You, Me, Us
It has been an eventful few weeks since the last blog. Once again I am being cultured, chilled plastic glass of wine, a virgin train heading north and the prospect that it’s only Wednesday and the working week is far from over. Quick update on where I’m at. My client is happy with the progress on the day to day recruitment and to be fair so am I. Where we both have concerns is in the strategy, the delivery of the vision and the move from a reactive to proactive approach to talent acquisition. To many of you that are in a corporate environment this will be a familiar tale. Deliver the results today and deliver a plan to make it easy in the future but by the way deliver it today.
On occasion the cracks show. Might not sound like a big deal but today I missed a candidate. To be more precise I said I would come back to them in a few days and that was three weeks ago. Worse still he was introduced by someone at my client and it looks bad on him. The issue has been resolved, I got kicked, I reacted and I fixed. But it is not ideal. So how do we make the world stop for a few hours to reset, realign and get back on track.
I don’t have the answers I’m looking for inspiration!
That aside the peaks and troughs of recruitment both sides of the fence remain the same. In the past I would get excited about the fee related to a successful placement, now it is the placement (no fee attached!) and the knowledge that you are playing your part in the corporate plan. This second bit has been a shock to my system. As many of you will know I am a cynic. Worse than that I am an opinionated cynic not scared to share that opinion with anyone that will listen, hoping I will be shot down and disappointed when I’m not. The reality is that I have bought into my clients ethos, their culture, their way of doing business because it is real.
Reality is subjective I know that, but two months on I have seen the trailer, watched the main event and now want all the merchandise I can lay my hands on because I want to be a part of it. For any interim this is not a good thing. Nevertheless I take my corporate responsibility very seriously, looking to find the best candidates in the business, taking it to the market place rather than relying on 3rd parties. It’s early days but when one of my candidates is up against two third party candidates and gets the job there is an immense amount of satisfaction that I have delivered on my promise.
So in true Jerry MaGuire style, why can’t we all do that?
The truth is I think we can. It’s time to focus, time to spread ourselves less thinly across multiple clients and commit to those that we can truly support and work with. For some of the fill the job agencies out there this will be an alien concept. They still love the scatter gun they still love working with multiple clients throwing their candidates at them until one sticks. Without preaching for the 400th time this doesn’t work anymore and when the market does really pick up how many fill the job outfits will there be and who will want them.
You will see there that I still talk about us. I have bought into my client etc. and if they offered me a... gulp... job... I would consider it more seriously than ever before in the last 5 years but until that day I am us. You, me, us. But and it is a big but if we are to remain us we need to find a better way to work together. You’ll already guess this is the precursor to something else. Well the mckinley|resource year end is coming up and I have a plan for next year. FY11 that is, not that I am influenced by an American client you’ll understand. The plan involved global domination, collaboration and a focus on my core market. Yes I know about the IT services and technology market place but slowly and surely I know as much about the services clients require and that the only way for the fill the job agencies can grow and develop is my extending into adjacent markets through a third party. You, me, us. Collaboration.
More to come, until then I am getting back to my M&S wine and watching the sun go down somewhere near rugby.
As ever, email me on martin.dangerfield@mckinleyresource.com or call me on +44161.955.3647 I am always happy to talk to clients, recruiters and collaborators alike.
about martin dangerfield
Martin is currently on an interim assignment for a global techology business but all good things must come to an end. If you want his help with your recruitment strategy, from inception to delivery, help in the creation of a 3 year business vision or practical on-site recruitment support then contact him directly on +44(0)161.955.3647 or email martin.dangerfield@mckinleyresource.com. As well as being a Regional Director for the IRP, Martin is Director of the innovative search business mckinley|resource, a freelance people consultant specialising in talent attraction, assessment and recruitment and a provider of business coaching for high growth entrepreneurial organisations.
Search for ‘People Consultant’ or go straight to www.martindangerfield.com