Welcome to issue 271 of the ukrecruiter newsletter.
Some of you will no doubt remember we used to host a
series of networking events in London. We are considering running
one towards the end of September. It will be an opportunity for people in the recruitment
industry to get together one evening for a few drinks. I'm trying to get a feel for the
number of people who would be keen to come along. If you are
interested please drop me a note (contact2@ukrecruiter.co.uk).
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Article
One: Psychometric Product Review: OPQ32 from SHL Group by
Louise Triance
Company Name: SHL Group Plc
Product Name: OPQ32
Website Address: http://www.shl.com
Contact Details: Soraia Amaro is my contact at
SHL. She can be contacted on 0208 3358123 or by email at soraiaa.amaro@shlgroup.com
Description (provided by SHL):
“The OPQ (Occupational Personality Questionnaire) is a self-report measure of personality characteristics, which are particularly relevant to the world of work”
Cost: The annual licence fee for individuals is £579 + VAT. The cost per report depends on whether clients have their own system, or wish to use SHL’s Bureau service. The managed bureau price varies from £5.95 for the profile to £165.00 for their “premium report” – a bundle of six different reports. There is also an administration fee of £17.50 for each candidate. Prices are significantly lower if you have your own system.
Do you have to be qualified to interpret the questionnaires:
You need appropriate training in OPQ to administer and interpret OPQ32 and SHL require you to have an individual or corporate OPQ
licence.
Candidate Experience (guinea pig candidate was Paul):
The SHL general profiling test is a 104 question test which takes the best part of one hour to complete. Each question consists of four statements from which you must pick the one which you most agree with and the one you least agree with, describing your preferred style of behaving at work. As with all such tests there are occasional questions which give a feeling of frustration because you either agree with all the statements or none of them. That said, the overall test and user interface seem well thought through and quite intuitive to use. The amount of time it takes to complete the test is my main concern as it requires a substantial time commitment from candidates. The test is probably most appropriate at a final interview stage.
Overview of Feedback Report: The length of the feedback report varies enormously depending on the type of report you buy. At the cheapest end of the spectrum you can just purchase the profile chart and give feedback from this – although this would mean the most work for a test administrator. The most comprehensive report (called the premium report) is around 40 pages long and is a mixture of charts and narrative. The profile chart shows the 32 personality scales (different types of behaviour) that the OPQ32 evaluates with a 1 to 10 “ranking” against each one. These scales are split into three categories (“relationships with people”, “thinking style” and “feelings and emotions”) which are subdivided further (eg, “influence” and “sociability”). With the narrative report each of the sub categories is looked at in detail with a description of the likely behaviours of the individual candidate but does not explicitly give strengths and weaknesses. Other sections of the full report look at managerial qualities, professional qualities and entrepreneurial qualities and show more clearly strengths and weaknesses in the competencies which come under these headings. There is also a team types section which identifies the style the candidate is most likely to adopt (eg, co-ordinator, plant, shaper, etc) as well as a similar section for leadership style (eg, directive, consultative, etc) and reporting style (eg, informative report, self reliant report, etc).
Summary
The full feedback report is very comprehensive. In fact for some client’s it is probably a bit overwhelming. This is why SHL are so insistent on the interpretation of reports only being conducted by trained users. In my experience the OPQ32 is normally used for more senior hires at final interview stage (as our guinea pig candidate, Paul, suggests). I believe it is used more widely by corporate recruiters than recruitment consultancies. The questionnaire is certainly thorough and SHL can give good statistics to back up their validity that should allow users to feel confident that the report is as accurate as is possible. One of the features which other reports have, that this one doesn’t, is built in interview questions – but of course a good recruiter can develop these themselves from the feedback report.
Louise Triance is a British
Psychological Society level A&B trained assessor, conducting
psychometrics on behalf of recruiters. For more information call
Louise on 07724 197830, email contact2@ukrecruiter.co.uk
or visit http://www.nmib.com/testing/index.htm
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Article
Two: Counteroffers: Can You Spot the Warning Signs? By Bill Radin
For a recruiter, no disaster compares to an accepted counteroffer. In fact, I’d be willing to bet that most of us would rather suffer a year’s worth of phone rejection than face those four fateful words, “I’ve changed my mind.”
To protect your investment in time, money and client goodwill, it makes sense to closely monitor the entire placement process. If you discover that your candidate lacks sufficient motivation to make a job change—or is using your client’s job as career leverage—you should immediately place the deal on a heightened state of
alert.
Remember that even a clean, properly vetted candidate can catch you by surprise and jilt an otherwise “perfect” marriage. To protect against a counteroffer that may be bubbling beneath the surface, look for these common warning signs:
1. Delays or interruptions. If the candidate breaks the interviewing cycle in midstream (as evidenced by persistent rescheduling or unavailability), it could indicate a renewed affection for his current employer.
2. Prolonged indecision. A candidate who takes forever to make up his mind, or constantly needs more information, never wanted the job in the first place.
3. Inappropriate consultations.
When a candidate discusses your client’s job with a workplace peer (or worse, a supervisor), it’s a sure sign he’s angling for a counteroffer.
4. Surprise reviews. It’s funny how quickly a candidate’s boss will fork over a raise, especially when the candidate telegraphs that he’s looking around.
5. Mixed-message resignation letters. Always review a draft of the “goodbye” letter, especially if you’re working with an inexperienced or high-risk candidate; and strike any solicitous phrases such as, “I hope there may be an opportunity here for me in the future,” or, “This has been a difficult, heart-wrenching decision for me.”
To win the war against counteroffers, vigilance and preparation are your most powerful allies. If a deal begins to smell funny, I suggest you close the candidate once and for all—or find another candidate for the job. Otherwise, you could be in for a rough ride, with little control over the outcome of your search.
Bill Radin’s extensive recruiting, management and recruiter training experience makes him an ideal source of techniques, methods and ideas for rookies who want to master the fundamentals or veterans ready to jump to a higher level of success.
http://www.billradin.com
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Press release: Aaron Clarke Group Launches Its Training Academy
The Aaron Clarke Group is delighted to announce the formation of the Aaron Clarke Training Academy. The Academy aims to attract graduates, junior recruitment consultants and junior professionals to its comprehensive training programme with a view to
providing a long-term career with the
organisation. The Aaron Clarke Training Academy launches its first training programme on 5 July 2006. The Academy will be running four programmes with twenty-four vacancies per year. For more information visit
www.aaron-clarke.com
or email contact@aaron-clarke.com
Press release: UK's Not That
Flexible
The UK's flexible labour market may no longer be a source of competitive advantage, according to recent research.
Historically, it has often been claimed that the UK has a more flexible approach to working arrangements than other European countries, but this research shows that this is not the case.
Only 48% of UK organisations offer flexitime to their employees compared to 90% in Germany, 94% in Sweden and 92% in Finland, and just 20% offer
tele-working compared to 44% in Germany and Sweden, 40% in Norway and 39% in Denmark.
The proportion of UK organisations using other flexible working arrangements is more comparable to the rest of Europe including part-time working (97%), job-share (55%) and home-working (32%) but these results provide little evidence of UK superiority in terms of flexible working.
The statistics are revealed in the latest Cranfield Network survey of comparative human resource management, carried out by a worldwide network of 40 business schools, coordinated by Cranfield School of Management in the UK. The international executive report is available at a price of £85 from Dr Emma Parry, Cranfield School of Management, 01234 754808 or
emma.parry@cranfield.ac.uk.
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Discussion
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Statistics
Hitwise top 10 Recruitment
Sites, week ending 8th July 2006
The most visited UK recruitment sites last week, starting with the
most popular, were www.jobcentreplus.gov.uk,
www.totaljobs.com, www.monster.co.uk,
www.jobsite.co.uk, www.reed.co.uk,
www.jobs.nhs.uk, jobs.guardian.co.uk,
www.jobsgopublic.com, my.monster.co.uk
and www.eteach.com. Hitwise don't aggregate data from sites who
form part of a network such as fish4.co.uk
For more information about Hitwise, visit http://www.hitwise.co.uk
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Regards
Louise Triance
UK Recruiter http://www.ukrecruiter.co.uk
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