Croquet and Pimms at the SEEK Estate

SEEK did something quite unexpected yesterday.  They hosted a very pleasant, convivial, civilised and not-at-all-brash garden party at Alberton House the “SEEK Estate” to host a range of clients, recruitment and corporate, to say thanks for our business.  How jolly decent of you SEEK and thanks for having us all along.

Now this was no legendary SEEK Blue Ball thronged with roaring recruiters, chest thumping suits and tottering tipsily on high heels.  This really was an indication of where we have come as an industry since the heady boom days.  The recession put paid to the Blue Ball, the flash venues and manically drumming Japs fading into a distant memory from 2008 as SEEK’s swollen coffers started to run as dry as those of their recruitment clients.  This was altogether a far more genteel occasion.  Recruiters are still in the process of hauling themselves back out of the recession.  No doubt work is picking up significantly and revenues are returning, but there are still a multitude of wounds to lick and heal, which came through in the polite and reserved chit chat that characterised the evening.  No more the sneering gloating over vanquished competitors, more like a few sideways glances and acknowledged mutual respect between competing firms who are all really just glad to still be in recruitment.

Forget Saatchi & Saatchi...it's Simon & Simon (Madison)

But for the wider recruitment masses, it was suggested by JP from Seek (who is now to be known as John-Paul as he was introduced by his new GM), that the Blue Ball will return.  So we will once again have a night of heavy drinking and general letting-hair-down behaviour.  Then we will really see if the recruitment industry leopard has managed to change its spots, or as I suspect is just currently wearing a clever spotless disguise in preparation to cast it aside when the boom returns.

The evening was also an opportunity for SEEK to introduce their aforementioned new GM.  Take a bow Janet Faulding and welcome to New Zealand’s recruitment community.  Janet has a background in running radio stations but did some online stuff as GM for Vouchermate.  We had a chat and she seemed pretty cool, although introducing her new account manager John as a fellow Pom, when he is from Zimbabwe, didn’t go down so well!

Janet Faulding speaks

It seems like The Whiteboard divided opinion last night as well, which is excellent news and just what I am trying to achieve – a bit of debate in our industry.  To be fair, there were many positive comments from some readers of the blog, and just one that suggested I was pushing things too far in a small market – but it’s all good and we’re all entitled to an opinion.  I have to take my hat off to the Manpower crew who were very magnanimous despite the panning received by many commentators a couple of weeks ago.

On that note the blog went past the 10,000 views mark last week, so thanks for all of your reading, especially those of you who contribute, comment and join in the debate on issues in our industry.

So there we have it.  No juicy gossip or salacious details on misbehaving recruiters this week I’m afraid.  I must say a big cheers to the guys from Hays, Recruit IT, Madison, and Automotive Employment, who carried the evening on in Snapdragon in the Viaduct.  It was a great night, but I really am all talked out, so I’m going to slink off to find a coffee and hopefully something abundantly greasy that I really shouldn’t be eating, but will be so good… I heard something on the radio yesterday about a battered sausage covered with chips and wrapped in bacon… a Piggy-Chip-Dog.

Mmm, that’ll be the ticket…aren’t hangovers great?

Recruit IT flying under the radar and banning use of flash

“Job Descriptions” Are a Waste of Paper

I was kindly forwarded an interesting article by a client this week and there is a part of it I feel compelled to comment upon.  The article was published in the Computerworld New Zealand magazine on 19^th July and was titled “ITCRA clarifies questions raised by online comments”.

For those of you who don’t know, ITCRA stands for “Information Technology Contract and Recruitment Association”, who are a body to which most kiwi IT recruitment firms appear to belong.  It also appears to be where the recently departed RCSA Commandant Julie Mills skipped across to.  Anyway, the article came about in response to a previous piece where John Wyatt was interviewed for the magazine, and it begins like this:

“Last month, Computerworld published an interview with Recruit IT Director John Wyatt, which discussed whether IT firms were specific enough when writing job descriptions for roles they seek to fill.

Many of the positions Recruit IT is asked to fill don’t have formal job descriptions attached, Wyatt said.  He added that the IT industry could benefit if job vacancies assigned to recruitment firms contained more precise details of what the candidate is expected to do.”

 

Julie Mills then goes on to respond to the 47 comments that were left on this previous article, many of which followed the usual boring patterns around low barriers to entry in recruitment, whether recruiters actually use their databases, why salaries are left off job advertising etc, etc, ad nauseum…

But I want to make a comment on John Wyatt’s original assertion that the IT industry would benefit from giving recruiters clearer job descriptions:

Really?  I mean really?

You see I’m not so sure about that, and the reason for that is that job descriptions are a complete load of arse – a waste of paper – a pointless invention by under-worked HR departments seeking to attach a process and a label to everything.

Job descriptions may well describe a job, but they certainly won’t describe the ideal person for the role, nor will they describe the lucky person who eventually wins the job.  The reason for this is that any hiring manager, or recruiter for that matter, worth their salt, will hire on attitude first, and teach skills later.  Now I will concede that there are certain jobs where a certain level of technically definable skillsets are justified, IT being one of them, but why don’t you just put together a brief list of those technical skills and not waste time fluffing it up with all the pointless warm and fuzzy stuff?

The same logic applies here to the recruitment doomsday merchants who keep asserting that technology is going to render the recruitment industry impotent.  First it was e-mails (recruiters used the technology to their advantage).  Next it was the internet (recruiters learnt to harness it to market services and seek out candidates).  Then it was job boards (agencies now provide at least 80% of job board revenues).  The next wave is smart job boards that will be able to seek out candidates from online posted CVs who match certain criteria for a job, removing the job of the recruiter.  Of course, this will also fail to remove the recruitment industry.  The reason for this is that recruitment is not a science, it is an art, and the only machine capable of determining a match, a fit, is the human brain.

Job descriptions fall into the same category as this – you simply cannot accurately describe the perfect person for the role by listing a range of character traits, experiences and achievements.  Yes you can require a Degree in Chemical Engineering for a Process Engineer in an Oil Refinery but leave it at that.  That’s about as far as it goes.

As for John Wyatt’s belief that the IT industry would benefit, I assume he means that more placements would be made, of more candidates who more accurately fit the mould.  Come off it.  A good recruiter will find the right fit for a company by meeting the client, spending time in their business, really getting to know the workings and the culture of the firm, the social aspects, the balance of personalities.

A job description is a crutch for recruiters – to help them craft a half-decent sounding job advert – and to send to their candidate to make it appear like they understand the role they want to put them forward to.  Rip it up.

Now if there is one industry where it is totally impossible to contrive a straight-faced and useful job description, it has to be the agency recruitment industry itself.  But of course there are firms who have tried to put down the job of a recruitment consultant into a formal HR document, and I would like to share with you some of the best JD bits I have come across in my time recruiting for recruiters:

“Being ‘straight up’ with clients and candidates alike”

Should this really need to be in the job description?  Shouldn’t this kind of go without saying?  I suppose it says a lot about our industry.

“Having fun and not taking ourselves too seriously”

This is great.  I’ve worked with people in recruitment before who definitely don’t adhere to this one.  I’d have loved to have been able to wheel out the JD every time the sour face came on.

“Instigate appropriate number of sales cycles to generate and maintain a constant business pipeline.”

Pound the phone.  Just write it.  Pound.  The.  Phone.  Stop with all the flowery nonsense.

“Be literate and numerate”

Is this line really worth the effort of typing it into the JD?  This is like saying “breathe regularly”.  The funniest thing is that the next one was in the same JD…

“Present candidates all candidates honestly to clients”

Is it a grammatical error?  Or did the author write “candidates” before pausing to have a think, and then deciding to make it clear that they meant “all candidates” and not just the ones that might actually be worth putting forward.

“Ensuring our offices present a tidy and professional image always, and to encourage clients to visit them”

I can just imagine the new rookie recruiter, in his/her second month, starting to get some confidence going and referring back to the JD in their training manual or employment contract, and having a client turning up in the back office one Monday morning.  The desks of recruiters are generally not worthy of the inspection of your clients!  Of course, inviting them to your polished marble reception areas before interviewing your shortlist in the chromed, coffee’d and fresh-flowered boardroom is a different matter.

Just a bit of fun.  But seriously, get out there and get to know your clients better.  Don’t rely on a JD from HR and, even better, rip it up and make the placement anyway.

Have a great weekend.