Role”. He also hosts the Arete Podcast and is a highly sought-after keynote speaker.
by Richard Triggs | Jul 22, 2023 | Blogs
The workforce landscape has undergone a significant transformation, influenced by diverse factors such as Nigeria’s “japa” syndrome, the global “great resignation,” and the paradigm shift in work attitudes brought on by the Covid-19 pandemic.
For employers, these changes have been both unsettling and challenging, as they grapple with the fear of losing valuable talent to alternative opportunities and abrupt departures, leading to a post-traumatic stress reaction when it comes to recruitment efforts.
The repercussions of these trends now shape employers’ mindsets and impact their hiring strategies, amplifying the hiring crisis that predates the pandemic as companies become more cautious and apprehensive about hiring decisions.
In response, the recruitment industry has become inundated with various myths, which, although have deeply-rooted historical origins, have been exacerbated by the current hiring crisis.
To help companies address some of these growing hiring concerns in an eye-opening perspective, Richard Triggs, a prominent executive recruiter and career coach with over two decades of experience, addressed some of the most common hiring myths.
In his Op-ed for the CEOWORLD, Triggs reflected on his early days in the recruitment industry when the term “War for Talent” was introduced, painting a picture of scarcity to manage employer expectations regarding the quality of candidates.
Back then, recruiters used this narrative to condition employers to expect underwhelming results. However, Triggs passionately disagrees with this notion, stating that it is a mere excuse perpetuated by lazy and incompetent recruiters.
“…I clearly remember being introduced to this term of doom and gloom, “The War for Talent”, designed to spread fear amongst employers and to lower their expectations regarding the quality of candidates they would see on a presented shortlist. It’s not dissimilar to a real estate agent manipulating homeowners into accepting a lower price for their house, because “it’s a buyer’s market out there (i.e. tough)” so the owner should be grateful to receive an offer at all,” Triggs said.
Rather than blaming market conditions, he asserted that successful recruitment relies on hard work, smart strategies, and the ability to deliver outstanding shortlists.
Triggs also highlighted the importance of taking quality briefs from hiring managers, writing compelling job advertisements, engaging with potential applicants, and actively headhunting for top talent.
He shared a telling example of an Engineering firm with 40 vacancies that remained unfilled due to the lack of proactive recruitment efforts by their HR managers.
“Through asking some probing questions it became obvious that they were not bothering to take quality briefs from the hiring manager, they were writing very boring job advertisements, they were not making themselves available to speak to potential applicants, and if was often over three weeks between someone making an application being interviewed. Plus they were doing zero headhunting,” Triggs had observed.
He emphasized that there is no “War for Talent” but rather a clear distinction between successful recruitment strategies and those leading to mediocrity.
“It’s absolutely no wonder at all that their results were so poor. Yet they continue to remain employed and continue to offer the same BS excuse to their boss, “Sorry boss, it’s just that there’s a War for Talent”. Give me a freaking break,” he added.
Triggs concluded by noting that various myths surround recruitment, leadership, and retention in the corporate world. He believes these myths need to be challenged and debunked to foster a more informed and effective approach to hiring and talent management.
Additionally, he humorously mentioned cliché memes frequently repeated in business books, citing quotes such as “Strategy Eats Culture for Breakfast” and “Start with Why” as examples. Although thought-provoking at the time, Triggs suggests that these quotes have become clichéd through endless regurgitation.
“There is no “War for Talent”, there never has been and if you are being duped into believing this then do so at your own peril. There are simple, proven and consistently successful recruitment strategies; and on the other side of the coin, there are lazy and incompetent people who are wasting your time and money through being terrible at their jobs,” he stated.
by Richard Triggs | Jul 15, 2023 | Blogs
As an executive recruiter with over 20 years’ experience, I’ve found it both amusing and frustrating to hear the same myths throughout my career. Whether in good times or bad times, booms or pandemics, employers and recruiters consistently complain about the ability to attract and retain quality staff. In this article, I’m going to focus on the “war for talent” and the “great resignation”.
Myth One – The War for Talent
When I first started working in the recruitment industry in 2002, I clearly remember being introduced to this term of doom and gloom, “The War for Talent”, designed to spread fear amongst employers and to lower their expectations regarding the quality of candidates they would see on a presented shortlist. It’s not dissimilar to a real estate agent manipulating homeowners into accepting a lower price for their house, because “it’s a buyer’s market out there (i.e. tough)” so the owner should be grateful to receive an offer at all.
It amazed me that recruiters basically sold a service by pre-emptively conditioning employers to be underwhelmed. Plus, that’s exactly the level of service they then delivered. On the other hand, I believed (and still do) that as recruitment professionals, we must be able to guarantee to deliver outstanding shortlists.
It’s twenty years later and I still hear about the “War for Talent” on an almost daily basis, from CEOs and business owners, HR Managers and internal and external recruiters. Quite frankly, it’s a load of rubbish and the fact that it is perpetuated is just an indication of how dumb and lazy most people charged with recruitment are. Rather than working harder and smarter to attract outstanding candidates, it’s so much easier to blame the market and accept mediocrity.
I recently spoke to two HR managers from an Engineering firm, who explained that they currently had over 40 vacancies they were unable to fill. Through asking some probing questions it became obvious that they were not bothering to take quality briefs from the hiring manager, they were writing very boring job advertisements, they were not making themselves available to speak to potential applicants, and if was often over three weeks between someone making an application being interviewed. Plus they were doing zero headhunting.
It’s absolutely no wonder at all that their results were so poor. Yet they continue to remain employed and continue to offer the same BS excuse to their boss, “Sorry boss, it’s just that there’s a War for Talent”. Give me a freaking break!
There is no “War for Talent”, there never has been and if you are being duped into believing this then do so at your own peril. There are simple, proven and consistently successful recruitment strategies; and on the other side of the coin, there are lazy and incompetent people who are wasting your time and money through being terrible at their jobs.
Myth Two – The Great Resignation
How many times have you heard this phrase in the last couple of years, especially in our post-Covid world. “It’s not my/our fault we can’t retain our people, it’s the Great Resignation”. It’s as if everyone drank the Kool-Aid whilst working from home, and they woke up hating their boss, hating their profession, and all wanted to quit and join the circus.
Average professional job tenure in Australia from 2000 to 2022 has consistently sat at around 3 to 3.5 years. This means that people change employers roughly every three years. A recent PwC report on the Great Resignation, “What Workers Want: How to win the war on talent”, found that 38% of Australian workers intend to leave their current employer during the next 12 months. Which is, guess what? A tenure of about 3 to 3.5 years. So the more things change, the more they stay the same.
There is no Great Resignation, it’s just media doom and gloom being fed by consultants trying to sell more snake oil (anyone remember Y2K?).
My simple explanation is this. During Covid there were a lot of people who wanted to change jobs, however chose not to do so because they felt the risk of change was too high. So they stayed in jobs longer than they would have normally because it was “a safe harbour in a storm”. Now that Covid is largely behind us, these people are resigning for new opportunities. Covid was just a bottleneck and now the employment market is returning to normal.
There are so many other myths around recruitment, leadership and retention that I could write a whole book on this subject. Then there are the cliché memes that seem to get repeated in every business book written. Examples are, “Strategy Eats Culture for Breakfast (Peter Drucker)” or “Start with Why (Simon Senek)”, or even “Courage Over Comfort (Brene Brown)”. Any whilst at the time these quotes were thought provoking and challenged some old paradigms of thinking about business, they just seem a bit naff now through endless regurgitation.
How about we just learn some simple tools and then go out and kick some butt?
by Richard Triggs | Jul 10, 2023 | Blogs
Whether organisations are listed or private, not for profits or government-owned corporations, everyone wants a competitive advantage and one of the best ways of achieving this is by attracting and retaining excellent talent.
Some companies do this extraordinarily well; however most are missing out on attracting great people because of poor, antiquated and inefficient recruitment practices. Here are some things you can do to vastly improve your ability to win the ‘war for talent’.
Focus on your brand as an ‘Employer of Choice’
Prospective employees have greater choice than perhaps ever before in where they choose to work. They also have the ability to do far greater research into prospective employers before deciding whether to apply for certain positions.
What does your website say about your organisation as an employer? Most website content is aimed at attracting customers, yet few put any attention on attracting employees. Your website is a great opportunity to highlight what differentiates you as an employer. Perhaps you could have testimonials from some of your team as to why they love working for you, and highlight exciting new projects and initiatives?
Likewise, the LinkedIn profiles of your executive leaders should highlight why they would be fantastic to work for. Most LinkedIn profiles are poorly written and contain virtually no detail or consistency about your organisation or the great achievements of your leadership team. Spending some time in professionalising and enhancing your LinkedIn profiles is critical to attracting top talent.
Radically improve the performance of your in-house recruitment team
With the introduction of LinkedIn recruiter licenses a few years ago, many employers have moved to employing their own recruitment staff rather than paying third-party consultants. Yet, CEOs and business owners on a daily basis, are underwhelmed by the quality and quantity of candidates their recruitment teams are generating. Here are a few things that will immediately improve your ability to attract candidates.
- Make sure the person responsible for recruiting the role is briefed properly. Most in-house recruiters have only a cursory knowledge of the roles they are responsible for. Make sure they understand and can communicate clearly the quantifiable, key deliverables of the role. What does success look like? What does this new employee need to achieve?
- Make sure your recruiter puts their name and phone number on the advertisement. This is so rarely done nowadays and in my opinion is blatantly lazy and unprofessional. Great candidates want to ask questions before they decide to make an application, especially if the advertisement is light on important details, which is almost always the case. If these candidates have no one to call, they will most likely not make an application, and you will miss out on the opportunity of employing them.
- Treat candidates with respect and acknowledge and respond to them quickly and professionally. Candidates are human beings with emotions and intellect. They are not commodities. With the market so hot right now, good candidates are finding new roles quickly. Ensure that applicants are followed up immediately and interviewed quickly otherwise you will miss out. Even applicants deemed inappropriate for the role deserve to be treated with courtesy. Not giving them prompt and constructive feedback is an easy way to damage your employer of choice brand.
The best talent needs to be headhunted
Great employees are rarely looking for a new job because they are being treated well and enjoying their current jobs. As such, they are unlikely to see, let alone respond to your job advertisement or LinkedIn inmails from your recruitment team. So if you want the best, you need to headhunt them.
One of the downsides of internal recruitment teams is that they can’t headhunt with any confidentiality, because they need to disclose the name of their employer (it’s on their LinkedIn profile, after all). Additionally, they don’t have the time, or frankly the desire, to cold call prospective employees. So for mission critical or confidential vacancies, using a third-party executive search firm (i.e. a headhunter) is still very important.
Whilst there are still many executive search firms charging exorbitant fees for their services, there are recruitment companies offering hybrid solutions, working collaboratively with your in-house team to save you time and a significant amount of money. These offerings are definitely worth exploring.
Attracting great talent is not hard, however it requires effort and professionalism to do so. Focus on your ’employer of choice’ brand, ensure your in-house recruitment teams are following best practices, and utilise headhunters where appropriate. The return on investment will definitely be worth it and will give you a significant competitive advantage.
by Richard Triggs | Jun 30, 2023 | Blogs
As the financial year ends, businesses may be looking at 1 July with optimism and a chance for a fresh start. Understanding what’s driving recruitment can help to make this possible.
Founder and CEO of Arete Executive Richard Triggs believes that artificial intelligence (AI) and automation in hiring is actually a hindrance to business success, and organisations should limit their reliance.
“If an organisation said, ‘We’re going to buy this amazing software that’s going to enable us to be able to scan CVs, and pick out keywords, and hire people, and only bring people to interview who have got those keywords in their CVs.’ What happens if there’s an awesome candidate who would be unbelievably amazing in your business but didn’t write a very good CV?” Mr Triggs said.
There’s also room for unconscious bias in AI hiring, said Mr Triggs: “It unconsciously removes women, or removes people of colour.”
He continued: “There’s a lot of flaws with that technology. And, of course, if I want to hire you, I need to reach out to you, [and] we need to have a conversation. I need to understand your motivations. Why are you looking for a new job? What would a job ideal opportunity look like for you? What are your key achievements and transferable skills?”
“So, I think organisations, whether it be an in-house recruiter or third-party recruiter, will always have reliance on human beings. AI may be, to some degree, useful in disseminating and building out lists of people to be considered. But even then, I think there’s a lot of nuances that would be missed.”
Another key area businesses should consider is their own internal recruitment teams. Mr Triggs said that these teams often fly under the radar but should be held accountable as if they were an external recruiter.
“Employers need to start to manage the internal recruitment teams as they would a third-party provider. Other than saving money, what is the average length of time to hire? What is the opportunity cost from having this vacancy open for too long? What is the average length of tenure of the people that have been placed? They need to really analyse,” said Mr Triggs.
“Also, to have their leaders actively be encouraging of people approaching them directly about opportunities. Part of being a good leader is making sure that you’re constantly building a bench of talent so that you’re not left in a situation where you have a mission critical that you can’t fill.”
Contrary to what many in the workforce have been saying for the last year, Mr Triggs believes the Great Resignation is a myth.
“Personally, I don’t think it’s a real thing. In the recruitment market, or the job market at the moment is very buoyant. There’s a lot of opportunity. One of the reasons for that is that there were a lot of people who during COVID-19 wanted to leave their job and get a new job, but they chose not to because they felt it was too risky,” he outlined.
“What if I go to a new company, and I get COVID-19? What if I get a new company and that company is negatively impacted by COVID-19? So even though I want to change jobs, I’m going to remain in a safe harbour in a storm.”
“So, a lot of these people who would have normally left their job over that couple of year period didn’t and obviously, now that you know if it’s behind us, those people are moving. I don’t think that there is any great change in the market; it’s more that there’s been a bit of a bottleneck and that bottlenecks [have] been released.”
by Richard Triggs | Jun 28, 2023 | Blogs
Byron Gray believes he would have missed out on his current job if he hadn’t contacted the hiring manager on LinkedIn. More than 100 people applied for the role, Gray tells BOSS. But he was the only one out of a handful of interviewees who made a direct approach.
