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The analytics for this site is so cool now that we can answer questions that you didn’t even mean to ask us directly, but you asked Google and it made you stumble on our Blog. So now we can answer your questions you didn’t even mean to ask us, by Proxy. How Web 2.0 of us….

When we go and meet with prospective clients, one line of questioning we follow is how the client is measuring and managing the effectiveness of its current contingency agency suppliers. A contingency agency is essentially one that provides a service on a success-only basis (paid when the perfect candidate is hired), rather than retained (paid upfront).

It’s always surprising to us how few people have formal measurement in place at all, and the ones who do often measure the bare minimum in terms of metrics, maybe just CV:interview ratio. We’ll be blogging really soon about how to measure your contingency agency suppliers, in a really awesome way, but for now, we address the question:

How do you keep your staffing vendors working ‘full tilt’, ‘pedal to the metal’, all the time, relentlessly, and always with you in mind as the ‘preferential client’ who gets the good CVs and profiles first as well as the best possible service?

The advantages of keeping external Recruiters working tirelessly on your requirements are kind of obvious, but include:

· If you are the Recruiters priority client, you WILL get CV’s before your competition do, and if you are really smart, the competitor will never even get to hear that candidate is even on the market/looking. Sun Tzu will tell you that ‘Crushing the Competitors’ by suffocating or shrinking their passive/active talent pool, is always a great thing.

· If you get these great candidates first, you won’t be involved in a ‘war of offers’ based on raising your original offer, E-Bay style against another company seeking to fill a similar role. It happens, and wasn’t just in Silicon Valley during the .com boom – it happens every year in Reading…

· You will be able to plan more effectively when in large-scale hiring initiatives with deadlines and deliverables attached.

· You will get the VP Sales, HR Director, CEO, CTO, Development Manager, Test Manager, Service Delivery Manger (Insert any other hiring manager or P&L owner here) off your back about that Architect role that you don’t think has a real person out there that can do it.

So, now we know what kind of difference having your contingency recruiter ‘on team’ and relentlessly hiring for you can make – how is it achieved?

It certainly is interesting for us to reflect on how clients go from ‘1st tier’ to ‘2nd tier’ from our own perspective – so this should be interesting.

What NOT to do
DON’T: Pay under the odds. We appreciate that the recruitment services you receive may be broadly comparative. However, you might want to loosen up that ‘we only pay X’ for recruitment services, and reward/incentives your recruiters. Remember that discount you insisted on those standard terms? It might well be your undoing in terms of getting the best service. You get what you are willing to pay for.

DON’T: Install an RPO vendor, or “Master Vendor” – trust us, no Recruiter worth their money (Middleman) likes to ‘partner’ with another Recruiter (Middleman). End of story. Next time an RPO tells you they have ‘Lots of great Recruitment Companies on-side and ready to supply’ for a mass-hiring exercise… they are probably the agencies with the worst service who put the most junior recruiter in the company on the ‘Account’.

DON’T: Insist that ‘You have a PSL’ and for that reason, can’t entertain calls from alternative recruiters offering something different, or perhaps have an exclusive candidate who works for a competitor on their books. Most PSLs don’t for obvious reasons, have contractual clauses in preventing the external use of other Recruiters, so take advantage of the contractual flexibility you have by exploring other services, if appropriate to do so.

DON’T: Dish out badly defined requirements, or those for people that you haven’t already looked internally for. Ones that haven’t been signed off, or there is no budget for, also definitely suck and as such won’t ever endear a supplier of talent to work harder for you.

DON’T: Take weeks to give feedback on candidates, even if the role is a very senior one.

DON’T: Forget to remind your recruiters in a PSL relationship that they should always consider you a priority customer as a privilege of being on the preferred list.

DON’T: Work with CV Slinging cowboy suppliers who don’t even speak to the candidate before whizzing over their details. No screening is even worse than bad screening, and the good recruiters will avoid you like the plague if you work with the really bad ones.

DON’T: Work with recruiters who don’t make an effort to understand and work in sync with your business.

DON’T: Work with recruiters who think that if they sling enough mud at you, some will stick. A service which doesn’t save you time isn’t worth using.

What to DO:
DO: Make your suppliers accountable. Call or Email them to find out why they aren’t filling your vacancies lately or are sending low quality CVs in small quantities. Don’t be shy – you might sound super authoritative on the phone and frightening them into delivering for you.

DO: Regularly inform your recruiters what the priority vacancies are. In our experience, a client looking for more than ten people at any one time has priorities which shift weekly, and in instances where more than 50 staff are required at any one time, it’s more like daily. Email is often best for updates, especially if you are informing a PSL.

DO: Keep your recruiter informed of pipeline, for the next week, month, quarter or year. You plan better and get better results if they plan better.

DO: Work with your recruiters, make them feel part of the team you are on. At the very least meet with them and hold regular updates with them on priorities. Trust us, some of the top organisations we at Idealpeople work with, bring us in for a face to face meet with the hiring manager for Q&A/Gap Analysis every time there is a new requirement.

DO: Measure them, and make it clear from the outset of the relationship that you will measure them on specific KPIs such as CV:Interview Ratio, Offer:Acceptance Ratio, Interview:Offer ratio. If you are really smart you can measure things like post-interview retention record and introduction successes. More on this soon….

DO: Be aware enough of your employer brand to communicate WHY anyone would want to work for you to your contingency agency suppliers. If you don’t know WHY, don’t expect your recruitment agency to either.

DO: Give praise and thanks where due. The most cost-effective way to make your supplier (and not just people-vendor) work extra hard for you – is to reward results with thanks and praise. Any recruiter will tell you that the clients they work hardest for are the ones who actually offer thanks after successes.

DO: Consider innovative ways to reward the success of your suppliers beyond their fee.

We hope you find this broadcast interesting, and maybe even make you re-evaluate how you work with your external talent suppliers. We are pretty sure implementing these techniques will change, and improve, the talent-brokers you might be working with and maybe even deliver you some unusually good hires. Who knows? The only way to learn is to experiment.