Is everyone getting ready to go back to school in Vegas this June? Pack those bags. Call your travel agent, tell whoever you need to tell that June 4-6, “I’m out of the office”

In all seriousness, you should look at your calendar, and go book your flights. The Fordyce Forum is just around the corner. June 4-6 at the Flamingo Hotel, there will be a ton of information flowing.

It seems to me that the barrier to entry to become a recruiter today with a fistful of candidates to call thanks to the likes of LinkedIn has never been lower. The thing that keeps recruiters in business is knowing what to do when it needs to be done. Every day, being able to locate technically capable candidates seems to be easier and easier. I know some people will disagree but I stand by it.

The point in all of this is that in June, the 2^nd edition of the Fordyce forum is bringing a host of smart recruiters together and smart trainers together to talk about recruiting. The networking opportunity is something that in my opinion warrants the price of admission let alone the speakers at the show.

The Fordyce Forum

Agenda

Speakers

changing topics for a moment but maybe not really, I have a friend that many of you may know named Bill Vick. Bill and I talk often and he has a great new site. It’s called XtremeRecruiting

 

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Guest Post By Jim McGrath, The EMAC Group 

As the president of my recruiting firm, I see many human resources professionals needing to fill a vacant position spending hour after hour looking on sites like monster.com and careerbuilder.com, hunting and pecking for that elusive needle in a haystack. 

While that can be rewarding and inexpensive, it certainly does require much more time and effort, as well as a good neck and back massage. More importantly it takes away from administering benefits and nurturing and developing current employees. 

Today, you might be able to spare the time and costs of doing this work yourself.  In the very near future, however, the market is changing with baby boomers retiring, which started in 2005, is predicted to peak in 2011, and slowing sometime around 2020. 

What this will affect:

-        More positions to fill, especially highly trained, skilled and knowledgeable human capital;

-        Higher turnover as employees leave for other opportunities that were not available before;

-        Your company’s ability to grow, increase earnings and sales, and push quickly into new market opportunities. 

“…nearly one-in-five employers report it typically takes them two months or longer to fill their open positions and 40 percent say they currently have open positions for which they can’t find qualified candidates.”

-CareerBuilder.com’s “2008 Job Forecast,” conducted by Harris Interactive 

Consider this: with the increased vacant positions and employees hopping around, what will you have to do to keep your current employees happy? You time is going to be spent on attracting and retaining strategies, additional perks programs, increased paperwork, training…you name it. 

The time to plan is now. 

If you don’t already have a great relationship with at least one recruiting company you can trust, it’s time to start researching. Your recruiting and staffing partner can not only take those worries off your plate, but since this is their area of expertise, they are your best resource for knowing people in your industry, looking for a new opportunity. The saying goes, “The best jobs are often unadvertised.” That holds true for the best potential candidates too. 

Plan on an appropriate budget for your needs by talking to your recruiting and staffing partner who can help you make a decision based on their costs, your company strategies and determine the big picture. Working with a recruiting and staffing partner doesn’t have to cost a fortune if planned in advance and the relationship is a good reliable one. 

Lastly, try looking at smaller, niche job boards that have pre-screened candidates in your industry. Chances are, it will take much less time to get interviews in the hopper than searching endlessly through those well-known but time-consuming behemoths. You can spend more time at the masseuse for your enjoyment, rather than working out the kinks. 

Contact

Jim McGrath, President, The EMAC Group

142 W. Lakeview Ave., Ste. 2000

Lake Mary, FL 32746

Phone 407-302-3622

Email: info@theemacgroup.com

 Guest post by Jim McGrath, The EMAC Group

As the president of my recruiting firm, I have great relationships with many of my clients. We partner in the true sense of the word; that is, they expect I will give them quality results in a timely fashion and I expect them to give me a fair price for my work. 

That being said, there are times when a prospective client doesn’t know my company very well, or the recruiting and staffing business in general. More than likely, they have heard negative things or had negative experience and unfortunately my employees and I bear the brunt of this unfortunate happenstance. 

What can we do to truly partner and move forward in this instance? 

A good relationship with a recruiter can give you: 

- Reduction in overall hiring costs;

- Proven methodologies, recruiting techniques and sourcing that yield above average response;

- Experienced, successful and skilled recruiting personnel with years of industry knowledge;

- Enhanced interview activity levels;

- Improved industry visibility, increased market share and profitability;

- Qualified prospect leads. 

What I have found in my xx years in the recruiting business is that employers can have the best of both worlds, provided they create a good partnership with just one or two recruiting and staffing companies. What does that mean? 

1.     Tell your potential recruiting and staffing partners honestly and exactly what your needs, budget and time restraints are; they will tell you what a fair price is for the work.

2.     Compare this to a few other companies you are looking at and choose just one or two that are in line with your needs.

3.     Help your partner to understand your industry if you feel there are knowledge gaps. This can save valuable time and money for you both.

4.     Understand your recruiter’s business too. Ask questions if you don’t understand something they are doing or the way they do it.

5.     Bidding with multiple firms is not a good partnership strategy. This practice kills the motivation to recruit and causes the low quality, pressured sales approach. It’s not meant to be a race to find the Ideal Candidate for you; it’s meant to be careful and strategic – and permanent.

6.     Let your partner be the expert they are. Believe they are doing the best job possible for you. Does it matter that they found an Ideal Candidate on monster.com because you could have done it? The point is, the outcome has gotten you an Ideal Candidate, who is pre-screen and qualified. More often than not, good firms don’t use that as a sourcing strategy.

7.     Lastly, have a vested interest in creating a great partnership. Talk about any issues, but to summarily dismiss a recruiter doesn’t do anyone justice unless it’s just too big a faux pas. 

Just like any partnership, it takes time and involvement and a good deal of fine-tuning to create perfect harmony. Trust that with a little bit of work up front, on the back end you will have smooth sailing. 

Contact

Jim McGrath, President

142 W. Lakeview Ave., Ste. 2000

Lake Mary, FL 32746

Phone 407-302-3622

Email: info@theemacgroup.com

Paul Hawkinson has been doing this for a long time. He has a way with words and a way with ideas. I have never met him personally but I am hoping to in Las Vegas in June for the Fordyce Forum. Sit down, kick back, change into low gear and enjoy…

———————–

The better a recruiter tells you he’s doing, the closer he is to leaving the business. 

The frantic jobseeker who pesters you for six months to get him a better job out-of-town, will turn it down because his kid was just elected captain of the Little League team. 

The employer who says the normal fee is no problem will swear in court that you agreed to a 10% fee. 

The more solid a recruiter tells you a place­ment is, the less likely it’s true, especially if you’re on their back about lagging production. 

The perfect candidate will show up the day after another recruiter’s guy takes the job. 

Some of the finest works of fiction are those documents known as “hot sheets” or “pending placements.” 

The fancier the brochure or the flashier the website, the funkier the firm. 

Consistency is always easier to defend than correctness. 

The more some people toot their own horn, the more sour the sound. 

Why are so many well-trained people such poor doers? 

The only constant in our business is the fre­quency of change. 

Some managers force solutions to non-exis­tent problems. 

If you only trust yourself, make sure you’re trustworthy. 

Well-prepared placers are luckier. 

If the check is really in the mail, it will proba­bly arrive unsigned. 

Trying to be a first-rate recruiter without con­tinuous training is like trying to play Beethoven with a kazoo. 

Whenever an employer balks at paying a fee by saying, “It’s not the money, it’s the principle of the thing,” you know the real answer. 

Most bureaucrats who regulate our industry prove Darwin was wrong. 

If you don’t want to be treated like a doormat, don’t lie down. 

Boring people are always the first to return your phone calls. 

The more elegant the names that appear on a recruiter’s letterhead, the less likely any of them exist. 

A client’s jokes are always funny. 

Perfect candidate is an oxymoron. 

The amount of time required to perform a re­tained search assignment directly coincides with the timing of the final payment. 

Even the worst consultant isn’t completely useless so long as they can still be used as a bad example. 

On re-training burned-out consultants: At­tempting improvement is always admirable, but three times zero is still zero. 

The fee that is suddenly being disputed is the one you need to pay the rent. 

Two percent of your “clients” account for 98 percent of your billings in 10 percent of your time; 98 percent of your “clients” waste the other 90% of your time. The same ratio works if you substitute “client” with “candidate” or “consultant.” 

The earlier a consultant learns a deal is falling apart, the later management is likely to hear about it. 

The thicker the resume, the less faithful it is to the facts. 

The more notes a rookie consultant takes during training, the less likely they are to re­member what they wrote. 

The employer you’re desperate to reach will call you back when you’re in the bathroom. 

Your candidate will get a hefty raise and nice promotion the day you send out 100 of their re­sumes. 

Your worst consultant has the best excuses. 

The larger the Sunday ad you run, the greater the probability your receptionist will call in sick on Monday. 

The more important names a potential con­sultant mentions, the less likely any of them have ever heard of him. 

Placement management is not a democratic process. 

An unsuccessful recruiting assignment is al­ways someone else’s fault. 

Employers are never as smart as recruiters.

This is Great:

“Sneak-f***ed”. Brings back hazed memories, Dave. Many of them good.

To continue the theme of your post, have we all lost our b***s? “I’m sorry to hear John was in your files, Ms. Krank, but so are thousands of others, I’m sure. Your awareness of and interest in him was prompted by my firm’s referral, not the presence of an old resume in the vast wasteland of a database that you should have searcehd before you accepted any resume from any third party.”

“Ms. Krank, our business employs a simple, fair concept that covers just this situation. It’s called the ‘but-for’ rule. I’d be happy to acquaint you and, if necessary, your boss with. Otherwise, when would you like to talk to John?”

If you print the word, “Welcome”, on your forehead, what right do you have to be surprised when people wipe their shoes on your face?

Ted Moore in response to this

Related

I was having an interesting conversation with a recruiter in Dallas last week about including HR instead trying to avoid it like the plague when working a deal.

His view was that his success is based on including HR and not trying to work around them. He feels that the recruiters who avoid HR end up having to include them anyways so why not reach out right from the beginning.

His opinion was that when HR realizes there is a recruiter who is clearly doing everything they can do in order to avoid them, it sets the stage for a play doomed to failure whereas when the recruiter starts off by involving HR in the process, things work out for the better.

I think most recruiters would disagree with the above.

On to the next, last Friday Dave Staats wrote a post here on the Fordyce website about Splits.  It’s something I know about because many years ago I had a little side business with a call center that supported 65 recruiting firms in the semiconductor industry that did splits. Dave says:

“but I swear…If I had all the time back that I have spent TALKING about making splits with people and trying to make splits with people I probably could have done twice as many regular deals. I actually do one now and then but it just seems like way more prince-less frog-kissing than should be done. ”

Dave is right. You spend lots of time working for half a fee. Having said that, there are ways to look at doing splits and developing splits partners that will not waste time.

I remember a friend named Gary Fowler saying to me that he views his splits partners as a client and as a result, I remember he shared almost every good candidate he recruited with his splits partners. As a result, he did generate a significant amount of money doing splits BUT, he will be the first to say that there was a whole pile of time wasted and since then, his splits percentages have come way down by choice.

The problem in a lot of splits relationships is that expectations are rarely ever managed properly. By this I mean that if you have a splits partner that sends you a resume with no deep understanding of what makes the candidate tick, it means you need to find out and you should not have to find out. It’s not your candidate.

Splits relationships work when you have a small group of recruiters in your industry that are successful that can close candidates (real important) and know that time wasted is time lost. And very important, if you pride yourself on being a recruiter, don’t come to work in the morning excited about working some other firms order for half a fee. You won’t get ahead.

The other thing you can consider is if you are already part of a small group of recruiters doing splits in the same industry, it will make sense to hire a researcher to collectively support your needs. It’s a real small price to pay for the results you will get.

Are you going to the Fordyce Forum?

I was talking to Dave Manaster yesterday and he let me know that there are 123 people who have signed up and will be descending on Las Vegas this June for the 2^nd annual Fordyce Forum. He’s pretty excited about it. Last year this time, no one had signed up. There will be a lot of recruiters this year and a very good group of people leading conversations and giving presentations.

If you recruit people, and like hanging out with people and you want to tell recruiting stories, this is the place to be June 4^th till the 6^th . It’s at the Flamingo – Real low key – The way it should be, they have a little card room and the hotel is smack dab right in the middle of the Las Vegas action. I just stayed at the Flamingo for a couple of nights and it’s a nice place.

For me it’s a very exciting thing. I get to meet Paul Hawkinson for the first time. I have heard he is a great story teller and based on everything I have read of his, he has got to be a great story teller. I bet a new recruiter would make an infinite amount of incremental placements by spending 15 minutes listening to Paul talk about Recruiting. That may be a stretch but I don’t know. Then there are the people who will be talking about how to make more placements and how to get your fees up. Then there is Jeff Allen who really knows what he is talking about when it comes to placements and the law. It’s important stuff.

You should check your calendar and see about making the arrangements to attend. I know it sounds like a salesman’s pitch but you know what? If you’re not serious about the business, you shouldn’t come. ( I know, a very bad take away)

I understand why companies want them. They pay a lot of money for something and they want to know that on some level, you the provider of the product stands behind that product. It’s obvious why the client wants to get back all the money if the candidate does not work out for any reason within a specific period of time. I also know , no recruiter out there wants to give back any of the money they collect should a placement go south. 

There are a ton of different ways to handle guarantees. They come in all shapes and sizes. Some are a full cash back, some have some component of cash and credit, and some cash returns are based on a length of time the candidate worked before hitting the door – all kinds. 

Then there is the time factor. Most of the agency agreements that I have seen were always between 60 and 90 days. Very few companies ever asked for 120 days and I think they figure out quickly, that strategy does not work. Most companies wanted 90 days and I always wanted 60 days. I have heard of 30 day guarantees and I think I remember reading somewhere that some executive search firm was giving a year. 

Some people make it easy and say if the candidate works a month, we keep a third. If the candidate works two months, we keep two thirds. If the candidate works three months, the guarantee is over. Sometimes if the candidate works under thirty days, all the money back and for every day after that you just work the percentages until the total fee is earned. I bet there are some that look like a book. 

I think that whatever you choose to do, you should never ever agree to give all the money back. Maybe it makes sense to say that you will give back all the money plus 10% but they get it back in 5 installments over the next 5 placements made, and the fee agreement is signed at 40% of the candidates salary. Hmmm, I kind of like that one. 

Jim, I talked to someone a while back who had just made a big placement. I’ll ask him about the guarantee.

I got back from 5 days in Las Vegas and that kind of thing is never easy. I did get a lot of work done though and did a ton of networking. For five days, I hung with recruiters and people very interested in learning more about the industry. Recruiters love to talk about business and tricks of the trade. I learned a lot about the city of Las Vegas and the recruiting challenges taking place there every day. It was very interesting.

In most cases though, it’s not easy and the outcome is not obvious. It’s why when recruiting, you always need to be on the lookout for the disaster card. Thing is, you’ll never see it coming and you certainly won’t see it when it hits if you don’t ask the questions constantly from the beginning. It’s the pair on the river, but that one’s easy to see.