IT RECRUITMENT CONSULTANCY
Guiding you to your ideal candidate
You need to recruit an IT specialist onto your team – it could be a developer, a data expert or a support engineer. You posted the job ad and talked to a few agencies, but didn’t get the number of responses you expected, and none of the candidates you met have accepted your offers. What’s going wrong?
Candidates want to know more about a job than simply the salary level and skill set. We can help you with the work that goes in before introductions are made, and advise you on how best to handle candidates during the whole recruitment process. Every business is unique, and each has their own challenges when it comes to recruitment, but with our help you’ll waste less time and money on it as a result.
Our Approach
- Auditing
What do you already have in place? What are you doing right, what are you doing wrong and where can you improve? We take a close look at your proposition as an employer, identifying your strengths to build on and weaknesses to address, and what we can change to make your recruitment process easy and exciting.
- Crafting your offer
Attracting the right candidates is about knowing what your target market wants, introducing your company in the right way, and making sure you are perceived in a positive light. Candidates care about the package in the round, and a company with a vision that matches theirs. It’s not always about the salary; the payoff can be in doing work they’re passionate about.
- Preparation
Once you’ve got your proposition lined up, you need to make sure you can forge positive relationships with everyone you’re dealing with. We can advise those handling your recruitment process in, among other things, how best to work with agencies and what tactics make for a great interview. Pretty soon, you’ll have the exact IT specialists you wanted knocking on your door.
The best employers are the kind who don’t take their workforce for granted, and who understand that everyone is a person with their own ideas, aspirations and feelings. As well as having a clear vision for their company and why they do what they do, they will also understand the value of listening to the people around them, understanding someone else’s point of view and how it might (or might not) be relevant to their business.
They will also have a sense of accountability and responsibility, knowing that if they are in charge then the buck stops with them, in both good times and bad. Finally, they should be someone who can anticipate problems (especially staff issues), and be big enough nip them in the bud before they escalate and get too ugly.
This sounds like a lot to ask of anyone, let alone someone trying to run a company. But a good employer will be prioritising keeping his business, and therefore his employees, in good shape every day.
We have increasingly found these days that candidates are not as fixated on job security, permanence and salary as much as they once were. Other factors are playing just as important a role when it comes to accepting a role at any company – the work environment, the experience a company offers, flexible working, the company culture and vision, potential for advancement and training, and other benefits.
This is supported by the Investors in People 2018 Job Exodus survey, in which 31% of respondents said they would rather have a more flexible approach to working than a 3% pay rise. Candidates and employees are placing as much value on their work/life balance as they are on their salary package and clever employers will take this into account.
It’s all about trust and respect. We’re here to give you a professional service that will save you a lot of time and effort, and want to see positive outcomes that work well for everyone involved. When you can the candidate win, we win.
It’s worth understanding your supplier’s motivations. It may seem like good business to negotiate your agent down to 10% commission and get a better deal, but in reality it’ll mean you will be a lower priority to them than someone paying the usual rate.
Or are you putting your job vacancy out to multiple agents? Again, this is another way to kill an agency’s motivation. Imagine asking 5 accountants to all do the work, and then only paying the one you like. It just means nobody will be that bothered. Going exclusively with one agency gives them ownership of the task, and the responsibility to create a favourable result for you.
In the end, this is a partnership, and if you trust that your agent can get you the results you need and acknowledge their expertise, then they will work their socks off to present you with excellent candidates in the shortest possible time frame.
You might not need to get a new logo or undertake a whole rebranding exercise. There are some much faster and cheaper solutions simply using social media and images.
Firstly, consider your own website. You might not have to do a whole redesign, but change the colours and images you use to be more inviting, user-friendly and approachable. It’s worth including team shots, staff photos or images of your target market. But keep it professional – you may need to hire a photographer to get publishable results.
Secondly, carry these colours and images over into your social media – your LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram pages. Create banner images to be consistent across all these platforms, so any visitors will recognise instantly who you are, whichever application they are using.
And let’s not forget words. Potential candidates (and clients!) will be wanting to find out about your business’s personality, culture and vision, so feed it to them. Forget about simply listing your services and awards – address your reader’s issues right off the bat and tell them why you do what you do. Ask yourself why they would want to visit you, and respond to it.
The best employers are the kind who don’t take their workforce for granted, and who understand that everyone is a person with their own ideas, aspirations and feelings. As well as having a clear vision for their company and why they do what they do, they will also understand the value of listening to the people around them, understanding someone else’s point of view and how it might (or might not) be relevant to their business.
They will also have a sense of accountability and responsibility, knowing that if they are in charge then the buck stops with them, in both good times and bad. Finally, they should be someone who can anticipate problems (especially staff issues), and be big enough nip them in the bud before they escalate and get too ugly.
This sounds like a lot to ask of anyone, let alone someone trying to run a company. But a good employer will be prioritising keeping his business, and therefore his employees, in good shape every day.
We have increasingly found these days that candidates are not as fixated on job security, permanence and salary as much as they once were. Other factors are playing just as important a role when it comes to accepting a role at any company – the work environment, the experience a company offers, flexible working, the company culture and vision, potential for advancement and training, and other benefits.
This is supported by the Investors in People 2018 Job Exodus survey, in which 31% of respondents said they would rather have a more flexible approach to working than a 3% pay rise. Candidates and employees are placing as much value on their work/life balance as they are on their salary package and clever employers will take this into account.
It’s all about trust and respect. We’re here to give you a professional service that will save you a lot of time and effort, and want to see positive outcomes that work well for everyone involved. When you can the candidate win, we win.
It’s worth understanding your supplier’s motivations. It may seem like good business to negotiate your agent down to 10% commission and get a better deal, but in reality it’ll mean you will be a lower priority to them than someone paying the usual rate.
Or are you putting your job vacancy out to multiple agents? Again, this is another way to kill an agency’s motivation. Imagine asking 5 accountants to all do the work, and then only paying the one you like. It just means nobody will be that bothered. Going exclusively with one agency gives them ownership of the task, and the responsibility to create a favourable result for you.
In the end, this is a partnership, and if you trust that your agent can get you the results you need and acknowledge their expertise, then they will work their socks off to present you with excellent candidates in the shortest possible time frame.
You might not need to get a new logo or undertake a whole rebranding exercise. There are some much faster and cheaper solutions simply using social media and images.
Firstly, consider your own website. You might not have to do a whole redesign, but change the colours and images you use to be more inviting, user-friendly and approachable. It’s worth including team shots, staff photos or images of your target market. But keep it professional – you may need to hire a photographer to get publishable results.
Secondly, carry these colours and images over into your social media – your LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram pages. Create banner images to be consistent across all these platforms, so any visitors will recognise instantly who you are, whichever application they are using.
And let’s not forget words. Potential candidates (and clients!) will be wanting to find out about your business’s personality, culture and vision, so feed it to them. Forget about simply listing your services and awards – address your reader’s issues right off the bat and tell them why you do what you do. Ask yourself why they would want to visit you, and respond to it.
Tailored Qualitative Research
The first step to revitalising your recruitment efforts is to examine the image and personality of your company. We want to look at your reasons, opinions and motivations as a business, in order to find your key vision and message. Candidates are interested in why you do what you do and how this is reflected in the way you go about delivering it.
A Thorough Review Of Your Current Process
We’ll dig in deep to your methods and priorities to compare what you want to achieve in your recruitment process with what is actually being delivered. Much of the heavy lifting needs to take place before jobs are advertised – we’ll find the holes in your offering and get them fixed ahead of your search for a candidate going public.
Individual Assessment and Objective Profiling
Studying where you need most help in your business is vital to understanding which experts and skills to target in your recruitment process. We’ll help draw up a persona of the candidate you want to attract – both in terms of their personality and their skill set – and can help you examine your team’s current dynamic to work out exactly the kind of person will fit in perfectly.
Working to Deliver Change
As your team and your business expands and evolves it’s never been more important to recruit staff that act both as catalysts and facilitators, delivering a boost to your team’s productivity and knowledge, and generally raising their game. We’ll help get your offering to the candidate market exactly on target so that you attract precisely the kind of people you are looking for.
What are your issues?
Your issues and concerns around recruitment will vary according to your role in your company. What problems do you have with time, skills and the process in general? How much of your resources is it taking up? Here, we look at specific issues for decision-makers in the recruitment process.
For Business Owners
Is this really your job?
The intricacies of running your own business are demanding enough, without having to also spend time on recruitment. A recent study found that business owners in SMEs are spending up to ten hours a week on hiring and related activities, taking them away from their core activity and slowing down their own productivity.
Research reveals the frustrations that can arise when business owners or other senior decision makers find themselves in the driving seat of the recruitment process. More than a third (39%) of respondents to the survey revealed that as non-specialists they don’t feel they have enough time or expertise to properly manage the process, and 55% believed that this leads to the procedure being badly handled and the wrong hire being made.
Limited visibility of the process was noted as a frustration for over a fifth (21%) of respondents, while 41% said they found it hard to identify a quality candidate among a high volume of ‘average’ applicants. As a result of these issues, 23% of those questioned found that applicants very quickly didn’t work out, meaning they had to begin the recruitment process all over again.
However, it seems an HR department is not always the answer to all these problems. A quarter (25%) of respondents said that problems arise because the HR department doesn’t always have an in-depth grasp of the roles they are hiring for.
This is where a recruitment agency, especially one specialising in your particular industry, can really help. By knowing all about the roles, the types of companies, the challenges and changes in the industry, and both parties’ expectations, they can dramatically reduce the time from vacancy to hire and refine the process so the right decisions are being made at every stage.
For CEOs
Juggling priorities
As a CEO, recruiting new staff can take you away from your core business and entail keeping business owners and stakeholders happy while at the same time finding the right candidate for the job. The CEO’s role is to set company strategy and direction and ensure standards are maintained, they hire the top team but should no longer be involved with day to day recruitment.
Studies into recruitment have found that CEOs find their buisnesses face several issues when recruiting new employees. Many newcomers into the industry are more focused on results than time spent at a workstation, and expect levels of flexibility in office hours, in-work activity and simple enjoyment of the work environment that might not sit easily with more traditional, rigid companies. A CEO may need to change company culture if they wish to attract new talent.
And that talent can be hard to find. Another challenge is identifying the high-quality candidates among the slew of ‘average’ applicants. Many IT specialists may not have had much guidance in CV presentation, and while they might all list key skills and previous employment, details of experience that might reveal an applicant’s true value could be buried or omitted altogether.
Finding candidates whose outlook and priorities match the company’s vision can also be difficult in a process that initially relies on written statements and CVs. Often, the solution is to tailor your advertisement to appeal to exactly the kind of people you want to work with, using the right tone and language to put over your company’s personality.
A recruitment agency specialising in your particular industry can help you to overcome all these issues and embrace more flexible approaches, identify talented specialists and make the company more attractive to quality candidates who share your values.By knowing all about the job roles, the challenges and changes in the industry, and both parties’ expectations, we can dramatically reduce the time from vacancy to hire and refine the recruitment process so the right decisions are being made at every stage.
For Mid-Management
Caught in the middle
Middle Managers are often the key problem solvers in any organisation, but the recruitment process can throw up more challenges than most. There are many people to please – on one hand the CEO or business owners, and on the other the needs of the company’s IT team or department. Not being a specialist recruiter, the middle manager might be straying into territory they don’t fully understand.
Aside from sorting through the applicants, the recruitment process can carry other pressures. Some managers might be inexperienced interviewers, and can find the meetings just as intimidating as the candidate sitting on the other side of the table. Nobody wants to miss important details or get tripped up. Post-interview, there might be disagreements between stakeholders within the company, each of whom may have their opinion about a candidate, which may be tricky to resolve.
Having to stick to the budgets for a newcomer’s salary may also cause frustration. Money talks, and globally 38% of staff are most likely to quit due to being unhappy with their salary (more than twice the number who would leave because they disliked their boss!). Quality staff do cost more to employ, but it is worth attracting them and keeping them happy. Bear in mind that it can cost you around 20% of their annual salary to find a replacement if they leave.
Sourcing candidates can be frustrating in a world where top talent is often snapped up with lucrative offers, which is why it’s important to get a recruitment agency involved with your search. With in-depth knowledge of the roles, the various sectors, the challenges and changes in the industry, and both parties’ expectations, a recruitment agency can play a key part in shortlisting exactly the right candidates for your job position in as short a timeframe as possible.
They’ll dramatically reduce the time from vacancy to hire, saving you time and money, and can give your staff valuable advice on the recruitment process, ensuring the right decisions are made at every stage.
For HR Managers
All about delivery
The task for HR Managers is to deliver on staffing issues. This is not always easy if it’s a last-minute recruitment where they are are given short deadlines and a mission to find a unicorn. They might not have all the latest recruitment tools, nor specialist knowledge of the possible workforce pool available in a specific sector or field of expertise, which might result in a poor batch of applicants and an inabilty to challenge hiring managers.
HR Managers often understandably have a company-wide view, and are not always familiar with all the roles they are hiring for. To be sure of finding the right candidates for an opening, you need an in-depth insight into the skill-set and responsibilities that the company needs to fill and they way to reach the right people to fill it.
The skill is often in creating not only an accurate job description with correct information, but also including messages about the company’s culture, the kinds of projects involved and the potential for personal development. It’s all about finding employees who will be engaged with the delivery of the company’s vision.
Online reputation management is also now a big challenge to HR Managers. To avoid unwelcome comments on social media, the task is to make sure the candidate’s experience of the recruitment process is good and impression of the company positive during the application, interviews and onboarding processes.
Onboarding support can also be vital to ensure candidate retention in the early months of their employment, and a good HR Manager and their superiors should get systems in place to monitor the progress and wellbeing of their new employee.
This is where recruitment agency specialising in your particular industry can really help. With an in-depth understanding of all the roles, the differences between companies, the challenges and changes in the industry, and the expectations of both the client and the candidate, they can dramatically reduce the time from vacancy to hire. We can help you refine the process so the right decisions are made at every stage.
Want to start changing things?
Having a one-to-one chat is far more effective than scrolling through online profiles when it comes to getting to know each other and understanding each other’s businesses. If you’ve reached a point where you know you need to recruit new staff so your company can continue to grow, we can help.
Call us, or drop us a line today and we’ll listen to what you need, personally guide you through the process, and work out where you can go next.
