Whilst I GENUINELY love being a Professional Finder (AKA Professional Recruiter).… there are days that I wish I worked on a PRODUCTION LINE…. churning out pretty boxes of different sizes and colours…. PREDICTABILITY AND SANITY!!!
A Production Line has set parameters and is designed to produce specific products to meet customer requirements. Checks and balances are in place to ensure that Quality Assurance is adhered to. And it is usually very clear as to whether or not the final product is what was expected.
A blue box with purple stripes ordered with specific size dimensions – is very easily determined to be as ordered – and is easily assessed to be “performing” as expected……and is unlikely to change tomorrow….or even next week.
Unlike boxes, people are not inanimate objects….They tend to have minds of their own, varying personalities and often unpredictable behaviours!!!!
As a Professional Finder, my clients are people, their existing staff and teams are people, and the candidates I’m dealing with are…..you guessed it…. PEOPLE. So, my working day is filled with UNPREDICTABILITY!!!
This unpredictability can lead to some rather humorous occurrences…… and too MANY frustrating and disappointing outcomes.
I think that business owners and managers tend to have a picture in place that a Professional Recruiter operates a factory with multiple production lines which can inevitably produce the “PERFECT EMPLOYEE”!!!
I wish this were true…. or even a possibility…. however, sufficed to say that my psychology degree and more than 15 years of experience in recruitment has confirmed that even with all available checks and balances in place…. this is NEVER going to be a ‘Production Industry’. I simply cannot “produce” the perfect employee at the drop of a hat for all my clients…. I wish I could…. I desperately want to…. I’d be a MILLIONAIRE in no time…. but it’s just not possible.
My job is to capitalize on my experience to help minimise and manage the unpredictable variables.
My Approach to wrangling recruitment…. for both sides of the fence…. Clients and Candidates:
- COMMUNICATION – Listening, Questioning, Listening, Explaining, Listening…..CONFIRMING in Writing
- GENUINELY CARE – about gaining the RIGHT outcome
- PLAN – utilise proven processes and steps to gather, check, test & confirm the information
- RESPONSIVENESS – the old saying “you snooze, you lose” is very true…. Great candidates get snapped up quickly.
- PROACTIVE & INTUITIVE – experience and gut feel can put you a step ahead (however, the ability to read minds would be amazing…& more accurate!!)
- SHARE KNOWLEDGE & INFORMATION – don’t be a “Gatekeeper”…..the best decisions are made when all of the cards are on the table
- QUALITY ADVICE – an Industry Professional has a responsibility to provide guidance and recommendations…..but there are always those horses that you take to water and choose not to have a drink.
Whilst I can work hard to put all of these things in place including testing for specific skills and capabilities…. recruitment is fraught with the need to draw conclusions on intangible factors…. people factors…. personality, behaviour, interpretation and expectations.
There are definitely days that I don’t think too highly of the human race!!!
Whilst I regularly say that recruitment is “Not an Exact Science”…. there is in fact a lot of science around human behaviour. Personality Profiling has been around for a long time and is proven to value add to the recruitment process…. and – in my opinion – greatly underutilised.
Stay tuned for my guest blog from John Flett (Scope BC), where he will provide some insight and tips around how employers can minimise their woes and frustrations when employing through the use of DISC Profiling.
Acworth Recruitment helps take control of the Hide and Seek game to “find staff you can keep”.
Make sure you’re following on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/RecruitLoop-Kim-Acworth-185674054963527/?fref=ts) as I’ll share some other great tips and information.
