Access Talent - Straight Talk on IT Project Recruitment

In a recent poll, over half of heads of HR (57%) believed that attracting and retaining tech talent is a
high priority in 2017. This is the thinking of HR executives from all sectors and regardless of industry,
there is agreement that the quality of the talent taken on is of key strategic importance to their
business. One-third saying that recruitment of tech talent, if not managed successfully, represents
the greatest risk to organisational performance.

So it really matters.

It matters and the marketplace is full of other businesses to whom it also matters.

Increasingly, tech businesses have seen the value of using specialist recruiters for specialist IT roles -
that's why the cream of IT talent is still working in traditional IT roles. More and more companies
though are embracing their inevitable digital future, they are evolving into tech firms whether
they're selling software or menswear. To attract that top talent in a noisy marketplace your message
has to be laser focussed and pointed in the right direction.

So when choosing a partner for your next IT hire, ask potential firms how they will deliver the best
targeted potential reach, how they can speed up the process without cutting corners, how they will
tailor a bespoke message for the most efficient candidate attraction and how they will make your
firm an irresistible place to work.

Whether you're a 'traditional' IT business or a 'mainstream' firm with a growing IT estate, the
recruitment partner that can deliver in these areas is the one to choose.

Source

https://www.cebglobal.com/talentdaily/we-are-all-digital-employers-now/

Is it time to rethink how you recruit specialist IT talent?

Are your candidates getting profiled by people who
have never performed that role? Do you feel that all
your recruiters appear to be using the same CV
databases? Are you forking out upfront fees with no
guarantee of success?

Our sister organisation Stoneseed, an IT Programme &
Project Management Professional Services business, felt
this way. Recruiting quality IT resources for Stoneseed
was becoming an incredibly frustrating process - so we
had a rethink.

The right partner didn't exist, so we created it - Access
Talent. Operating as a client-side partner, serious about
aligning talent with business cultures, with specialist
peer profiling for each skill set, no upfront fees and an effective search for ‘passive’ candidates, a
rethink really worked for us.

And it is working for others.

Bethan, an HR director and prospective client, had been using the same general recruiter for hiring
IT talent that she would call to hire a receptionist, a sales account manager or an operative for their
factory floor. It’s fair to say she has had mixed results.

She has recently carried out a process she calls 'New Year Revolutions & Evolutions'. I'm writing this
at the end of January, a time when folk everywhere resolve to abstain from the booze, exercise
more, eat better. What Bethan does, each year, is assess current working practices and strategies
and look at ways that she can evolve them or replace them with something better.

As part of this, Bethan has carried out a thorough review of her preferred supplier list (PSL) and
Recruitment Process Outsouce (RPO) strategies.

The conclusion is that it doesn’t pay to fish in the same pool all the time, particularly fishing for
specialist IT Talent in the same pool used for more general roles.

Bethan had looked at special resource services, like Access Talent. She has concluded that, you may
pay a little bit more, but if niche operators deliver specialist resources with greater quality you
should enjoy a more expeditious return on your investment.

Effectively, Bethan has done my sales pitch for me.

She is right. In most cases, as IT becomes more strategic and increasingly specialist, the talent that
will deliver a real difference is harder to find through general or traditional recruitment channels.
Specialist IT recruitment partners understand IT requirements, specific needs and those
idiosyncrasies that set great talent above the good.

Bethan is also right that a specialist recruiter may cost a little more but, in most cases, they will
deliver a more relevant set of candidates to select from, rather than a bunch of 'close fit' CVs and a
hope that something sticks.

Other great innovations, already alluded to, include ...

Shared Risk

Access Talent leads the way on this. As an employer, we were getting frustrated at the commercial
models offered by recruitment service providers - most involved paying upfront fees and not getting
a return until the best part of six months had passed. Shared risk means no upfront fees, instead,
you pay a monthly fee over a specified time and if the hire doesn't work out - you stop paying. As the
hiring client, it gives you peace of mind that the candidates put forward are really the ones that your
recruitment partner thinks will work out well - because they want to be paid the full fee. For the
same reason, it encourages the recruiter to always be on their 'A game'.

Specialist Recruiters Are Better Profilers of Specialist Talent

Most IT roles benefit from someone in the process having experience of the job being advertised. As
an HR director, Bethan has never worked as an IT Project Manager. Neither have any of the internal
interviewing panel she assembles nor, (most crucially) have any of the staff at the general
recruitment firm she uses. When you consider it this way, it's maybe not a surprise that specialist
roles don't often get adequately filled. The best specialist recruiters recommend candidates who
have already been profiled by Subject Matter Experts.

Cultural Alignment

Actual sector and role experience means your specialist recruitment partner will already know the
industry cultural mindset needed. What specialist recruiters worth their salt also do is get to know
YOUR specific business culture. They learn what makes you tick and how you operate. Quite right!
It's your USP, it's what sets you apart from the firm across town who are offering effectively the
same job, conditions and remuneration package. Most general recruiters can't do this because their
businesses tend to be geared towards greater volumes of less specialist placements. IT Project
Managers, for instance, who work in an environment that is compatible with their own attitudes and
work ethic tend to be more effective. When placing specialist IT talent, this extra attention to detail
is worth the investment.

Better Sourcing Methods

Does your current recruitment strategy find passive candidates? Sticking a job ad on the HR pages of
your website or posting a vacancy on the job boards will get a response - but will it be enough?
Specialist recruiters, if they are earning their fee, create a buzz, a genuine interest in your vacancy
and your organisation. They attract talent towards your firm - selling it as a great place to work. This
means doing the necessary research, they get to know your business, they search social media
profiles, fire up search engines (knowing what keywords will work). They develop and maintain
relationships with potential candidates, keeping in contact via social media messaging, emails, and
good old-fashioned phone calls - even when they're not active.

Understanding the business needs and culture of your organisation enables specialist recruiters to
provide you with high calibre, perfect fit applicants. They should have a talent-centric, people
focussed approach that goes far beyond just matching skills and experience to a role spec. When you
interview a candidate sourced by a specialist, they will have already been vetted and identified as a
suitable fit for your company and culture.

Does your current partner know you this well?

Time for a rethink?

IT recruitment - passion, privilege or pain?

“If you can win the war in talent, everything else
changes,” so said SendGrid CEO Sameer Dholakia
describing how he believes "recruiting is a mission-
critical function" for a business, not a task that you
should crowbar into your busy day after all your other
tasks have been crossed off your list. In his "Focus on
People" presentation to Stanford Entrepreneurial
Thought Leaders he also said that employees should
see recruiting as a privilege where they get to
represent the company and attract the best people to
join.

I have also often written about how I feel being asked
to recruit on behalf of a client is one of the greatest
privileges. After all, back in the school playground, who
didn't want to be the one picking the team!?

That's why I get a real buzz from placing great talent in great companies and organisations - I get to
help pick the team that will deliver great business missions and audacious projects.

Many clients tell me that they don't feel that recruiting is a privilege though. They feel real pain
when hiring talent. Where should they go to find the best people? How will they know they've made
the right hire? What if they can't retain the talent once they've trained them up? Etc, etc, etc.
Increasingly, clients are also citing skills shortages, greater competition for talent and rising salary
expectations as reasons they are reluctant recruiters.

Here are ... 5 Ways To Turn Pain Into Passion And Turn Recruitment Into A Privilege.

1 - Get Help

No major surprise here, I guess you'd expect an IT recruitment specialist to suggest that you should
hire the services of IT recruitment specialist. Think of it this way, a group of my friends made a New
Years Resolution this year to not waste their time doing things that they loathe. Instead, they have
hired someone to do those things for them and are spending more time indulging their own
passions. Things like cleaning and vacuuming, gardening, car washing, dog bathing have all been
‘outsourced’. Here's the thing, the folks who now do these tasks seem to have a real passion for
them (even the cleaner!) and more importantly, because of this passion and the fact that this is how
they spend their days, they are better at these jobs too.

So if you find recruiting a chore or a challenge, chances are you would get more from the process by
partnering up with a specialist recruiter for the role you are looking to fill. The more specialist the
role, the more specialist the recruiter you need ... I mean, my friend Becky's gardener could probably
do her dusting and cleaning too, but she might not get the same sparkly taps.

2 - Get Help from Someone Who Will Share The Risk

One of the pains many hirers fear is the cost of getting it wrong. With good reason, the cost is well
documented, at mid-manager level, on a £42,000 salary, a bad hire can cost a business more than
£132,000 according to the Recruitment and Employment Confederation (REC). 85% of HR decision-
makers admit that their organisation has made one.

Beyond the financial cost, morale and productivity often take a substantial hit too AND the effect on
company culture can last beyond the employee's time with you. Bad habits spread like a virus and
can take months to break.

The best way to mitigate this is to use a specialist recruitment partner who will share the risk. In
practice, what this means is no upfront fees, no retainers, monthly payments that are spread over a
substantial initial period and if the hire doesn't work out - you stop paying.

3 - Never Stop Recruiting

I heard an interesting insight from a CIO today, "We never stop recruiting," he said.

I've written many times about the importance of having an employer brand. That's the thrust of
what this CIO was saying, they never stop recruiting in the sense that everything that this firm does
is geared towards attracting the best talent. Customer service, social media, industry reputation -
everything! The ethos, basically, is that every order is placed by a potential hire, every Facebook,
Twitter, Instagram or LinkedIn follower or connection could be the next perfect candidate. The IT
industry is increasingly "like a village" and word (good or bad) spreads fast.

"We don't want to put off a future recruit because they were once disappointed as a customer or
they once read something on social media that painted us in a bad light," he said.

Thinking like this means that when they do actively recruit they find the best new talent is beating at
their door!

4 - Treat Interviewing / Screening as An Opportunity To Get To Know Yourself As Well As Your
Candidate

One of my favourite parts of the recruitment process is where I really get to know the role I'll be
seeking to fill and the culture of the organisation looking to fill it.

It's obvious that, as an outsider, I'd have to do this, but the truth is that many firms have not sussed
this out for themselves before placing a job ad! How can you attract like-minded people if you don't
know what like-minded looks like?

It's especially important when hiring for specialist IT and project management roles that you really
drill down on what key skills, competencies and personality traits the candidate will need to bring to
the role to be successful. You need to have this straight in your head, if not before you place the ad,
certainly before you invite candidates to interviews. Know this and you know what questions to ask,
what answers to look for and you'll find the whole process more instinctive. HR teams that include
the hiring manager in this process get the best results.

Alternatively, the best recruitment partners also offer great interviewing and screening.

5 - Too Many Candidates

Many new clients say that this was a problem that was instrumental in their decision to get
recruitment help.

Having a huge number of applications sounds like a lovely problem to have but time spent sifting
through unsuitable candidates is time wasted and it prolongs the process unnecessarily turning into
a chore, plus it increases the risk of making a bad hire.

Interestingly, almost all hirers who have ever shared this complaint have blamed the candidates for
applying for roles for which they are clearly not suited. I'd challenge this and suggest that too many
bad fit candidates, is a symptom of incorrect job and role description. Your job ad must speak
directly to your ideal candidate, subject matter experts write the best ads because someone who
has performed in a role speaks the language of the role. If you don’t have the right specialism in-
house to write the ad and job role (after all that’s possibly why you’re recruiting) choosing a partner
who offers subject matter expertise works just as well.

Also, if you are using a recruitment partner choose one that won't just throw a pile of CVs at you
hoping that something sticks. A partner worth its salt will get to know your business culture and the
specifics of the role AND they will have robust screening and filtering processes in place to ensure
that only the best-fit candidates are presented for your consideration. Some of my best results are
when I present a short list of ONE - screening can be THAT laser focussed!

Recruitment is similar to dating, imagine turning up at a speed dating session and giving the
impression that you found the whole thing a chore you could do without, or not dressed to impress.
You'd leave without a date - or worse with the wrong date. Similarly. recruitment should be
something that you do with passion and gusto. If the candidate is worth reaching out to, they’re
worth investing time on before you even hire them.

And ... if you can't muster the gusto, you need to hire someone to whom it comes naturally.

Source:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/falonfatemi/2016/09/28/the-true-cost-of-a-bad-hire-its-more-than-
you-think/#47617064aa41

IT recruitment – reinvented

IT Project Management, in fact, the IT industry as a
whole, is barely recognisable from the way it was five or
ten years ago. Projects are more complex and more
closely aligned with business strategy, return on
investment expectations are higher, delivery timelines
are tighter, specialist talent is increasingly in demand.
So, why are many organisations still using the same old
recruitment strategies to attract talent?

And more importantly, how can you improve?

Firstly, many organisations are still using the same old
recruitment strategies to attract talent because the
status quo has never been challenged. Businesses have
a recruitment procedure and they stick with it. A
particular department has a vacancy, HR are informed, an ad is drafted, and an interviewing board is
assembled (usually a mix of HR director, hiring manager and a senior director). Candidates come in
or are interviewed over Skype, they are asked a bunch of questions and the one who performs the
best or looks the best on paper gets the gig. It sort of worked, in its day, but more and more
organisations are finding that their procedure has become less effective over time - so what did they
do? They tinkered with it. They made little adjustments and got largely the same results.

That's the challenge - when an industry reinvents itself recruiting for that industry has to reinvent
itself too. Otherwise, it's like trying plot your way around town using an A-Z from the 1970s - you'll
quickly get lost or crash!

Here are 7 Ways to Reinvent IT Recruitment

1 - Peer Profiling

In many firms hiring managers or HR chiefs have responsibility for profiling candidates and hiring.
However good these guys are at their day job, often, they haven't performed the role for which they
are recruiting. It is my firm belief that project managers are best profiled by project managers, etc.

An HR director put it in these terms recently, "I honestly don't know what I'm looking for in a project
leader so how will I know when I have found them? I wouldn't hire a project manager who knew so
little about his or her gig so why should I ‘hire’ myself when I haven't a clue? Better to get insight
from someone who has been there and done that and knows what it will take to succeed. If the hire
works out I still look good!"

Peer profiling is a really useful tool that many hiring organisations neglect to leverage, usually
because if you're hiring for a project manager - you may not have a project manager spare to do the
profiling. If that is the case, the best IT recruitment partners will be able to do this for you - it's
certainly one of Access Talent’s key pillars that underpin our successful approach.

Competency profiling is an extension of this, we carry out a competency profile on each candidate
which tells you much more about suitability, including how well they will fit into your company and
how you can get the best out of them. It’s a rare level of insight in today’s fast-paced environment.

2 - Know The Role

At Access Talent, we put real effort into finding out what you need by getting to know the role and
your company culture. It's pretty much like profiling candidates – only it's all about you, the hiring
business.

Only after this is complete do we go out into the market on your behalf to source the right people
for your specific needs or match those needs with our interviewed talent pool. The role of IT Project
manager at company A may be subtly or, at times, very different at company B. It's crucial that you
know your role. Again, the right IT recruitment specialist will ask you the questions that allow you to
identify this.

3 - Watch Your Reputation

As IT becomes more specialist, those specialisms are becoming like villages! And, like any village, the
villagers talk. I know of at least one firm that has handled its talent attraction in such a disrespectful
way that it is now struggling to hire the best people. You are now hiring in a candidate driven IT
talent market, the rules have changed and frankly, if you don't treat prospective talent with due care
and respect word will soon spread.

The thing with the firm mentioned above is that they're not careless, egotistical monsters - they're
just busy! They don't have the time to follow up interviews with useful feedback, so candidates have
felt like they've been left waiting. It's good manners to at least tell interviewed talent that they
didn't get the gig but I appreciate that the day job can get in the way.

At Access Talent, we act as an extension of your business, handling the initial response in the way
you would want to, treating all candidates with respect and taking great care to protect your
reputation. We write bespoke adverts focused on candidate attraction to match your business or
company culture, selling your business as the great place to work that it is.

4 - Rethink Hiring As A Brand - In The Way You Would Any Other Business Activity

One of the problems that many firms are encountering is that they don't have a hiring culture or a
mission. Rethinking hiring from a brand perspective may help.

Think about how all your other business activities are aligned with brand values, from sales and
marketing messages to the attitude of your customer facing staff, it will all be designed to deliver
business goals.

Is the same true of your recruitment strategy? If the goal is to attract the best talent can you
honestly say that every step is designed to deliver that ambition? Are you posting in the right place
(do you know where the best place is these days), are your sourcing methods laser focussed on the
right candidates, are your interviewing techniques drilling down in the right areas, are your
negotiating skills suitable for a talent driven market? The answers to all these questions (and more
like them) will start to form a brand for your recruitment efforts, a consistent thread running
throughout and delivering the best talent to you.

5 - Filter early, filter well.

We meet every single candidate before we agree to represent them, to make sure we get to know
them as people before delving into their experience and formal qualifications. Then we keep things
simple for you by being very selective, as previously mentioned, we do this by peer profiling every
candidate before we even put them in front of you. Candidates profiled by subject matter experts,
people who performed the IT project role you are looking to fill.

In my experience, a lot of fairly basic filtering of candidates is being done at 'the short list stage'. For
example, candidates who are a poor cultural match are making it through to final interview stage
when they should have been eliminated from the process early on, in one case, a bad hire was even
made because filtering processes were too general and vague. On paper, the successful project
manager fitted the bill but his character and the culture of the business were at odds. This business
had to rehire with all its associated costs but even if you don't hire them, allowing unsuitable
candidates to progress further than they should, slows down the hiring process and costs your
business money!

6 - Specialist Recruiter For Specialist Talent

Until recently, a new client of Access Talent was using the same general recruiter for all their hiring
needs and for years this was OK. Whether they needed a van driver, a sales executive or an IT guy,
the same recruitment firm would post job ads, the CVs would come in, the recruiter would pass
them on the hiring manager and hope that something sticks.

The reason that they came to us was that in IT Project Management especially, fewer were sticking.

As IT Projects become more complex and more closely aligned to business case, the roles that bring
them to life are becoming more specialist. Specialist IT Project talent is not looking in the same place
when actively job hunting and, in this candidate, driven market you are probably going to have to go
after passive talent anyway - the competition for the active job seekers is now so intense.

At Access Talent we maintain contact with interviewed talent, we know which contracts are up for
renewal and because we take time to get to know candidates and clients alike we can identify a
match much quicker.

Use your general recruiter for general vacancies but for specialist IT talent you need a specialist IT
recruiter.

7 - Hire Based On Potential And Fit - Not Just Skills In The Locker

A candidate's career history doesn't just show what they've done, you can use it to chart future
trajectory too. One of my clients is brilliant at spotting trends like this. A recent hire had not led a
project as complex in nature as the one the firm was recruiting for BUT he had demonstrated an
upward trend in terms of personal and knowledge growth and a track record of taking on bigger and
bigger projects. People like that are fast learners fast, high achievers and their attitude is infectious
and raises the bar at your organisation. When you find someone like this who is also a perfect fit
with your culture, the job and your hiring manager’s leadership style you may be onto a winner that
traditional screening methods can miss. Even AI used to screen CVs does not have algorithms
complex enough for this kind of judgement. It's all down to experience - again a specialist recruiter
can help make these calls.

What you require from an IT Project Manager IS different from what you needed five years ago -
that A-Z analogy is so accurate because, well, who even uses one of those? These days you use your
Satnav or smartphone to guide you around town. Similarly, IT recruitment tools now are just as
different to how they were. However, it's not just that IT recruitment needed reinventing, it needed
reinventing tailored to your specific needs - what you need from that Project Manager isn't just
different from back in the day, it's also different to what your competitor or the firm across your
business park needs - same job description, entirely different expectations.

We've been there! Access Talent's sister company Stoneseed, an IT Programme & Project
Management Professional Services business, was finding the recruitment of quality IT project talent
an increasingly frustrating process. So we created a solution, a whole new business, and addressed
all of the challenges we were facing with specialist peer profiling for each skill set, no upfront fees
and an effective search for ‘passive’ candidates.

So, in conclusion - IT recruitment has already been re-invented, so you don't have to.

Like world class football managers, the best IT recruiters have played the
game

Have you noticed something about the people tasked with picking the teams playing in Russia
Summer 2018? The ones I've seen anyway, are all ex-
players (at the time of writing).

In fact, if you think about most successful football
managers, I bet you would struggle to find one that
hadn't played the game.

There is a lot to be said for subject matter expertise.

This thought occurred to me, particularly, when I
watched Harry Kane step up to take a penalty for
England. I remember Harry's manager Gareth Southgate
missing a penalty at Euro 96 and I bet that this
experience will have moulded the manager to prepare
his team for anything that the tournament can throw at them. Indeed, recalling Southgate's 1996
miss, one remembers a man stepping forward who didn't look confident, even in his run up there
was no conviction.

Compare that to Harry Kane's assured approach to his spot kicks, how he dealt with hold ups caused
by the officials checking with the video assistant referee (VAR) and the delaying tactics of opponents
- there was never any doubt that Kane would score. In 1996, I bet Gareth and his teammates hardly
practised taking penalties (if at all), in 2018 I would imagine that it is a core part of preparations.

Having been there and done that gives you a clear advantage.

And so it is when recruiting IT talent. Subject matter experts can identify the right candidate for your
role because they know the type of qualities that will be needed. So if you're looking for a great IT
Project Manager, who better to profile your candidates than a great IT Project Manager? You'll need
someone who has dealt with the pressure of the Project Management equivalent of taking a penalty.
So, someone who has successfully dealt with scope creep can identify someone with the right skills
to do likewise. A project manager who was good at people managing stakeholders, balancing
budgets or efficiently allocating key resources will usually instinctively pick out the candidate who
will best deliver these things for you.

Of course, football has one advantage over IT recruitment - abundance. There are plenty of football
people to call upon to help pick a football team. Look at the England coaching staff, there's a striking
coach, a goalkeeper’s coach, an assistant manager. The chances are that if you are looking for a new
IT Project Leader you may not have one sitting idle on the bench ready to conduct peer to peer
interviews with fresh candidates.

Here though, you have an advantage over Gareth Southgate. As an IT hirer looking to benefit from
subject matter expertise in the interviewing and profiling process you can call upon a specialist
recruitment partner who can deliver subject matter experts to peer profile your candidates (oh and
by the way, for the best results, you should look for a partner who will really get to know you, your
business and its culture).

Peer profiling that leverages subject matter expertise and first REALLY getting to know our client's
culture and individual needs were two of the pillars upon which we built our IT recruitment business
Access Talent. We'd noticed while running sister business Stoneseed (an IT Project Management
services partner), that our recruiters just weren't doing these things. To be frank, we couldn't find a
recruitment partner who was, which was why Access Talent was created, but there was something
else that we noticed that also has a nice parallel to the picking of a national football team...

All our recruiters appeared to be using the same CV databases.

To us, this was the equivalent of Gareth Southgate rocking up at Manchester United's Carrington
training facility and selecting the first eleven Englishmen he met. Now, while that might mean you'd
have Marcus Rashford, Phil Jones and Jesse Lingard on your flight to Russia, you could also be left
wondering how Head Groundsman Joe Pemberton would fit into your 3-5-2 formation. AND you'd
be missing out on super cool penalty taker Harry Kane - because he was down in Tottenham waiting
for your call.

When recruiters use the same CV databases - guess what - you end up with the same CVs. To be fair,
sometimes something sticks, and you end up with a good hire but by not broadening your search
you will usually miss out on the GREAT hire - the candidate who fits your organisation perfectly.
Specialist recruiters know where specialist talent hangs out because they hang out there too - they
follow the right social media, they hit up the right websites and forums. They do this because they
are genuinely passionate about that area of expertise, as a prominent CIO friend of mine says, "Once
a project manager ... always a project manager!" General recruiters just don't frequent these places
and as a result, they miss out on some REALLY GREAT hires!

Just like the England selectors don't pin their dream team around the players of one club, as an IT
hirer you want to know that your recruitment partner has scouted the whole of the top tier for
talent. The best recruitment partners know this and maintain contact with a database of interviewed
talent giving you the best reach and speed possible.

Finally, at least one more useful comparison to draw between IT and football talent.

Roy Hodgson, Gareth Southgate's tournament predecessor never played the game at any great level.
After failing to break into the Crystal Palace first team, he dropped into non-league football and then
began his managerial career with Halmstad (in Sweden) as early as 1976. He would go onto coach
across Europe and beyond, managing the national teams of Switzerland, United Arab Emirates,
Finland and, of course, England.

Now, I have a lot of time for Roy, but could you imagine one of his team selections smashing six
goals past Panama? They might have scored three and parked the bus!

In that Panama game, Southgate's players looked like they were free to express themselves like they
had let their guard down. In IT recruitment, in my experience, peer interviewing also gives you this
benefit. When a candidate is talking with someone who has "played the game" they also let down
their guard. The atmosphere in a peer to peer interview is always more relaxed than, say, an
interview with an HR Director. When a candidate feels that he or she is talking with "one of their
own" they tend to talk freely and express themselves. The organisation gets a clearer picture and a
better sense of who their candidates really are and how they’ll fit the business culture this way.

In conclusion, in football (as in IT recruitment) you really only get one chance to pick the best team.
Incorrect selections or bad hires can cost tournaments or hurt your profitability and productivity.
You wouldn't get a recruiter to pick a world-class football team. So, why hire a general recruiter
when you are putting your world-class team together?

In short, you want a subject matter expert for the role for which you at hiring ... and if you don’t
have one ... I know a team that's full of them!

It’s coming home ...

Relationships will be your greatest recruitment asset in 2017

Last month (at the time of writing) The Telegraph
asked, "Has technology made old-school recruitment
irrelevant?"

Interesting question.

Social media and video interviewing has made it much
easier for hirers to suss out potential candidates
without meeting them so, the paper asked, are
traditional recruitment tools, like CVs, consigned to
history?

It’s the best time ever to be working in the UK tech
sector – talent is in demand. The reach of IT (and
therefore opportunities in IT) go way beyond the
traditional idea of the IT department. IT touches just about every business, every employee, every
consumer - it is one of the fastest growing recruitment sectors in the world and its growth potential
is exponential. Google recently unveiled their plans to open a new London head office creating 3,000
new tech jobs by the end of the decade, similarly Facebook is planning a new London HQ in 2017
that will see the creation of 500 new roles including engineers and project managers.

The massive growth potential though is to be found beyond these headline-grabbing tech hires. It is
now widely acknowledged that every firm, regardless of their output, is a tech firm. IT Project
Manager vacancies, for example, are now being advertised by brewery chains, public transport
operators, police forces, broadcasters, local and national government ... job ads for tech
professionals now come from all directions and with more and more firms openly looking for
disruptive technologies this rich variety of opportunities will only grow in 2017.

The demand and competition for talent is intense so The Telegraph raises its question at a timely
moment because it is more important than ever that you get your approach to recruitment right.

Ironically, as business becomes more tech based, I believe that it's also going to get more people
based. That great new customer app, that streamlined sales order system, that new data capture
initiative, whatever exciting new tech you deploy in 2017 will be thanks to the great people that
work on it for you.

Smart companies recognise the value of their people and also in aligning character traits of talent
they hire with their culture but many firms using a general recruiter (for specialist IT opportunities)
are finding that cultural fit is harder to come by. The same is true of many new online portals that
promise to "cut out the middleman".

General recruiters (and actually some IT specialist recruitment firms too) are still guilty of focussing
on quantity of candidates over quality ... throwing piles of CVs at you and waiting for something to
stick. Similarly, the "online only" services rarely filter out candidates who don't fit your culture
leaving you open to hiring someone who fits the role on paper but just isn't right for your
organisation.

The problem with both extremes is that neither really forge a meaningful relationship with you or
the talent.

So rather than technology making old-school recruitment irrelevant as suggested by The Telegraph, I
think that this "old-fashioned concept" - the building of relationships is going to become more
important than ever.

Here are three relationships that you should focus attention on in 2017.

Relationships with Passive Potential Talent

Another firm's A-Team A-player might be the perfect addition to your team but they're probably not
looking for a new gig so they won't see your job ads. How do you attract them? How do you build a
relationship?

Talk with your A-Team A-players and work out what makes them tick, the language they use, the
websites and social media they access ... then incorporate this knowledge into your online presence,
brand strategy and recruitment initiatives. When you tweet or update your LinkedIn page share
content that will get the attention of this talent community (and throw your company's success
stories into the mix too!)

Also, building a relationship with a specialist recruiter who will take the time to get to know your
culture, those success stories and the kind of exciting work you can offer potential candidates will
speed up the process of attracting passive A-players. The best talent uses the recruitment partner
who will place them where they will fit best. When their current placement ends most go back to the
recruiter who works best for them. The best specialist IT recruiters also stay in contact with
interviewed talent.

Relationships with Active Potential Talent

When you place a job ad you don't want to attract hundreds of applicants - you want to attract one!
The perfect candidate. This process starts right at the beginning by making sure that your ad is in the
right place, using meaningful targeted language.

Many hirers miss the opportunity to build a relationship with potential candidates by using rehashed
job ads from previous recruitment drives or even copy-pasting whole ads used previously

Again, a relationship with a specialist recruiter who will use subject matter experts to create your
recruitment collateral will lift you above the crowd. Your partner should create bespoke adverts
focussed on candidate attraction to match your business or company culture, selling your business
as a great place to work.

A Relationship with A Specialist IT Recruitment Partner

No surprises here, it's come up as means to achieving relationships with both active and passive
potential candidates but it's more than that. The right recruitment partner will get to know your
culture and only recommend talent that will complement it. They will produce meaningful role
profiles written by subject matter experts and peer-profiling during the interview process will be
conducted by experts and professionals experienced in working in the IT project management or
tech sector you are recruiting in.

Ask your recruitment partner or online portal if they do this.

Between now and the end of the decade, the quality of the relationships you build could make all
the difference when hiring talent. A specialist recruitment partner for specialist fields is the
smartest way to get the right candidates for you. Finding one that is into relationships and uses the
best of other "traditional" recruitment strategies combined with the latest thinking and tools will
give you the speed and reach that you need to stand out.

Source:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/connect/small-business/tech/has-tech-made-old-school-recruitment-
irrelevant/

Re-thinking IT recruitment is not rocket science. Well, not always!

Where do your new IT hires come from? Other IT companies? How's that working out?

If you're finding the traditional talent pools are drying
up, you are not alone.

In the UK, British Gas hired an ex-NASA data scientist to
progress its Hive smart heating project, who said IT
recruitment wasn't rocket science?!

In the US, LinkedIn reportedly hired economists,
physicists and perhaps most famously a brain surgeon
to fill IT roles.

Why?

Because, like you, they have found that the traditional
talent pools are either drying up or they are being
overfished. Take LinkedIn, they are competing for IT talent from (or gravitating to) California with
Apple, Facebook, Google, Adobe, eBay and Twitter – to name just a handful. It makes sense to cast
the net wider.

It's more than that though. Simon Zhang, the aforementioned former brain surgeon, brought
something new to LinkedIn. He came with skills that go beyond old school data crunching.

Of course, data is something LinkedIn gathers a lot of and recognising new sales opportunities or
potential for new features from all that data requires a special mindset. The type of mindset honed
removing hundreds of cancers at China’s Tianjin Medical University Cancer Hospital and Institute, it
turned out.

What made Zhang a great brain surgeon, an instinct for quickly identifying meaning in data coming
thick and fast from different directions, also made him ideal for the business analytics opportunities
LinkedIn had. Ironically, when originally interviewed, Zhang deleted his time working in brain surgery
from his CV considering it irrelevant. It was only when his interviewers quizzed him about the gap in
his career timeline that he mentioned it and the rest is history.

Non-IT professionals are a great resource and can deliver an extra dimension of business knowledge
to your IT department. Rethinking about how you attract and develop IT talent in this way can pay
you back big time but what if you cannot access the occasional brain surgeon? How can you be sure
that talent from "outside IT" will work if you lure them in?

Peer Profiling works. Have you considered accessing Subject Matter Experts, people who performed
the project or IT role you're looking to fill to profile candidates for suitability? This doesn't just work
for those non-IT business professionals either, peer profiling traditional IT talent can also limit the
risk of a bad hire.

Fishing in new pools need not mean casting your net for the next Simon Zhang. The best specialist IT
recruiters pool interviewed candidates and maintain ongoing contact giving you increased response
times over traditional recruitment methods and a direct link with suitable talent - your own private
talent pool!

Attracting culturally matched talent is also working for many IT hirers. When you work on the
premise that, culturally, the right candidate at your firm might not be right for your competitor, it
makes sense to try to hire talent in this way - even if it does mean operating in smaller pools. When
your new hire fits right in and hits the ground running on day one, what may seem like marginal
gains, can actually, hugely increase the return on your recruitment investment.

Among the quickest ways to leverage this is to partner with a specialist recruiter who will, first of all,
get to know you, your business and how you operate so that they can match you with talent already
on their radar or focus your campaign on attracting "best fit" talent. You (and your partner) must be
clear about what your culture is ... LinkedIn knew theirs and so they could identify how a brain
surgeon would be the perfect match that he turned out to be!

It's not rocket science ... or brain surgery for that matter ... but rethinking about how you attract and
develop IT talent can return amazing dividends.

The IT sector doesn’t need ‘just another recruitment consultant’ – next time
choose a partner.

Why set up a new IT recruitment agency when a Google
search of the term returns about 46.2 million results? A
crowded marketplace that!

Thing is, whilst as an employer we could find lots of
agencies, consultants and service providers - we
struggled to find one partner.

And this despite the fact that a similar search for "IT
recruitment partners" returns 19.5 million results.

So, what do I mean by partner?

Well...

... Someone who was willing to get to know how we operate ... how we function… what our core
values and culture are. How can you find the right jigsaw piece if you don't know how the end
picture should look?

... Someone who would share the risk of recruitment. If the successful candidate leaves deciding
they don't fit your business culture, for example, then you're back to square one and out of pocket.
Surely the recruiter shares some of the responsibility for an imperfect fit?! Reasonably they should
share some of the risk then?

... Someone with excellent reach to find the right candidates quickly. Of course, you have to hit up
the job boards, but you have to be much more creative in your thinking than that - we wanted our
recruitment partners to kick a few rocks over and try new ideas and routes. Often the best candidate
doesn’t even know they’re looking for a new opportunity – they’re not reading the job ads – how do
you reach them??

... Someone who would interview and profile from an industry professional’s perspective, not a
recruiter’s perspective. In other words, if you are interviewing for a Project Manager, you should
have experience of Project Management yourself. To us, that made total common sense - could a
hockey coach put together a World Cup winning football team? Probably not - sure you may make
some progress with a positive mental attitude and transferable team building techniques but when
it came down to the actual strategic, tactical side you'd struggle. It's the same with IT recruitment.

As an employer do you find recruitment can be an incredibly frustrating process?

We did too. So, unable to find what we were looking for ... we created it. Access Talent.

Since then we have found that being a good recruitment partner is as much about passion, insight
and being prepared to go that extra mile as it is about the key service elements mentioned above.
Some recruitment service providers really lacked these qualities when they talked to us and it came

across when talking to candidates too. How can potential employees get excited about working for
you if the recruiter has a blasé attitude about the opportunity you're offering?

Your recruitment partner should listen, ask you lots of questions to really drill down and determine
the skills you require, or even better have access to your company pipeline for a proactive rather
than reactive search, i.e. finding the right candidate, not the “right now” candidate

Ultimately, I firmly believe that the quality of a recruitment partner can be measured best by the
quality of their personnel (the people you deal with) and the quality of the candidates they find for
you.

As a client, you have to be sure that you will receive a personal, tailored, bespoke service from a
professional who really gets what your ideal candidate looks like. No two requirements or job
specifications are the same and only by treating each project on an individual basis can you truly
ensure that all objectives are not only met but often exceeded.

And that's what I mean by a partner.

IT Recruitment - Specialist profiling to attract human beings, not human
doings

Was it The Dalai Lama who said, 'We are human beings,
not human doings'?

I like that quote and feel that it is increasingly relevant
to the recruitment of IT Talent where, after all, what
you're wanting to attract to your team is the best
available human being.

The problem is that a lot of recruitment, both old school
and even some new, is focused on searching for human
doings.

To illustrate this, let's look at how many recruitment
firms approach the process of attracting talent to your
vacancy.

In a nutshell, you have an opportunity to join your amazing team, so you call the recruiter. They then
advertise the gig, handle the candidate responses, maybe they use algorithms to match keywords,
and then they throw a number of CVs your way that may or may not fit what you are looking for.

Fair enough, except that this approach only skims the surface of what you need. Granted,
qualifications and experience, among the main criteria filtered by Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS),
are important but they don't tell you the whole picture. Many are set up to filter hard skills so you
may use keywords like "project management" or "governance", "budget management" or "PRINCE2"
but even 'recruitment robots' that are designed to mine for soft skills like "communication",
"adaptability", "organisation" or "time management" won't necessarily leave you looking at the CVs
of the best possible candidates.

The thing is, these are all “doings”. The qualifications and experience are great indicators of what a
candidate can "do" but they are not always good predictors of how they can "be".

It's not surprising, I suppose. Our collective culture is so concentrated on ‘doing’ and ‘having’, often
success is measured by the house you live in and the car you drive, the material possessions - it's
perhaps of little wonder that so much recruitment focus is given to the certificates and qualifications
that a candidate has rather than how they will fit into your organisation, i.e., how they will be.

Instead, next time to have an IT or IT Project role to fill, imagine focusing your efforts on attracting a
human being, not a human doing. Rather than attract candidates based on what they have done, be
more mindful of how they will be. How might this work?

Attracting A Human "Being"

Imagine that your IT recruitment partner put real work into proper role research from the
perspective of your unique requirements. What you want from an IT Project Leader may differ from
what the firm across town needs - you could literally have the same job description and a candidate

may be both hugely suitable at your place and totally unsuitable at the other organisation. Similarly,
two candidates with the same qualifications might be perfect for the 'same' position down the road
but be an appalling fit at your company. You need your IT recruitment partner to put real work into
finding out exactly what you need by getting to know the role and your company culture. Then,
having done that, you need them to market on your behalf to source the best people - or already
have them on speed dial. Bespoke adverts focused on candidate attraction to match your business
or company culture, at the same time selling your business as a great place to work will attract the
right human being.

Peer Profiling is the next pillar in your approach. General recruiters and firms just using algorithms to
create your candidate shortlist should find you some perfectly qualified candidates, on paper. When
you Peer Profile, when a recruiter commits to meeting every single candidate before representing
them, when your partner knows candidates as people before delving into their experience and
formal qualifications - then that should, becomes a practical certainty. It makes sense, having got to
know your firm and its culture and then got to know the candidates and how they will "be" in the
role you have, your partner is better placed to deliver only best fit CVs to you. Having candidates
profiled by subject matter experts, people who performed the IT project role you are looking to fill
make better fit hires.

Thirdly, consider competency profiling. I don't know of anyone who does this as well as Access
Talent, I mean, I would say that, but our competency assessment process is unusually robust. We
carry out a competency profile on each candidate which tells you much more than you’d typically
know, including crucially, how well they will fit into your company and how you can get the best out
of them for your specific needs, in other words - how they will be! It’s a rare level of insight in
today’s fast-paced environment and is, frankly, a game changer.

Richard Branson wrote, "We are human beings because we think, move and communicate in a
heightened way. We have the ability to be in the moment, to cooperate, understand, appreciate,
reconcile and love." Aren't these all great qualities that you would want in your next hire? Imagine
that your next successful candidate has all this and is a perfect match with your business and its
culture - the dream hire!

Your talent resource is like a jigsaw, when you have all the right pieces, they combine to exactly
match the picture on the box. That picture is made up of your culture, business goals and potential.
Attempting to recruit without due attention to YOUR picture can really mess up how your jigsaw will
look.

When you partner with a specialist IT recruiter focussed on attracting the candidate who will fit your
jigsaw, someone who will BE perfect – you will attract them ... a human being, not a human doing.

Source:

https://www.virgin.com/richard-branson/human-beings-not-human-doings

When angling for exciting new talent – Fish in exciting new pools and don’t
use the same old bait!

The internet has been brilliant for recruitment. As an
employer, you can now Access Talent from wider pools
than ever and through social media practically pre-
interview prospective colleagues before they even set
foot through your door.

Despite this, a friend just complained about feeling
uninspired by respondents to a recent job advert. She
showed me the correspondence.

It seems that something else that has happened - and
on this one, I think that the internet needs to hold its
hand up and say, "My bad!"

Looking through the CVs and covering letters - they
have started to look the same. It was almost as if every candidate had Googled "how to write a CV
and covering letter" and then followed the instructions they found on page one to the letter.

I asked to see what stimulus from her organisation had garnered such an unimaginative response
and she showed me the job advert. To be fair to the candidates the advert was a rehash of one that I
know they've used a few times, it had been placed in the same places and copy and pasted onto the
organisation's social media channels and website in such a way that it looked like an afterthought.

It was almost as if they'd Googled "how to write a job ad" and then followed the instructions they
found on page one to the letter. Imagine such a thing. ;-)

Perhaps if you want to catch new interesting fish you need to use new bait? And maybe it is time to
look beyond the pools that you've always fished in.

According to recruiter Hudson - 28% of hiring managers in Australia say the effectiveness of job
boards is decreasing - nine out of ten say that they're looking beyond job boards and active job
seekers. Anecdotal evidence suggests a similar trend in the UK.

Here's an idea - why not try to attract talent that isn't even looking to leave their current position?

Who is most likely to hit the ground running?

Someone who is happy in their current post, getting great results and positive feedback ... or
someone who is either unhappy in their current position, desperate for a move or even currently out
of work?

Now, of course, most job seekers will turn out to be stand up employees and definitely worth a punt
but if you've ever head hunted someone, you'll know that they do come with an edge. There is a
difference between getting a job you saw advertised in the back of the industry paper and being
sought out and approached by someone with a position to fill because they think that you are the
right person for it.

That Hudson Hiring Report I mentioned surveyed 3,228 Australian professionals and three quarters
said that despite presumably being happy in their work they were open to be approached by a
recruiter.

Now imagine the size of this new talent pool.

Imagine how many people in your sector, although not actively looking for a new post, would be
open to you approaching them. There's an exciting side effect too, the bigger the available market
the greater the chance of attracting someone who is a cultural fit with your company. Imagine
choosing from candidates who will not simply be able to do a job for, but people who are already
living your company values elsewhere.

The cultural fit thing cuts both ways too, increasingly job seekers and employees are placing it in
their top five priorities and while I can't imagine it ever replacing things like salary and work/life
balance, sharing the values of the firm you work for is more important for individuals than ever
before.

Many employers are starting to think more along these lines, many more will as the internet
continues to shrink the planet and every potential employee's web presence grows.

From an individual's perspective there has never been a better time to get ready for this, here are
three things you should do this week.

1 - Make sure your CV is up-to-date, sharp and ready to send.

2 - Be current, visible and impressive. Have a LinkedIn profile with an appropriate current photo.
Regularly check your LinkedIn CV (your timeline of current and past jobs, skills and qualifications).
Connect with your competitors' hiring executives!

3 - Know the market and your place and value within it. Do some homework, fire up those online
salary calculators.

As for employers. Well the most satisfied hiring managers are seeking a recruitment partner (some
are so confident they'll even share some of the initial "risk"), they're hitting up social media and
attending recruitment events - they're using two, three, four or more different avenues and they are
getting great results and attracting the best talent.

Instead of using the same old tried and tested (often tired and tested) recruitment channels seek out
multiple sourcing, more targeted tools and smarter ways to Access Talent.

Source:

https://www.mgsm.edu.au/assets/PDF/Careers/2015-HiringReport-AU-FINAL.pdf

Why IT Hirers Need Ghostbusters. Who you gonna call?

An increasingly significant number of hirers are
reporting that they have offered a vacancy to the best
candidate from their recruitment drive and never heard
back from them. Sometimes, a couple of weeks go by,
after all, they may be on holiday and let's face it - the
best candidate is worth waiting for. Eventually, it dawns
on the hirer that the candidate may have taken a
position elsewhere but by this time those further down
the list will probably also have accepted a job meaning
that the hirer is often forced to start the recruitment
process again!

It's not just hiring. There may be a cultural shift at play
here. "Ghosting", a dating term for the practice of
ending a personal relationship with someone by
suddenly and without explanation withdrawing from all communication, seems to be everywhere!

No Show Culture Not Exclusive to Hiring

A friend who runs a restaurant in London believes that the cost of 'no-show' 'ghost' diners last
weekend was over £1000!

Apparently, this is an industry-wide phenomenon. What happens is a couple or a group of friends
book a number of tables at a range of restaurants and then decide on the night which they would
like to attend. They don't call the rest, they just leave them high and dry. They don't answer their
mobile, so the restaurants don't know if their guests are just fashionably late and by the time it's fair
to assume, they're not coming it's too late for the restaurant to find someone else to take the table.

The restaurant example demonstrates how disruptive this can be. Candidates may think that turning
down a position without communicating this to the hirer is a victimless crime - after all, they'll just
offer the gig to someone else so what's the harm, right? The problem is that every candidate who
'ghosts' a hirer leaves the IT recruitment equivalent of an empty table - only in IT and especially IT
Project Management the ghosted role will have so many dependencies and interdependencies that
the effects can spread far and wide.

The 'no-show' culture is leaving hirers just as high and dry as restauranteurs, and lengthening
recruitment processes.

Of course, IT talent (just like any other) has always kept its options open. You, yourself, when you've
been job hunting in the past will probably have applied for more than one position, perhaps then,
had a choice to make between a number of offers but I bet that you called the firms that you turned
down though. This is a courtesy that some candidates seem to have forgotten and if it is a cultural
shift then, as a hirer, you need to mitigate yourself against it to avoid costly reruns of your
recruitment processes.

Amanda Bradford, CEO and founder of The League, a dating app is well placed to draw the
dating/workplace comparison having been 'ghosted' by engineering candidates at another of her
firms. Quoted by LinkedIn's Chip Cutter, she says that ghosting has “almost become a new
vocabulary” for younger people where “no response is a response”.

A new client shared an experience with me recently that suggests that the “no response is a
response” attitude may be becoming a cultural norm.

Ghost Interviewees

It's bad enough to be offered a position and not respond but, as discussed earlier, there is a chance
that the hirer can take a fresh look at their shortlist and select another candidate. Providing that the
second or third choice interviewees haven't found work elsewhere then all's well that ends well ...
but what if this 'ghosting' happens earlier in the process?

After two frustrating recruitment drives to appoint an IT Project Manager this new client came spoke
to us. Their story is eye-opening! First a bit of background on the client, they're well established and
easy to sell as a great place to work, salaries a little above market expectation and the projects are,
while challenging, all business case driven, so there is an always a real sense of satisfaction that the
work you do is contributing to the business goals and objectives.

The perfect gig! Indeed, when they advertised it the response was good. The first time they had a
shortlist that was so impressive they set aside two days to interview eight candidates - five of the
eight didn't turn up and seven of them didn't answer calls - the one who did, offered no apology!
The second time they were more selective and more innovative, four candidates would be
interviewed across a morning and would work together and against each other on some
"Apprentice" style tasks. Three didn't show up.

Twice, this firm's HR and hiring managers had got together to come up with interesting interview
sessions. Twice, they had put aside valuable time - not just the three days to interview candidates
but they had allocated significant time for consideration of the candidates afterwards. Twice they
had been left with nothing tangible to show for their efforts.

You may have your own story or so far you may have been lucky but cases like this are becoming
more common, writing for USA Today Paul Davidson writes, "Many businesses report that 20 to 50
percent of job applicants and workers are pulling no-shows in some form, forcing many firms to
modify their hiring practices."

Taking some preventative steps to protect yourself in a candidate driven market is a wise idea.

5 Top Tips For Ghost Busting

1 - A recruitment partner with a track record of thoroughly researching candidates can ensure that
you are provided with reliable candidates.

For example, at Access Talent, we meet every single candidate before we agree to represent them,
to make sure we get to know them as people before delving into their experience and formal
qualifications. This one to one relationship fosters trust and respect that manifests itself in a hire you
can depend upon.

2 - Subject Matter Expert & Peer Profiling of Candidates.

In our case, we are extremely selective in the first instance and then by peer profiling every
candidate before we put them in front of you, you know that you are hiring someone who is going to
turn up on day one. When you profile candidates by subject matter experts, people who performed
the IT or project role you are looking to fill and can ask the right questions, you are more likely to
find someone who is right for the job.

3 - Ensure your recruitment partner understands you and your vacant role.

When a role you're offering is perfect for the candidate it is highly unlikely that you will be 'ghosted',
rather, perfect match candidates tend to beat at your door asking when they can start! When your
partner truly understands you and your gig they will also organically develop a greater sense of who
your perfect fit candidate is. We put real work into finding out exactly what you need by getting to
know the role and your company culture – then we go out to market on your behalf to source the
best people.

4 - Respect Works Both Ways!

Don't let experience or fear of being ghosted change who you are. I had a conversation with a
potential client who wanted to adopt a "no more Mr Nice Guy" approach in the future. Just like in
dating where you shouldn't treat a new love interest badly because someone hurt you in the past,
you shouldn't change your approach to future candidates because you got stood up by one last time
around. When engaged as a recruitment partner, we act as an extension of your business, handling
the initial response in the way you would, treating all candidates with respect and taking great care
to protect your reputation. We write bespoke adverts focused on candidate attraction to match your
business or company culture, selling your business as a great place to work and putting the search
for the right candidate at the centre of our focus. Candidates respond to this business like but
human treatment and are less likely to go AWOL from the process.

4 - Competency profiling

Our assessment process is unusually robust. We carry out a competency profile on each candidate
which tells you much more than you’d typically know, including how well they will fit into your
company and how you can get the best out of them. It’s a rare level of insight in today’s fast-paced
environment and it really reduces the risk of a mismatch.

5 - Choose a recruitment partner who has and, crucially, maintains contact with a database of
candidates who have already been through the processes outlined above.

Reach and speed improves dramatically when your partner already knows the perfect candidate and
when they can start!

In conclusion, it’s important for both parties - recruiters and candidates to treat each other with
respect. Over time, your career will take many different paths and whether you're the candidate
ghosting a hiring manager or that manager frantically trying to fill a role for which you thought you'd
found the perfect candidate, the chances are that your paths will cross again so politely declining an
offer is essential to avoid issues in the future.

This will all eventually come full circle, the market will swing back in favour of the hirer and
candidates will realise that no response is actually no response.

Until then ... Who you gonna call?

Sources:

https://eu.usatoday.com/story/money/2018/07/19/strong-job-market-candidates-ghosting-
interviews-offers/794264002/
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/people-ghosting-work-its-driving-companies-crazy-chip-
cutter/?trk=aff_src.aff-lilpar_c.partners_learning&irgwc=1

Why strategic, specialist IT roles need strategic, specialist IT recruiters.

Approaching the attraction of specialist IT Talent with a
general recruiter can be like turning up for a chess
tournament with a working knowledge of the rules of
draughts. The board looks the same, you can have a
play ... but do you think you'll win?

No, to win, you need to know how your Queen, King,
Rooks, Knights, Pawns and Bishops move.

General recruiters are great for general recruiting but
the more specialist the talent you are seeking is, the
more strategically important the role is, the more you
should be seeking the expertise of an industry specialist.
Like the pieces on the chess board, the various IT
talents that you need each move in different ways and
to attract them to your business you need to be where they are.

Here are five ways that specialist recruiters achieve checkmate over generalist counterparts ...

1 - Deeper understanding of you and your business.

Your specialist recruiter or talent acquisition partner SHOULD have a deeper understanding of the
nature of your business and your workplace needs, both now and in the future. Even the best
general recruitment firms tend to be very focused on your current hire rather than taking a longer
term, forward-thinking, strategic view. Like chess, the process with a specialist recruiter is highly
strategic - it's a relationship, not a service and it's all about how the person you hire fits your long-
term business objectives.

2 - They understand their business!

Your specialist recruitment partner should be experts in their area of specialism and should be able
to give you an off the cuff elevator pitch on what their niche is. You can ask them any question and
they should be able to answer it with confidence, passion and authority.

They should talk the same language as and not look at you blankly when you use industry
terminology, to return to the chess analogy, they won't call a Knight 'a horsey'.

3 - Employer branding

Employer Branding ... the process of promoting your company as the employer of choice to your
desired target talent group is more important than ever, especially in IT and IT Project Management.

The talent your company wants and needs to recruit and retain is the only talent that your specialist
recruitment partner communicates with and if your partner is worth their salt they pool interviewed
candidates to increase your reach and speed.

The best specialist recruiters use social media tools and syndicated job boards but don’t just “copy
and paste” your job description and hope for the best. They write bespoke adverts, focussed on
candidate attraction, to match your business or company culture, selling your business as a great
place to work.

4 - Target audience

Target Your Candidate Audience ... the best results when sourcing for specific roles come from first
defining who your ideal candidate is, where to find them and how to attract them.

Understanding your audience is key and is a trick often missed by general recruiters or by using
traditional recruitment methods.

As an exercise, flick around the radio dial. Listen to all the stations, especially ones not aimed at your
age or demographic and try to notice ways that the station is targeting its core audience. I can
guarantee that the stations who know and tailor their output for a target audience are the ones with
the biggest listening numbers.

Targeting audiences works. Specialist recruitment partners are the best way to target yours. A
specialist recruitment partner should be moving in the same circles that you are AND they will know
the best talent because they move in their circles too and go out of their way to build relationships!

5 - Track record

They should be able to show you a proven track record of recruiting the talent you're looking for!

If, for instance, you need an IT Project Manager ask prospective recruiters to demonstrate times
when they have found them!

Get them to show you their strategy! Specialist recruiters (and actually general ones too) love to
blow their own trumpet - you just need to make sure that their trumpet is in tune with your strategy.
You do this by asking them for referrals or testimonials and asking around among your peers for
experiences they've had. A good recruitment partner will have a solid reputation within your
industry and they'll be more than happy to point you in the direction of their successes!

General recruiters are great when it comes to general recruitment but there are many more ways
that specialists are better at recruiting specialist IT talent. OK, I admit, I'm biased.

But I’m always biased in your favour and perhaps next time you have such a role to fill you’ll let me
show you.