Getting fooled by recruitment sector specialisation.
Posted by Mitch on 27th July 2010
I found this superb blog by Martin Ellis, the MD at Sam Headhunting.
It echoes something I’ve been saying for a while, which is that pretty-much all the sector-specialist recruiters I’ve ever met or spoken to (and that is quite a lot over the years) have almost all made the “we have the best candidates” mantra the basis of their sales message.
Most of them, when pushed (I’m great at pushing), couldn’t articulate why or how that was the case. Normally, 3 questions in, they’re wishing they’d never called me.
In his blog, Martin makes the really valid point that all these agency recruiters/headhunters really have is a very similar database of the same oft-circulated candidates that they rely on time and time again to parade job openings in front of.
A database of candidates by the way, that is in part at least, easily replicable by any internal corporate recruiter who knows what recruitment is.
Many of these sector-specialist recruiters achieve sales, not through the veracity of their business proposition, but more through the inertia, ignorance or time-poor state of the individual client managers they’re dealing with.
When a hiring manager insists they need the new hire to have done almost exactly the same job before with a competitor, what they are really saying mostly is that they don’t have the time or the inclination or the skill to develop someone themselves.
Now, as most people know deep down, the best candidates (in terms of just medium-term productivity) are not those that make sideways moves into jobs for more money or a nicer boss. No, the best candidates are those for whom the new job represents logical career evolution.
Then there’s the issue of attracting genuine innovation into the business and being able to develop new ideas – that becomes very hard when the only people a company ever recruits is from their own sector.
That mostly leads to something I’ve coined as corporate inbreeding.
Paddle faster, I hear banjos.
Comments
By Darren Ledger on Wednesday, 08 June 2011Mitch, yet again a very articulate and accurate piece of blogging. I do love your no nonsense style.
I personally am particularly annoyed at the ‘headhunters’ who suddenly become Headhunters overnight. I recently watched a recruitment consultant who had worked in the healthcare sector running a desk specialising in Cares (temps / contract) join a new firm and overnight (literally the very day he joined the company) he became an Executive Search Manager. Obviously he had undertaken some form of brainwashing because suddenly acquired a breath taking level of knowledge and insight into the Pharmacuetical Sector…
It took me 10yrs before I dared to even consider myself a Headhunter! It wasn’t until I delivered a global search for a £400K Treasury role that I truly understood what the term meant! Nowadays everyone is a ‘specialist’ and anyone can be a ‘headhunter’!
What a shame say I!
By David Gillies on Thursday, 23 June 2011
I am an IT recruiter. It seems to me that specializing in a particular skillset is useful from the perspective of really understanding how a technology is used and qualifying individuals who say they can use it. Yes, of course, part of the advantage of specializing is having a ready stable of candidates that we can “parade” multiple times in front of various clients. It is efficient. No?
I found your blog through Savage’s blog. I read one of his blogs where he suggested choosing a specialty and sticking with it. You seem to agree with Greg on at least some issues and I would be curious to know if you agree with him on choosing a specialty and sticking with it? I don’t get the impression you do from this blog.
By Mitch on Friday, 07 October 2011
Hi David
Apologies for it taking so long for me to answer your question.
I do think sector specialisation can be important, depending on what that sector is and how institutionally ingrained the tightness of the candidate skills profile generally is. But these types of sectors are in a minority. Your sector way well be one of them.
David, if one of your clients asked you to source someone outside of your core area - and paid you some money in advance to do so, would you take the assignment?
By David Gillies on Friday, 07 October 2011
Hello, Mitch. I wanted to follow-up with you from my last post four months ago. Yes, my sector Upstream Oil & Gas has what you call “institutionally ingrained tightness”. The peculiarities of the work and the peculiarities of the applications make it extremely difficult for “outsiders” to come in at many capacities, although it can happen.
I don’t use job boards, but do source on LinkedIn…mainly to “phone source” (no rusing here!) them to get to others. If one cannot explain what the person does that you need, they have no idea to whom to transfer you. And, the request must come across naturally….like I am in the industry….in their company….one of them. If I don’t talk naturally, they get suspicious and ask who I am, then I tell them I am a recruiter who wants to introduce a new opportunity to an individual. This often means I am “dead in the water”, but not always. :) I am not sure that my candidates are “better” but they are often unique to them, since I am calling companies directly. Does that makes sense? My clients seem to get it.
Since sticking to my discipline and also demanding contact with hiring managers to the absolute chagrin of HR (and one lost contract because of that), I have gained a laser-like focus that has produced wonderful, highly encouraging results. It is amazing what focus will do for one’s success. To be honest, I quite like being an SME (subject matter expert) in an area. Maybe that is more personality?
By David Gillies on Tuesday, 15 November 2011
Mitch,
It seems that I missed your question above.
Yes, if client paid me money in advance and offered a highly collaborative relationship, I would take the search; however, my goal is to become so well known in my niche that in the future, I do not have time to focus on other roles.
Until I get that reputation, I will have to be bit more broad in my focus.
- David
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