Logistics Recruitment, what you need to know

by Guest Posting on 2010-09-03

I have had lots of enquiries from the GLM community wanting to know the most effective methods when recruiting. The recession has thrown up a lot of questions especially with employers and the need to get the employment process right. In exploring the options I threw the topic open to recruitment professionals to get their view so thanks to Brian Cartwright for sharing his veiws with the Global Logistics Media Community.

Nigel Lewis
CEO - Global Logistics Media Group

 

---

---

 

I work as a specialist Head hunter in the Middle East, my main area of expertise is within the Supply Chain and Logistics Sector sourcing mid to senior level management for key strategic roles..

Since the start of the economic downturn I have seen some interesting changes to the way the end employers are handling the process when recruiting senior executives.

Many companies have taken the opportunity to restructure and streamline their management teams cutting out the dead wood (so to speak) and with such tremendous growth in the Middle East in the past few years companies were crying out for Managers to run their ever increasing number of new business units, this has led to a few people being able to get themselves into positions way above their level of skills and experience and has made it ever more important to screen applicants as thoroughly as possible because they may have held a similar level of job in the past to the position they are now being considered for but as  employers you need to establish whether or not they were really cut out to do their current/previous job in the first place.

The best way to achieve this is via thorough reference checking, competency based interviewing and also where appropriate talking to your business contacts in the sector.

Employers know there is now a much greater pool of available candidates in the market who are actively seeking jobs so initially when the poor economic conditions began to take a hold they were trying to avoid working with Headhunting firms and Recruitment Consultancies in an effort to reduce costs by managing the complete process themselves.

On the face of it this approach makes sense in the current climate as reducing recruitment costs has become much more of a priority to companies than ever before, but there is a downside to this.

With such a vast number of candidates on the market the number of people applying to job adverts has greatly increased and many people are applying for positions way outside of their area of specialism, because of this the initial sift of applicants is taking much longer than it did previously which is tieing up the in house HR and Recruitment teams who are now having to spend more time purely scan reading and screening vast numbers of CVs where they could be using this time to carry out more in-depth interviews and properly qualify suitably experienced potential candidates.

Companies have began to realise this is not necessarily the best approach and so many have returned to using agencies once more.

There are a few different ways that companies tend to work with Recruiters each with its own advantages and disadvantages, I have listed some of the most common below along with a few pro’s and con’s for each.

I hope this will prove useful in helping you decide which approach could work best for your business.

Retained Search – Engaging a specialist Head hunter to carry out a search exclusively on a retained fee basis Usually an initial payment is made to retain the Head hunters services then a portion of the fee is due on presentation of accepted shortlist (usually at the point that interviews are confirmed) final payment is normally due on acceptance of the job offer by the candidate

Advantages

a. This is the perfect solution for recruiting sensitive senior level positions the search is targeted and is carried out in an extremely confidential manner

b. A Head hunter is able to target high profile individuals often holding key positions in competitor organisations where it would be too sensitive for your organisation to approach them directly, and the applicants themselves are often more comfortable applying via a third party rather than submitting a direct application

c. The Head hunter would spend time taking a full and in-depth brief from you ensuring a full understanding of the type of candidate you are looking for.

d. The candidates impression of your organisation and the role itself will be much better as the Head hunter is able to provide extremely in-depth (but non sensitive) information to the candidates they are screening once they have established interest

e. By paying a retainer fee to a Head hunter you are securing their focus on finding suitable candidates quickly and efficiently, they would normally work to strict timeframes agreed with you to complete each stage in the process

Disadvantages

a. You need to make a firm financial commitment to the Headhunting firm when engaging them by paying the retainer fee which is due prior to the process starting

b. Fees for professional Head hunting firms are usually higher than those of standard Recruitment Consultancies


Exclusive Agreement – Engaging one agency to exclusively work on your assignments

Advantages

a  One point of contact means your time is freed up as you only need to give the brief once and answer one recruiters questions prior to them beginning the search

b.  You will most likely have more flexibility in terms of fees depending on the level of the position, for example you could ask the agency to recruit the lower level positions on a contingency basis (ie, payment on acceptance of job by the candidate) and for the more senior and sensitive roles you could pay a retainer for them to Head hunt candidates, you may even be able to agree a semi retained deal where the agency wont charge an initial fee but instead will just charge a portion of the fee (normally one third of the anticipated fee) once a satisfactory shortlist had been presented and interviews confirmed

c.  You may even be able to agree with the recruiter that you will give them exclusivity for one month after which time if they haven’t filled the position you would also open to role up to other agencies

d. By working in this way you can really partner with the agency and involve them with as much or as little of the process as you wish. When working so closely with the end employer in this way it is not uncommon for the recruiter to sit in on interviews with the employer to further assist in the screening process right through to the point of the offer being made

e. By involving the recruiter more in the complete process they are able to rapidly increase their understanding of your business, culture and your thought process as to which candidates are suitable or unsuitable. The better the recruiter understands your business the more likely they will present you with highly suitable candidates much quicker

f. The agency you decide to appoint on an exclusive basis is likely to be well reputed with a good track record when servicing their clients, they most likely already do business with you and have performed well to date

Disadvantages

a. You could miss out on potential candidates that other agencies may have already identified


Selected Agency Panel – Engaging two or three specially selected agencies

Advantages

a. Its easier to manage just two or three agencies and is much less time consuming

b. You have the ability to build a strong working relationship and the recruiters at the agency will be able to gain a good understanding of your business culture and the best fit candidates for your organisation

c. You can select the preferred agencies based on their proposal and will then be able to make a much better decision as to which agencies can best service your business

d. The agencies who take the time to prepare a formal proposal will be fighting hard to win your business and the ones you decide to appoint are likely to be well reputed with a good track record when servicing their clients

Disadvantages

a. The pool of candidates who are seeking work remains the same so you will sometimes receive duplicate CVs sent from different agencies

b. You could miss out on candidates that non panel recruiters may have already identified

Large Preferred Agency Panel – There are a vast number of companies who think it makes sense to work with as many agencies as possible and try to pin them all down to the same fee structure which is generally a very low fee with a take it or leave it attitude.

Advantages

a. To a point you will be able to dictate the fee that agencies charge, they will either accept your fee or not be able to work with you

b. You will have many agencies actively looking for candidates for you, so in theory you should have a quicker turnaround? (some organisations use 10 or more agencies just to recruit one position)

c. You may be able include specialist agencies in the panel to recruit for specific job sectors such as Supply Chain and Logistics

Disadvantages

a. Increased workload for your in-house recruiters, each agency will need to be briefed on the role and all will have questions so you will likely be answering the same questions a few times over.

b. Regardless of how many agencies you use the pool of candidates remains the same so you will be seeing the same CVs sent from different agencies

c. Its much harder to build a good working relationship with external recruiters when they are just one of many working with you, this contributes to slowing the process as its harder for them to get a good understanding of your business and  the culture within the organisation and hence provide the best fit candidates quickly

d. The external recruiters understanding of the role might not be as clear as it could be because you probably wont have time to give proper in-depth feedback to the them as to why certain candidates were suitable or unsuitable for the role, this will slow down the process because if the recruiters don’t know why they missed the mark on certain candidates they are likely to continue to send you similar people

e. The agencies that tend to agree to these kinds of arrangements will normally have agreed to a similar deal with other clients and its likely they will adopt more of a scattergun approach by quickly screening candidates and sending out vast numbers of CVs to the clients in the hope they make a successful placement (remember they are racing against the clock as their competitors will be talking to the same applicants)

f.  Specialist agencies tend to come at a price, if they are a true specialist its unusual they will agree to work with you as part of a large panel of suppliers on the same terms as the generalists

g. Everyone including your clients and competitors will know when you are recruiting each and every position, if this happens often it can give a bad impression of the company putting off potential applicants as you could be deemed as a hire and fire organisation (Although on the positive side they could see it that you are achieving tremendous growth, as long as market intelligence also backs this up!)

I could cite many more Advantages and Disadvantages for each of the options I have mentioned above but wishing to keep it concise, I have just added the key points which I think will be of most interest to employers.

I can be contacted via email on b.cartwright@kobaltt.co.uk if anyone has any questions.
 
Brian Cartwright
Senior Consultant – Supply Chain & Logistics, MENA Region
 
www.kobaltt.com