John Wallace, Author of "Hire Power" presented at Recruitment Leaders Connect: The Year Ahead on 8th March covering the following.
Why companies will direct source
What the issues are and why does it succeed or fail
Where does that leave agency suppliers?
2. 1. Why we direct source
2. Why we still use agencies
3. What the future holds
3.
4.
5.
6.
7. save
money…lots
of money!
The primary
driver from
the business is
always cost
To invest in the strategic
parts of resourcing, I had
to make savings
elsewhere. Agency fees
are the obvious starting
point
if there is enough
activity to employ
a team - it is
cheaper
reduced agency
usage from
100% - 4%
saving £100ks
cost avoidance of
millions. Literally
8. But also…
• “The team sees patterns that using external partners
hides”
• “It can answer candidates questions/concerns better
and quicker”
• “Patriot, not mercenary, doing your recruitment –
agency doesn't really care where the candidate goes,
just that they make the fee”
9. • “Control, quality of advocacy”
• “Better, more consistent service to line manager”
• “Control of brand, control of message”
• “It reflects culture and what’s its like here - better that
an external partner (although some do this very well)”
• “Enables me to control joiner salaries better”
17. Why agencies still thrive
• Low control – naive buyers
• Apathy - don’t care about cost
• Avoidance of those pesky HR processes
• Bad planning
• Distress purchase
18. Why agencies still thrive
• No in-house team
• No centralised budget for recruitment
• Poor in-house recruitment capability
• Bumps in demand
• Different candidate segments
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24. We are effectively outsourcing workload
• Someone who’ll just get on and deliver
• Works inside the process
• Understands the brief
• Minimum time spent by my consultant managing your
consultant
36. The Future - Recruitment Team Priorities
44%
43%
38%
EVP Direct Sourcing Talent Pools
37. What Does The Future Hold?
• In-house direct sourcing is the direction of travel
• Not enough space for everyone
• “Rolodex” deep vertical experts
• More outsourcing – full function / chunks / overflow
Hinweis der Redaktion
The future – personal view as predictions are the realm of the foolish as pollsters, economists and bookmakers regularly prove
I’ve only got 20 minutes – so I’ll get straight to the point
If you don’t know this – you haven’t been paying attention.
But I asked others
This is what they said. So, I asked what other benefits?
This is what they then said
Except the last one. That was me. I was also head of reward. I’ll explain in a minute
FMCG Example
84 to 9 in agency usage
Annual saving 1.8 million
Candidate experience score up from 4.5 – 8.5
Average 80 day hiring to 26 day
10% better performance in sales team of directly sourced candidates
Extreme example – capable HoR
What my job was – gets me the bonus
At Tesco – literally no pressure from exec – in fact the oppostite
Much more interesting
If I have time I’ll come back to executive - deliberate choice
There was the great intangible benefit
22 bus was a metaphor – my team knew the bank / knew the way to work / knew the reality and could always sell it better
In summary
Time
Cost
quality
Candidate experience
Control – when it goes wrong I’m in charge
Salary pressure – I was head of reward. Managers always highballed salary. Consultants always pressure upwards – not for commission increase (that’s marginal) but to secure the candidate. I wanted to secure the candidate by not pushing up the salary. “you’ll definitely get him if you offer X”
This is the critical reason – another indefinable. We look for great employees – you send us great candidates.
No – industry worth £bn – and as I say in Hire Power agencies will continue to play an important role in the supply chain.
The next slide has the most words and it lists the reasons why.
But things will change
Aardvark have “great people on their books”.
Investment banking
Not everyone is as good at this as the people I know
All of the above
Only 54% of recruitment teams say they hold the budget
Just over half 52% say that agencies in top 5 sources
The last two are positive – lets look at some frustrations with the current way of working
Aardvark have “great people on their books”.
Investment banking
Not everyone is as good at this as the people I know
All of the above
Only 54% of recruitment teams say they hold the budget
Just over half 52% say that agencies in top 5 sources
The last two are positive – lets look at some frustrations with the current way of working
Lets look at an imagined demand plan (even included the annual rec freeze)
There are two problems for me in organising resource
People sitting around with conspicuously low workloads – time for projects.
Also why resourcing teams are under-resourced
Teams flat out and have too big a workstack. Quality suffers at these points as its job off desk time.
Knowing who to outsource the work to is critical to maintain service and quality.
I’ve outsourced – I don’t want to then spend resource to manage. It’s painful and becomes a visous circle.
Let’s look at what I see as the main 2 positive reasons starting with candidate pools.
Not passive candidates.
I’ll come back to the rolodex.
Let’s look at where we get candidates
This is a typical source data chart – numbers made up, but details where the candidates come from - informs strategy
In the book I look at candidate sources slightly differently. I like to think in terms of candidate behaviour
Take this a the full market for people who widget production managers
The red lot are the ones who are really in MY market – proximity / salary / skill level
These are the ones who will look online, respond to linked in etc
I can access most of the market – so my chances of getting the star is pretty high. Direct sourcing perfect
No lets look at the widget designers – smaller market
And different behaviours – these are the ones I can access. My chances are now not so clever
It’s not those “hard to fill jobs” – it’s the behaviour of the candidates in those markets.
Not looking – in hire power I talk about lazy jobseekers - doesn’t make them bad employees – it’s the jobseeking behaviour. Not PASSIVE canddiates
Have a relationship with a consultant –
That’s where the rolodex comes in. Deep vertical knowledge
Counterpoint – would pay
My view.
Deep Specialists
Help with high demand
Wok as an extension of the team
Single supplier per vacancy – accountability to succeed – decent fee
Once direct sourcing in and benefits are obvious there is no going back
Figures from the FIRM
In house rec leaders asked to list their top 5 priorities and these came out top. If you ask me they are all the same. FIRM
If your business is based on the