|
Welcome to issue 341 of the ukrecruiter newsletter. Don't forget out next networking event is on 31st January in London. You can register via www.recruitmentnetworking.co.uk. Hope to see you there. Also, don't forget to check out our new recruitment job board | 
|
CONTENTS
Visit http://www.ukrecruiterjobs.co.uk for the latest recruitment industry jobs. |
The Seven Deadly Sins - Part Five: Wrath. An apocryphal tale Once upon a time there was a farmer. She worked hard for her landowner and the land she farmed was bountiful. Sadly one day that land was destroyed by a flood and her old landowner perished. She travelled to the next valley, where the local landowner offered her work farming a patch of land at the far side of his boundary. He would pay her a small wage and she would get a share of anything that was sold from the land she farmed. Now this land was nowhere near as fertile as the land that she previously worked, but she did her best with what she had. The work was hard, the land was rocky and the drainage poor. It was a miracle that anything grew at all, and that it did was testament to her hard work. Unfortunately, her new landowner didn’t see this. All he was interested in was what she produced, and didn’t care that the land was barely worth farming in its current state. The farmer had done the best she could on her own, but what she really needed was someone else to help her improve the land. The landowner could have pitched in and helped, but instead he stood looking over her shoulder, criticising the slightest thing and picking out petty faults. The Farmer soon grew resentful of the landowner, watching him grow fatter on what small profits she’d been able to make whilst belittling her work and giving nothing of himself to help her be more productive. The farmer’s resentment soon turned to anger, and anger soon became wrath. Thankfully, help was at hand when the new owner of her old valley (who saw how good she was and how badly she was being treated) saw his chance to come and get her working for him. He told her that the land was nearly drained, and that if they worked together they could make that land more productive than ever. He didn’t offer her any more money, just the conditions to do better. He also saw the resentment she felt towards her old boss, so to seal the deal he offered her a nice chunk of fertile land easily visible to her old landowner. She didn’t need asking twice. Back on fertile ground and toiling hard to reach her full potential, the farmer’s fields flourished. With the money she made she built a big house high on the mountain that overlooked her old employer, just to make sure he didn’t forget the opportunity he’d missed when she was working for him. I don’t really think I need to explain to anyone what I’m getting at here, do I? Especially not to anyone hiring sales people or working in recruitment to recruitment. There are probably a few managers who could learn from this tale too.
The "My Favourites" feature will be back soon. Why not submit your 3 favourite web sites (see the guidelines at http://www.ukrecruiter.co.uk/articles.htm) via contact2@ukrecruiter.co.uk |
Advertisement Talisman Front Office from £250 per month - Complete Front Office system just need PC(s) to access To find out more visit www.recruitment-software.net, call Tony Doherty on 01582 478 888 or email info@recruitment-software.net
|
Article One: Is Your Cash Flow Keeping You Awake at Night? By John Toppin Many economic indicators are now pointing towards a downturn. These are a few recent headlines: "House prices at least affordable for 15 years" UK economic growth is widely expected to fall to 2% next year. Whilst this is not technically a recession, some commentators believe that there is one on the way. The last recession hit in 1990 to 1992. Historically, the economic cycle used to bring a period of recession every 7 to 10 years. We are long overdue the next one. The early 2000's dot com collapse affected many but was very mild in comparison with the last recession. How will recruitment businesses fare when the next recession comes? Many of you will not remember the last recession and most of you will not have been running businesses at that time. Those of you who were around will remember that recruitment businesses fared very badly in the early 1990's. Recruitment businesses are usually one of the first to suffer as employees concentrate on hanging onto their jobs and clients are reducing headcount. Client finance directors also try to stop spending on recruitment agency fees and advertising, marketing and new product development etc, the so called discretionary expenditures. This obviously affects agencies and those who supply agencies badly. Banks lend less willingly and charge more for the privilege. They also become quicker to call in receivers to struggling customers and are less willing to give management teams the time and space to try and pull through. Clients come under more pressure. Some clients will go to the wall, leaving unpaid bills in their wake...including bills you may have sent them. Clients will want you to work for less as their budgets come under pressure. Your profits suffer and more importantly cash becomes very tight. This all happens very quickly and it feels like you are having all of the bad news - lost clients, downward renegotiation of fees, bad debts and a drying up of new business pitches and enquiries - in a frighteningly compressed period of time. Steering a business through these times is very different to running a business during booming or more benign times. My concern is that because the last recession was 15 years ago many people running recruitment businesses today, whether agencies, researchers, assessors or advertising agencies have no idea what this is like. Will your business survive or will it disappear? Are you worried at all? Large corporates are now taking an average of 80 days to pay their suppliers—up from 69 days just two years ago. You may be suffering from clients who are slow paying your bills. Strong cash flow is vital to the health of your business, so what can you do if you find yourself constantly juggling cash to pay your bills or delaying investment decisions for lack of funds? Your bank manager is an obvious place to start if you need additional financing, whether this is an overdraft or invoice based lending. Before you visit your bank you should know how much funding you require, when you need it, what it is for and how and when you are going to pay it back. The bank will ask these questions. A financial forecast will give you the answers you need. Do you have the right funding structure? Are you getting cash in as quickly as you should be? Are you paying out cash sensibly?
|
Advertisement The only name you need to know! As one of the UK's leading Rec2Recs, a founder member of REC's R2R Sector Group & a Preferred Supplier to many large and boutique National and International firms, Heywood focuses on positions within Accountancy, Banking, Commercial, HR, Insurance, Legal and Secretarial. Roles range from Researchers and Trainee Recruitment Consultants through to Director level. Our new 2008 Salary Survey is now available on our website so why not find out what you could be earning in the marketplace? For further information call Jo Palmer on 020 7404 4884 or email jo@heywoodassociates.com |
Article Two: How to Hire the Best Possible Executives By Ron Bates There are many different opinions as to whether or not a company needs to hire the absolute best "A-Player" talent for every single position listed on a corporate organisation chart. That said, most CEOs believe their company will perform better if the executive team is populated with the absolute best "A-Player" executive talent available. Unfortunately, many companies actually fail in their attempts to hire the best possible executive talent. When this failure occurs, in retrospect, many executive hiring authorities feel the process broke down somewhere during identifying, attracting, qualifying, recruiting of executives into their respective roles. The truth is that in most cases the process was broken even before any attempt has been made to engage candidates. So where does the process typically break down when attempting to hire the absolute best "A-Player" talent? The process typically breaks down in the preliminary stage where the specific quantified objectives for the executive role in question are actually being defined – or failed to be defined. Typically either the role's objectives and/or charter have only been loosely defined in concept, but have not been defined at all in detail in terms of the quantified specific business objectives/metrics the role will be responsible for delivering against. In other words, no one has defined explicitly what the role is expected to accomplish/drive in the near term – let alone the long term – with respect to the measurable impact the role is expected to have on quantifiable business metrics. Many times all that is known is "We need an EVP of Sales", or "We need a CFO" as far as the functional concept of the role. The problem with this is it translates into simply focusing only on – what – a prospective candidate has done in their career. This in turn translates into candidate assessment overly focusing on whether or not a candidate does or does not have the required scope & scale of quantifiable responsibility/experience implying they will not be "in over their head" and possess "been there; done that" experience of appropriate scope & scale. It is important to quantify and define the specific business objectives/metrics the role will be responsible for delivering against because, from a specific objective, you can derive/infer the specific executive capabilities, skills, and attributes that a candidate must possess in order to have a chance at achieving the specific objective. This "peeling the onion" so to speak causes you to focus on – how – a prospective candidate achieved – what – they claim to have accomplished. Focusing on – how – they accomplished something exposes the prospective candidate's executive capabilities. Identifying a candidate's executive capabilities will give you a much stronger indication of their ability to meet/exceed – your company's – business objectives chartered to the role you're trying to fill. Example Business Objective: - This executive will be required to drive revenue growth in excess of our industry's growth rate while maintaining planned profitability. From this you can derive/infer the specific requisite executive capability an "A-Player" candidate must possess. Example Executive Capability: - Executive must be able to ensure our organization actively monitors and manages financial performance in both up and down business conditions while driving measurable success. This required executive capability translates into an interview question. Example Interview Question: - "How has your ability to ensure your organization actively monitors and manages financial performance in both up and down business conditions driven measurable success?" Example Candidate Response: - "Fluctuating business conditions would cause me to alter my plans, either to accelerate hiring or promotional activities, or to suspend them. My primary goals were to exceed the industry’s revenue growth rate while maintaining the planned profitability of 26%. It's interesting to note, I did not look to exceed the profitability goal as excessive profitability would indicate we were not aggressive enough in pursuing maximum growth." Expanding on the profitability objective for the executive that own revenue production for the company could translate into the following executive capability. Example Executive Capability: - Executive must be able to ensure, through a predictable formal sales process, the "right deals" are pursued and won to maintain margin targets by minimizing/wasting the deployment of company resources on deals that either don't close or aren't scalable, repeatable, or referencable. Again, this required executive capability translates into an interview
question. By beginning the process of filling a new executive role in your company with quantifying and defining the specific business objectives/metrics the role will be responsible for delivering against, and then deriving/inferring the associated requisit executive capabilities, you can then develop very focused probing interview questions to draw out a prospective executive candidate's resonant executive value proposition associated with – each – requisit executive capability an executive candidate must possess to excel in the role. This will give you a much clearer picture of what you are investing in when considering bringing a new executive onto your team and give you a much better indication of an executive candidate's ability to excel in the critical role you're trying to fill on your executive team.
|
Advertisement Would you like your outstanding invoices paid tomorrow? With invoice finance you can release up to 90% of your invoice value and have the cash in your bank within 24 hours of it being issued. With Lloyds TSB Commercial Finance you can trial our products with our exclusive one month notice period. If you don’t see the benefit in 1 month you can cancel the facility. Get an instant online quote from Lloyds TSB Commercial Finance and receive a free USB memory stick.
|
Online Recruitment Update Hitwise top 10 Recruitment
Sites, week ending 19th January 2008 Louise's UK Recruiter blog Discussion Board Summary Press Release: One in Three UK Jobs with £50k+ Salaries on New Executive Website UKRecruiterJobs: Recruitment Industry Vacancies |
|
Advertisement Want to improve your completion rate of successful hires? As well as running UK Recruiter Louise is a British Psychological Society level A&B trained assessor. As such she can: - Assist you in your selection process and
support you in making the right recruitment decisions Call Louise on 07724 197830 or email louise@ukrecruiter.co.uk |
Don't Miss This Recruitment Networking Event,
31st January, London HR Directors Summit, Amsterdam, 12th to 14th March,
30% discount to ukrecruiter readers How to write more effective recruitment adverts without breaking the law Workshop The Recruitment Conference, London, 6th February |
Please forward this newsletter on to any colleagues or recruitment friends who you think might like to receive the newsletter.
Regards
Louise Triance
UK Recruiter http://www.ukrecruiter.co.uk
Subscribe Unsubscribe |
Feedback Advertising |
|
If you want see back issues of the newsletter visit http://www.ukrecruiter.co.uk/recnet NOTE: This newsletter may be copied and distributed free of charge in its entirety. Individual sections may NOT be copied or distributed without prior written agreement. Copyright (c) 2008, UK Recruiter Ltd |