The Sales Institute - How to Recruit Winners

How to Recruit Winners Wednesday 12th December The Sales Institute is delighted to confirm details of a breakfast seminar on December 12th focusing on 'How to Recruit Winners'. Featuring speakers from LinkedIn and Goldenpages.ie, this seminar will provide valuable insight into the best practice hiring and development used by two highly successful and dynamic organisations. This event takes place in the Alexander Hotel Dublin on the 12th December from 7.30-9.15am and is free to attend for current members of the Sales Institute of Ireland (non-members €80). To reserve your place please click here or contact the Sales Institute on 01 662 6904 or e-mail info@salesinstitute.ie The Sales Institute of Ireland Knowledge and insight to help you compete more effectively Event kindly sponsored by The People Group Carol Murphy, Head of Training, Sales & Fulfilment, Goldenpages.ie Carol Murphy has worked in Training and Development for ten years and has been involved in the design and delivery of an innovative range of training programmes for sales professionals. She combines her extensive knowledge of tried and true models with current organisational trends and a deep understanding of systems operation and human behaviour, to design and develop effective programs. Carol is a qualified trainer and coach and holds a Degree in Commerce and a MBS from NUI, Galway. Carol will discuss her company's vision and recruitment strategy, the recruitment and selection process at Goldenpages and what the company looks for in the interview process. Lindsay Browning, EMEA Lead Recruiter, LinkedIn Prior to her current role as EMEA Recruitment Leader at LinkedIn, Lindsay Browning was EMEA Recruiting Specialist at Google. Previously, she held the role of Senior Marketing Recruitment Specialist at CPL and before that Lindsay was a Director and Recruitment Manager at Elite Placement Agency. "Talent is any company’s number 1 asset and that's why I love the world of recruiting as we can connect career aspirations with opportunity". Lorcan Carpenter, Strategic Recruiter, EMEA, LinkedIn Lorcan Carpenter is a Senior Recruiter for Executive and Emerging Market roles with LinkedIn EMEA. He has been championing social media recruitment since July 2006. Prior to working with Linkedin, Lorcan was a Recruitment Specialist at Google / YouTube. Previous to this Lorcan was with CPL as a Principal Consultant. This event takes place in the Alexander Hotel Dublin on the 12th December from 7.30-9.15am and is free to attend for current members of the Sales Institute of Ireland (non-members €80). To reserve your place please click here or contact the Sales Institute on 01 662 6904 or e-mail info@salesinstitute.ie

The Sales Institute of Ireland 68 Merrion Square, Dublin 2, Ireland Tel: +353 1 662 6904. Email info@salesinstitute.ie © The Sales Institute of Ireland 2012

Cautious Optimism Lifts the Jobs Market

Business Plus Magazine
 
October 2012

Despite high unemploment, specialist recruitment agencies and head-hunters report buoyancy on the jobs front compared with last year writes Robert O'Brien
 
Colm Buckley, Managing Director of 'The People Group' gives his  opinion on the state of the market
 
The People Group has been trading steadily throughout 2012. There has been a pickup in the volume of sales and marketing roles we've been dealing with throughout the summer, which is a marked difference over the past few difficult years. Business sentiment seems to be somewhat more positive and there are indications of cautious optimism across a range of industires. We have seen a bigger increase in hiring for interim positions that have translated to permanent roles a number of months later.
 
While we have continued to successfully fulfil assignments in the FMCG and drinks sector, we have also had good sucess in the technology, services and busines-to-business spaces. Digital marketing skills are increasingly in demand and Ireland is behind the UK and the US in this respect.
 
Most employers we are dealing with are not only only seeking levels of technical skill and experience but also the right attitude and fit for their companies and cultures. For a mid to senior level hire, it is vital that the right type of individual is introduced to the recruiting process.
 
While we have embraced many of the new social media channels, we continue to maintain our reputation for producing the right results by focusing on the tried-and-tested methods of recruitment. We continue to meet with candidates, where possible, and fully explore their experience, attitude and fit for roles and work cultures we are dealing with on behalf of our client.

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BDO Professional Services Sector 2012

In conversation with Colm Buckley, Managing Director of 'The People Group'


We all know people are key to success in professional services. The recruitment sector has had a rollercoaster few years. How have things changed for them and the candidates they see every day?

How has your business model changed over the last three or four years?

Overall, I would say that specialist recruitment companies are generally doing better, because they are very focused on their sectors. We concentrate on sales, marketing and more senior management positions, and our strategy has been to become even more of a valued professional service to our client companies. So you could say that, overall, we are working harder and smarter in the current climate. I think the future of recruitment is definitely specialist: you need to be seen as one of the best at what you do and most of what we do these days is exclusive or on a retained basis.

In terms of getting to this point, like any business, one of the first things we did was to look at our costs. During the Celtic Tiger era, costs in the industry did get out of kilter. We have refigured our commission structure to reflect the new situation but, most importantly, we also continue to reward high achievers. At its height this company had 16 people. We are now down to eight but, like our clients, always looking for strong performers and adding to the team.

Has it become a significantly smaller sector because of the recession?

The recruitment industry was hit massively over that period and a lot of people have left the sector. Many recruitment companies went to the wall; there is no doubt about that. Like a portion of businesses in Ireland, they perhaps went a bit wild in the Celtic Tiger years, invested too heavily and didn’t have the reserves to save themselves. There haven’t been many acquisitions or mergers; they have simply gone out of business. Within companies themselves, what you saw is that, as times got tougher, and real business and sales skills were required to bring in new business, and manage existing business, a lot of people got out.

How do you coordinate your rewards structure now?

Throughout the industry, I don’t know that rewards have changed that much over the years, aside from targets coming down. The way we structure it now is that everyone starts with a good basic salary and then has individual targets for their desk, and an overall target for the business. Our people can earn the majority of their bonus if they hit their own individual targets. That reflects the nature of recruitment generally. It is probably the closest you can come to being self-employed in an employee structure. If you have that mentality, you can do very well.

How has the fee structure changed?

Our fee structure has been recalibrated and is down something of the order of 10% to 20% on four years ago. However, we have maintained our high service level proposition so that, while fees have been reduced, we have not been as affected as the industry as a whole, which is down 40% or 50%. Our offer is quality. A client is looking to enhance their balance sheet with quality people. They want a service that delivers that and they recognise there is a price to be paid for it.

How do you resist the squeeze on fees in negotiations?

In a lot of conversations, you are eventually going to be hit with ‘what is your price?’ You have to bring the conversation to a different level. We would ask ‘what are you looking for’, ‘what hurdles did you have to get over to get to this stage’, ‘what is the succession plan for this position’? When you begin asking these questions, price gets sidelined as clients recognise that you know what you are talking about. The core of our business is sales, marketing and commercial management. Everybody in our business comes from a sales and/or marketing background. They understand the environment and they have their connections and networks there. They can talk the language.

Has the industry fundamentally changed the nature of its offer?

One of the things we have always done is offered an opportunity for people to come and have an adult conversation about their career. We get lots of candidates, particularly at senior level, who want to bounce ideas off us. It’s a conversation they can’t have with their spouse or their boss. We do lots of that right now. Our view is that we live in a village and these people will come back to us if they value our advice. Over the last few years, a lot of recruitment firms, particularly in niche sectors made what we would see as mistakes in terms of going into outsourcing, on-boarding, business coaching and psychometric testing. That is the route to being seen as a Jack of all trades and a master of none.

Have the job specifications of your clients changed much?

I definitely think that the word ‘commercial’ has become a given when it comes to the disciplines of marketing and sales. The recruitment process is more and more about quantifying returns: how much of an audience the candidate is going to get for a client, rather than what the creative strategy is going to be. At the end of the day, employers are asking ‘what return are we going to get in this role?’

In terms of market recovery, by early 2009, we would have seen a lot of companies once again looking for really high-quality sales people. Marketing took a little bit longer to recover, as the return can take a bit longer to see. However, it has definitely shown good signs of recovery this year and there is a sense of real intent in companies across a range of industries to reinvest in sales and marketing.

So return on investment has become critical in hiring decisions?

There is no doubt about it. At the end of the day, there is going to be a commercial director sitting at the table in an interview. While they will be interested in a candidate’s background and qualifications, they are going to be asking much more about the bang they will get for their buck.

What about the international dimension – and FDI in particular – are there opportunities there?

We have links with the IDA and Enterprise Ireland. That has worked very well in the past. We also have quite a close association with a UK company called the People Network. If they are dealing with an opportunity in Ireland, they will talk to us and we do likewise in the UK. It’s not only a bridge into the UK, it has given us a reach into mainland Europe too. Social media has obviously helped in that respect and has helped us place people in the roles from as far away as Australia. A lot of the time it is about the diaspora who are looking to come back home.

Has social media changed how you work?

We have embraced it over the last two or three years but it is like any other marketing channel at the end of the day, it works in conjunction with what we do well. There was a Forbes study recently that concluded there are three questions people want answered in an interview: can you do the job, will you love the job and can we tolerate working with you? Two out of those three questions cannot be ascertained from a LinkedIn profile - you have to meet the candidates. We, essentially, play that role. Our process ensures that any client benefits from a thorough search of the market using our own powerful database, a variety of social media and a deep dive into a passive network of candidates who are not necessarily on the lookout but may well be suitably qualified for a client’s requirements.

Is that an opinion of social media that’s widely shared?

One of the trends I have noticed recently is the whole advent of internal recruitment in large corporates. I can understand how professional HR areas would question the fees that they are paying to recruitment agencies and so turning to LinkedIn for talent. But I would also say that about 60-70% of the processes that we are involved in, for blue-chip corporates and more medium-sized companies, would be roles we have exclusively worked for a period of time.

So they recognise it’s not as simple as looking at CVs online?

Exactly. If you give the job to a trusted and expert recruiter, there is an exclusivity about it and a value immediately attached to it by candidates. Then you are also giving the recruiter time to really investigate the market, rather than just taking the best of the first batch of responses. We would often see in the corporate sector, a role advertised for maybe a month and a half. We have candidates coming to us who don’t want to apply for it directly.

What you also find are that candidates, who may have been approached directly through LinkedIn, are a little bit uncomfortable with that and would prefer to deal with an intermediary. They can come to us knowing there is trust and confidentiality in what we do – so we can establish the opportunity and whether to bring it to a formal stage. If they engage directly with the company, it becomes quite formal from the beginning and they don’t know where their CV has gone or who is looking at it. That can be quite a compromise for them.

Is there a process to educating staff when it comes to bringing in new business?

I feel strongly that, to be at the top of your game in sales in any walk of life these days, you need to be able to manage two things: new business development and account relationship management. Developing new relationships isn’t as difficult as it might seem if you are offering a quality service. Every client is focusing on reducing costs but, as the market has settled, quality has come back with a bang to the point where, this year, people are less focused on the cost and more on the quality.

We meet lots of people who absolutely want to be account managers and then people who like the chase, but don’t want the responsibility of looking after it. This is a complicated business and getting good people for recruitment is complicated. You need to absolutely love dealing with people and, at the same time, be opportunistic in terms of putting the right candidate with the right job. You are essentially a matchmaker so, at the end of the day, you need to be commercial, it is not a charity.

So new business development is, in a sense, inbuilt?

We all share information - we have an open door policy. We are constantly learning from each other’s examples, successes and mistakes. There is on-going training in that sense but this is also a business where no day is the same; no HR person is the same; and no business unit or director is the same. There is a sort of pre-qualifying level of maturity and openness in our consultants that brings them here in the first place.

What would you say is distinctive about the way that your company does business?

The reputation of the People Group is something that I cherish very closely. Everything we do on a daily basis, every conversation that we have with a candidate, or interaction with a client, needs to enhance our reputation in my mind. If someone has a good experience, they will go out and tell two or three people. If they have a bad experience they will tell 10 or 15. Confidentiality, reputation, integrity and professionalism are at the core of what we do.

Is there a phrase that you think sums up what’s happening in your sector right now?

When I talk about our area of professional services at the moment, I find the phrase that ‘everything is changing, but everything is staying the same’ resonates a lot. What this company has been doing for 23 years has not changed that much. It is still about providing a solution for a client, understanding their challenges and seeing beyond the job spec. We have certainly got closer to our clients over the past three years and they see us as a true value-adding partner. It’s said that we are six to nine months ahead of the curve in terms of what’s happening in the economy and, if that is the case, I’d be quite optimistic about prospects for an overall recovery.

Do you have any underlying message to candidates about what’s changed in the market out there?

Attitude and fit is everything. This is something I’m very passionate about and it goes to the heart of how we recruit. The whole attitude and fit piece, I would say, accounts for 50% of an interview process. You can have all the degrees in the world but the question is – are you going to fit with that environment and management team strategy and where it is going?

You cannot ascertain attitude and fit over a telephone call, from a piece of paper or online. That’s where I see us really benefitting a client. The whole recruitment process with any serious company now is taking longer – they are looking for people who will be there in the medium to long term. Succession planning is always in the background – they want someone who can do the role right now but also the next role planned for them.

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Careers and Recruitment: Let's talk the talk..

Ireland's workforce lags behind the rest of Europe when it come to speaking foreign languages, which is something that will have to be remedied if we are to make real economic headway, writes Gareth Naughton of 'The Sunday Business Post'.

Ireland's exporters are looking are looking overseas to fill thousands of vacancies because the workforce has neither the languages nor the international sales skills they need.

That is according to a new report from Forfas and the Export Group on Future Skills Needs (EGFSN), which is calling for a fresh approach to the teaching of languages from primary school right through to third level.The group also wants to see more third level students and postgraduates getting the opportunity to add an accredited international sales qualification to their CVs.

"The most fundamental issues are foreign languages and cultural awareness. Foreign languages in Ireland are treated like second cousins," said Una Halligan, chairperson of the EGFSN."We just don't promote them. We have a lot of very highly skilled graduates, but they cannot go to work in Germany or Spain, because they don't have a second language.

"Mandarin and Indian are equally important but, because we do much trade within the EU, we found that our lack of a second European foreign language was actually a huge hindrance to being able to export in those areas and to do business."

The upshot, Halligan said, was that companies were looking outside Ireland to fill some vacant positions, despite the high level of unemployment here.

Radical Solution Needed

Exporters may require a radical - and potentially controversial - solution to the gap in language skills in the Irish market, said Colm Buckley, managing director, The People Group.

"From the commercial perspective, we don't have the resouces necessary in terms of people with foreign languages - we simply do not have enough of them - and there are companies crying out for them in unemployed Ireland right now," said Buckley.

"The government needs to look at the education system for further down the road and they can, right now, incentivise people to come here that have the skills," he said.

Although such a measure could prove unpopular in a country with a relatively high rate of unemployment, Buckley said the shortfall in language skills has created a two-tier employment market, in which there were few candidates for available bilingual or multilingual roles.

"They are going to move for the opportunity to work with a global player and to advance their career, but it is a big move to come to a distressed country like Ireland," he said."What incentive can we put on the table? For the first year, a reduced tax rate to get them over here and then, after that, they are contributing like anybody else to the tax system here.We have a need right now and we cannot service it from within.

"If we do not service it, what happens when these companies announce that they are pulling out of Ireland and moving to Germany or France? Then what do we do?" he said.

The approach to sales had improved in Ireland in recent years, with many Irish companies taking a more professional approach to building customer relationships. He added, however, that language barriers could hold back the country's performance in the long run.

"For a lot of the roles that we have filled that have an international sales dimension, companies are looking for somebody who is going to be based out of Ireland - who has worked in Abu Dhabi for a number of years, for instance, and understands that culture or that market," said Buckley.

"More connection with the dispora and more of a network with the dispora would help, but I don't necessarily think that if the government throws funding at it, it is going to sort it out. It is a longer term play," he said.
Taken from the 'careers and recruitment' supplement in 'The Sunday Business Post' from July 1st.

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Death Of the Recruitment Agency? We're Going Nowhere!

I don’t know if you’ve been looking at many of the recruitment blogs out there, or studying the recruitment industry news… but there are many people right now who are trying to say the “Death of the recruitment agency” is near (mainly anyone working for one of the online recruitment technology firms / job boards / in house recruitment / RPO firms etc…)…. which we all know is NOT going to happen! They are saying that because they believe that many companies are going to be using all the latest “social technologies” now in order to attract candidates directly, as well as outsourcing their recruitment to RPO firms where they don’t want to staff it themselves.
Well… one thing that won’t change is the fact that most candidates will always want a “personal” interaction with someone they can view as an unbiased coach to them through their search for their next role. In house recruitment teams and RPO / Managed Services firms can never provide an unbiased opinion on the roles they are trying to fill, as they are personally employed (or retained) by the company they are working for. There is a lot more to the recruitment process than simple candidate attraction; which is mainly what all of this new social technology hype is really focused on. Candidates will always prefer to have a helping hand when going out there into the market place to find their next role… someone to guide and coach them through the minefield that will be ahead of them. They need someone on their side, fighting their corner… someone who knows them inside out and is always working with their best interests at heart. In house recruitment teams and RPO’s will never be able to offer that to any candidate as they can never be independent…. And that’s where we come in as recruitment consultants / agents….
Sure, we may have to battle with in house recruitment teams trying to fill their own roles and keeping us at a distance, we may have to take a bit of bullying from RPO firms who barge into our clients and start calling the shots – but at the end of the day, are candidates going to get the level of coaching and support they need throughout the recruitment process by simply going direct? I don’t think so… and that’s why we will ALWAYS be needed. Now more than ever is the time to start strengthening your relationships with your candidates… and if you can keep them on your side, offering them unbiased assistance (even when they aren’t actively looking for work) then we will always have a stronghold on OUR industry. Attracting the right talent is key to any business, and if we are the ones holding all of the aces, then internal recruitment teams and RPO’s will have no choice but to continue to work with us!
Think of it like a celebrity or a sports professional – they have their own “agents” for very good reasons, and it’s not just because they have a chance to earn a lot more money…. they want to ensure they have a “partnership” with someone they can trust to find them the best opportunities and help them to further their careers. These are long term partnership in most cases, with celebs and sports professionals picking up an agent early on and then rarely changing that agent during their entire careers. Why should it be any different in our industry? Don’t you think candidates would benefit from having a recruiter act for them like an “agent” – who they can work exclusively with, safe in the knowledge that their agent will always be fighting to ensure that their careers go as well as possible?? Who do you think sports agents put first – their clients (being candidates to us), or the clubs that they are trying to get them into? Sure, their needs to be a good balance of care on both sides, but all agents know that if they don’t have the best clients on their books (candidates again!) then they will have less a chance of getting the big clubs to bite… which means they won’t get paid.
So… I say let’s just leave the internal recruitment teams to have their 5 minutes of fame right now whilst companies are cutting costs… same with the RPO’s. But when the market changes and these companies start having to fight to attract candidates which are in demand… as long as we have strengthened our service offering to the candidate market then we can be sure that we will not fall down by the wayside. Get smart, start treating your candidates like they deserve to be treated, and just maybe you can make it as one of the new breed of recruiters that the candidate market will start to depend on!
Written by Sean O’Donoghue
Founder
The Independent Recruiting Group

Taken from an article on www.irg-uk.com written by Sean O'Donoghue founder of 'The Independent Recruiting Group'. The original article can be viewed here

INTERNATIONAL Ireland: Government Action Plan to create 100,000 jobs

Wed, 15 Feb 2012

The Irish Taoiseach (prime minister), Tánaiste (deputy PM) and minister for jobs, enterprise and innovation have launched the first annual Action Plan for Jobs, which aims to create 100,000 jobs by 2016. 

Of the nearly 4.5m population in Ireland, 1.8m are currently in work, and this would rise to 1.9m by 2016 and then 2m by 2020 under the new plans. 

Colm Buckley, managing director of Sales & Marketing recruiter 'The People Group', says that while he acknowledges that the plan is no magic bullet, he hopes it can promote more optimism across the economy, saying: “Working and operating here over the last 10 years, particularly over the last seven or eight, we’ve been very good at boxing above our weight – I think we’ve now become too good at talking ourselves down.” 

Plans underlined in the document include support for “indigenous” start ups and established businesses, and “developing and deepening the impact of foreign direct investment”. Buckley comments that the US will be a particular target, and especially given that “there is something like 48m people who claim Irish descendency in the US” it makes sense to “tap in to it”. 

The manufacturing sector is the first sector of 20 in total mentioned in the report with growth potential, and the report suggest it can provide 20,000 new jobs in the next five years. 

Working with sales & marketing roles, Buckley works across a number of sectors and suggests particular optimism for direct and supply chain jobs in the digital sector, especially given companies like Google and LinkedIn who have recently-established Dublin offices, while FMCG roles have “petered off a little of late”. 

 

The article is taken from http://www.recruiter.co.uk/ , with Colm Buckley, Managing Director of 'The People Group' giving his reaction to the job creation initiative announced by the government here in Ireland. The original article can be viewed  here.