Tag: recruitment

Using Recruiters: The Difference Between Success & Failure

Posted on by Naomi Marshall

We all know the challenges of recruiting new employees.  It’s distracting and done incorrectly fraught with a high risk of failure. Is there a better chance of success if you use a good recruiter?

In my experience, there appears to be an inverse relationship between the time you take to hire and the chances of landing a brilliant candidate.  The less time you take the greater the chance you will be unhappy with your selection in the long run.

Poor selection processes are amplified in small business environments where there is no room to hide and the propensity for damage is greater.

The Recruitment Consultant

Enter the recruitment consultant.  For a large part of my career, I thought recruiters were a waste of time and money (I might also add I felt the same way about personal trainers until I turned 40!).  Why would I engage a recruiter to do what my HR department should be doing? It was only through experience that I learnt that HR professionals don’t necessarily make the best recruiters.  It’s a bit like asking a nutritionist to cook your dinner.  Just because somebody understands the fundamentals of a healthy meal doesn’t mean they know how to combine the ingredients into something edible.

I discovered the benefits of using recruiters about 10 years into my career.  Time poor and focused on managing a business, I finally gave in to my inner voice and engaged a recruitment consultant to assist with backfilling some difficult roles.

I was initially surprised when the consultant insisted on coming out to visit our office.  “Surely you can take the brief over the phone?” “Absolutely not” – came the terse reply. “I need to get a feel for what I am getting my candidates into”.  Although I felt it unnecessary at the time, nowadays I wouldn’t engage an agency that didn’t have a deep understanding of my business, the staff and its culture.  If you want a recruiter to write the kind of killer ad that would lure the best staff from your strongest competitors then it had better stand out.  A recruiter needs to be able to walk the talk and you can only get this from on-site experience.

Make no mistake crafting a great advertisement to attract the best possible candidates is an art form.  Good recruiters know how to write great ads.  SEEK and others offer limited opportunity for your ads to visually stand out, so the choice of words matters.  If the ad isn’t SELLING the job and your business then you’ve probably engaged the wrong agency.

Once the ad is placed and the responses start rolling in then the real work begins.  Years ago it seemed a great covering letter could make a difference.  Nowadays they seem almost superfluous to needs.  Most recruiters worth their salt will jump straight to social media to ensure that a candidates backstory matches their CV and determine whether there is likely to be a cultural fit.

I’ve never been one to make a hiring decision solely based on skills and experience. If it’s a line ball call I’ll take attitude and energy over a lesser skill set every day of the week.
I insist that my recruiter meets the short listed candidates in person before sending them for interview.  If they live out of town, get them on SKYPE. I expect candidates to know as much about my business as we know about them.  It’s a recruiters job to ensure that candidates are fully briefed.  Most good candidates will do their own research, it’s a  recruiters job to fill in the gaps.  If a recruiter isn’t meeting the candidates in person they’re not doing the job your paying them for.

By the time I meet a prospective candidate I expect that they can do the job.  That should be without question.  I’m interested in ‘how’ they will do the job.  It then becomes an issue of cultural fit and individual personality.  Will they fit in with the team? Will they add a new dynamic? In a small business, look  for a broader skill set – beyond the job description, something that will enhance business performance and add that slight edge.  Candidate selection can be a very subjective affair.  I never interview with a list of pre-existing questions.  I prefer the process to be organic.  What makes the person tick? What drives them? What makes the job appealing? Candidates can become pretty adept at rote learning responses to typical Dorothy Dixers.  Encourage them to lower their guard and you might be surprised what you learn.

Successfully hiring the right candidate is a challenge at the best of times, but using a recruiter should take a lot of the guess work and time out of the process. A good recruiter should not only be submitting candidates to you, but consulting with you, your team and the candidate throughout the process to ensure that everyone is on the same page and no nasty surprises pop up last minute (or worse, once the candidate has started and you’ve invested your money into them).

 

The Must Have Interview Preparation Checklist

Posted on by Naomi Marshall

Do you have an interview checklist? You can only be so prepared for an interview, especially when you are still working in your current job and you are interviewing for multiple roles. However, every candidate needs to do a little bit of preparation before every interview. It’s not only common sense, it will end up being what sets you apart from the competition!!

So with that in mind, and to keep it simple and easy, I wanted to share with you my Interview Preparation Checklist. These are the absolute MUST DO’s before you go into each and every interview (yes…even with us recruiters)!! You can of course do more than this but these are the basic ones that too often, I see candidates skipping some or all of and then losing out on a great opportunity.

Bookmark this page and come back to it before you go to your next interview!

Interview Preparation Checklist:

  1. Research the company
    Hello Google!! But also, ask around, get some insight from any contacts or friends who work there or have worked there. Ask your recruiter for their insight!
    HINT – Did you know that if you type in the name of a company and then under the Google search bar, click on “news”, the results will bring up all the latest news articles about said company. This is a great way to know what is currently going on in this organisation!
  1. Research your Interviewer
    LinkedIn makes this easy – but also take the same approach as above. Ask around, do some Googling. Know whom you are meeting with and what their background is. (It is even better if you can find some common ground or people you both know).
  1. Review your resume!
    I know, this sounds simple but look it over and make sure you know what you have included and left out!! The better you know your resume, the more confident you will be when talking about your experience and your career to date.
  1. Plan your Answers
    Crazy right, how can you predict what you will be asked? Most interviews include some behavioural based questions (click here to find out more). It is really important you have a list of examples you can give to these questions and don’t try to think them up on the spot.
    Have a handful of really good examples you can call on. Usually one example would suit a variety of questions, you just need to be prepared!
  1. Rehearse your examples out loud!
    Don;t worry about sounding silly! You need to practice articulating your answers and examples of your experience out loud. You don’t want to stumble on your responses (and it is an easy thing to do during an interview). Check out what Nyome had to say about this recently here.
  1. Plan YOUR questions.
    Make sure you are prepared to ask the interviewer questions (more often than not, candidates forget this step). Asking questions is so important in an interview and it is an opportunity to demonstrate your enthusiasm for the role as well as the fact that you have researched the company.
  1. Have your outfit planned
    Make sure your shirts are ironed and clean. Suit up and dress to impress. It is always better to be overdressed for an interview than underdressed.
  1. Triple check the interview details
    You are human, mistakes can happen – trust me I’ve made many. Triple check you know what time your interview is, where you are going and how you are going to get there (on time)! Nothing worse than rocking up to your interview flustered because you got the time wrong or couldn’t find the address, etc.
  1. Tell yourself You ROCK!
    Be confident and believe in yourself. As recruiters, we believe in you, that is why we’ve sent you to our client or called you in to meet with us. Remind yourself of your skills and that you are a valuable team member.

Of course, there are other things you can do for an interview and there are sometimes homework “tasks” you are asked to do before specific interviews. But as a rule of thumb, the above checklist works! Being prepared and demonstrating this during your interview (and believe me, clients and recruiters know if you have prepared) really sets you a part from what most of your competition is doing. So take a little time, the day or night before an interview and go over this checklist.

If you are still not feeling confident or have other questions you want clarity around, contact us at Sprint. We are here to help and will always go over any interview preparation you think you may need.

How to Put Together a Sales Resume

Posted on by Naomi Marshall

Not all resumes are created equal. At Sprint, we’ve written many blogs on the importance of a great resume in order to sell yourself to a prospective employer. However, if you’re in sales, there are a few other important details you must include. Yes. The layout should be neat, clear fonts, dates to one side etc etc…but what about the actual content? The actual words you choose? Here is what we recommend you include when putting together a Sales resume.

Remember, if an employer advertises a new role, they may receive over 100 resumes (sometimes more!) and a recruiter can receive several hundred in one week. If they know what they are doing they can scan a resume in about 30 seconds. So you need to make sure you are standing out and highlighting the important information that recruiters/employers are looking for!

WHAT ARE RECRUITERS LOOKING FOR IN A SALES RESUME?

Amongst other things – A HIGH ACHIEVER. A “Do-er”, a driving force, a self-motivated, energetic and positive person. Whilst I am very interested in hearing all about the HOW (relating to targets, KPI’s, day to day activities), I really want to see WHAT you have achieved.
Recently I placed a very senior sales person. To put it bluntly, she is a Sales Rocket when it comes to driving new business. She’s fearless and her resume showed that as soon as I opened it. I booked her in immediately and I had no issues in engaging clients to meet with her the minute I put her resume in front of them. Yes, she had to sell herself in the interview but I strongly believe that the points she outlined on paper were just as important when it came to securing the role.

WHAT DO I INCLUDE IN A SALES RESUME?

Here is a snippet of bullet points from her resume, the ones that showed me WHAT she had achieved:

Duties:

  • Successfully drove a permanent recruitment desk and managed end-to-end recruitment processes across a range of organisations from large global companies to ASX listed businesses
  • Built and managed relationships with key stakeholders by maintaining a regular account management strategy
  • Negotiated Terms of Business, fee, rates and figures with existing and new business
  • New business development on a weekly basis
  • Meeting all KPI’s on a weekly basis relating to call volumes, client visits, interviews and activity

Achievements:

  • Winner ‘2013’ Business Activity Incentive Award
  • Top Biller Quarter 1,2,3 ‘2013’
  • Organiser for client training program in 2012, 2013 & 2014 (weekly group fitness with clients)
  • Organiser for the Women In Leadership events through XYZ
  • Successful on pitching, winning and placing over 8 retained assignments

Billings:

  • Q1 2013: XXX – Q2 2013: XXX – Q3 2013: XXX – Q4 2013: XXX

Obviously these points were coming from a sales person who worked in the recruitment industry,. But whatever your industry the same method applies. Be VERY descriptive with regards to what you did, your achievements and make it sales specific. List the outcomes and your achievements with an emphasis on financial wins/gains (at the end of the day – this is what counts in sales and to our client who wants results).

Tailoring your resume for the role you want and highlighting the key factors that make you the right candidate for the role are often overlooked by candidates. If you want to work in sales – be proud of your results and sell your most important product… yourself!

If you have more questions about putting your resume together, be sure to refer to Sprint Coach and see our other tips. Alternatively, contact us directly at sprint@sprintpeople.com.au

 

Naomi Marshall – Director
P: (02) 9271 0011
M: 0422 139 910
E: naomi@sprintpeople.com.au

 

Why Doesn’t My Temp Rate Reflect My Permanent Salary Expectations?

Posted on by Naomi Marshall

A common misconception that candidates have is that you will receive more money in temp roles because you are working on a casual basis. However, for a number of reasons, temps in the office support/admin space are rarely paid the rate that they would be expecting on a permanent basis (let along rate that exceeds it).

Why?

Consider why companies typically employ office support temps…Many of the temporary assignments that become available are short term. They can be to cover a ½ day of sick leave, a couple of weeks of annual leave or to take care of a temporary overflow of work. In these situations, because of the shorter nature of the assignment, clients tend to only require temps to complete quite mundane tasks. It is inefficient to train somebody on the more senior aspects of a role when the assignment is likely to be near its completion by the time that temp gets handle on those tasks.

So when a client calls us to ask for a temp receptionist to cover their front desk for one week, to literally answer phones, take messages and greet walk ins, we need to pay them a rate in line with the junior tasks and responsibilities of that role. While many people that are looking for temp work are more than over qualified for this assignment, we can’t pay them more money for the experience they have, because the client does not require that extra experience. We can only pay a temp in line with the duties of the role, not in line with their overall level of skill and experience.

Many temps will plea that they are worth the extra $$$ because they will be able to complete additional tasks, however this is irrelevant for the client. As an agency if we go back to a client with a more senior candidate and mention that they will need to pay a higher rate, more often then not the client will just say “well then find me a junior whose expectations are not higher than that of the role”.

The temporary assignments that require a more senior candidate (and therefore that pay more) are generally the longer term assignments. E.g. If an EA goes on leave for one week most clients tend to either hire a junior to complete the more mundane tasks of the role, or ask an existing employee to cover the role due to their existing knowledge of the company. However the longer the assignment the more likely that the client will require an EA that is of the same skill and experience level of the employee that is away or on leave. In this situation you may have a chance to match your salary, but only if the duties and responsibilities of the role are similar to the level of your experience.

However! While these roles do exist, they are not as common as the shorter, more basic temp assignments. In fact, as an office support recruitment agency that is often inundated with temporary assignments we can usually count on one hand the number of roles paying over $35 p/h each year. Therefore, if you are looking to temp while waiting to find your next permanent role, be warned, that you will have much less chance of gaining temporary work if you will only accept roles paying higher rates.

If you’re wondering why it might be worth it to take on these more basic temp assignments (which we strongly recommend) see my last post “Should I consider a temp role?” Alternatively, give Team Sprint a call on (02) 9271 0011.

 

Should I Consider a Temp Role?

Posted on by Naomi Marshall

I am currently unemployed… should I consider a temp role while looking for my next permanent role?

The Sprint People answer is…. YES!

There are many great benefits to temp work! Some candidates come to Sprint saying that they will only consider permanent options because temporary work is unstable, and looks inconsistent on a resume. For the large part of that statement, we disagree! Ever heard of the theory that activity stems from activity? Get busy if you want to be busy!

Here are some other great reasons why you should consider temporary work:

BEEF UP YOUR CV/EXPERIENCE
If you’re in the market for a permanent role, it always looks better on your CV if you have kept yourself busy in a temp assignment, rather than spending weeks or months unemployed.

NETWORKING
Even if it’s just a one-day assignment you have the opportunity to network and build new connections! Remember, you never know where that next permanent role may come from. If you spend a day on reception, on the lowest hourly rate on earth, but you do a fantastic job… That employer may consider you for future roles throughout the business should they become available.

OPPORTUNITIES FOR PERM WORK
Temp roles frequently evolve into permanent opportunities. At Sprint, we find a high percentage of the temps we place are offered permanent roles within our clients businesses. Keep in mind it is often NOT in the role they were filling in temporarily, but another opportunity that is suited to their experience. We find our clients are confident speaking to the person who is temping with them about the role first as they already know them and have had first hand experience dealing with them in the workplace (better than an interview for many clients!)

STAND OUT TO YOUR RECRUITER
Temping gives you the opportunity to demonstrate to your recruiter how great you are! When I place a temp and my client raves about their great performance, positive attitude etc., I feel confident going of my way to call all my clients and tell them what a great asset that candidate will be to their business. Our clients LOVE it when we refer a candidate that is already tried and tested.

LEARN SOMETHING NEW
You have the opportunity to gain insight into industries that you may not know much about (or in some instances that you’ve never heard of). Which may open your mind to new possibilities! You can gain exposure to different systems, processes and ideas that may assist you in your next role.

CASH FLOW
Lastly, it keeps some money coming in so that you’re not forced to accept the first permanent role that is offered to you. You spend so much time at work that it is worth waiting to secure a GREAT job, rather than settling for just any job.

Having said all this above, if you’re worried that temping is making your resume look a little unstable, then summarise your temp assignments into one heading e.g. “Temping through Sprint People in various admin/ reception roles”. There is no need to list every single one day assignment, but it is important to make special mention of any assignment that is extended for more than a couple of months, or where you gained a skill that may be required in a role you’re applying for.

It’s natural to freak out when you find yourself unemployed, but if you consider temping while you’re looking for that dream role then you can keep some $$$ coming in the door, while meeting new people, trying different environments, and gaining new skills – win, win, win, win!

For more information on temping and pay rates follow this blog to ensure you don’t miss next blog post “Why Doesn’t My Temp Rate Reflect My Permanent Salary Expectations?”. I have also written a blog series on how to be a good temp – you can read that here. Or, if you can’t wait that long, get in touch via sprint@sprintpeople.com.au or 92710022.