It is the responsibility of the recruitment industry to show companies the outstanding value of a recruiting fee on their bottom line. Unfortunately, most companies still waste their time and money on job boards with access to millions of resumes thinking it is a better investment.

It’s time for Headhunters to shift the pendulum and start educating companies on the ROI of a recruiting fee. Let’s look at the value of a recruiting fee in hard dollars.

1) Industry Advice: A professional Headhunter is a subject matter expert. They advise companies on the “market value” of Top Talent and what they need to do to attract them. They create a partnership with companies and give them the strategic advice to attract the best in class AAA Candidates. Professional Headhunters are in fact business advisors no different than lawyers or accountants who earn $300-$500 per hour for their professional advice. Recruiters spend many, many hours on each search and companies most of the time only pay a recruiting fee when a placement is made.

2) Value of a Passive Candidate: The most valuable candidates are not putting their resumes on public job boards for the world to see contrary to popular belief. The most valuable candidates are passive. They can only be accessed by Professional Headhunters. For example, if you were going to hire a Sales manager who sells $1 million+ worth of goods or service, would they be post their resume on a job board for their employer to see? Of course not! That Sales manager would want to look for a new role confidentially and typically use a Headhunter to represent them. Once placed that Sales Manager can impact the bottom line by increasing your sales by $1 million dollars+. The investment of a $20,000 recruitment fee has just created a $1 million dollar ROI

3) Cost of hiring the wrong candidate: Between training costs, on boarding time and a new employee’s salary with benefits, the cost of hiring is expensive! But what’s even more costly is having to de-hire the wrong candidate. Termination pay and severance adds to the cost. Turnover is costly whichever way your look at it . Professional Headhunters find fully qualified candidates. They are vetted through extensive testing and reference checking. In addition, guarantees on the candidates placed by Professional Headhunters give companies financial security on their investment.

4) Time is money: Let’s look at how much time it takes to hire on your own with no guarantees of a hire.

Resumes from Job Ads x200 Time to review 6 hours

Phone Interviews x10 Phone time 10 hours

Office Interviews x5 Meeting time 10 hours

2nd interview x3 Meeting Time 6 hours

References x1 Phone time 2 hours

Offer Extended x1 Meeting Time 1 hour

35 HOURS Minimum

5) 100% Business expense: All companies have business expenses but a recruiting fee is the best type of business expense because it comes with an ROI. That is why top tier companies spend billions of dollars in recruiting fees each year.

In all the years of building the Mobile arm of The Staffing Exchange I have only been asked that question around a 1000 of times, but do you really know what it means to be Mobile?

We originally started with the word “Remote”, but who wants to be remote? What does that mean anyways…that I am operating deep on a island in the Caribbean? Or somewhere in the Rockies? We did not want this word to represent isolation, but more collaboration.

Mobile sounded interesting. At that time in my life there were certainly MOBILES (like the kind over a baby’s crib) on my mind as I awaited the birth of my twins. So, in this the Mobile CareerBroker was born and the twins lol. Yes, a great deal of the growth and building of this arm of the Staffing Exchange was done while looking after 4 kids under the age of 5, so in essence I was…oh no not that cliché…. “working from home”. You see this term “work from home” has its positive and negative reviews and we certainly did not want people to think being a CareerBroker was sitting in front of a computer in your pajama’s all day (albeit I would be lying if didn’t say SOME days are like that).

What I thought would be the most common misinterpretation of our new term only happened twice “Does that mean you do Mobile app development?” or “do you find people in the mobile phone industry?”

The big question…WTF is Mobile!?

Well, here it is….our definition of MOBILE is found by expanding the word. MOBILITY. That’s it. Mobility.

A Mobile CareerBroker is MOBILE…meaning they can build their business from anywhere. Anywhere there is an internet signal that is. Now, isn’t that the dream??? To be able to work from the edge of a dock, the top of a mountain or the parking lot of a client visitation. Well, it was always ours.

Going MOBILE means unchaining yourself from your desk, going to meet a candidate for a coffee, taking a client out on the links for the afternoon all while being CONNECTED to all your colleagues, candidates and job orders.

Does that mean Mobile CareerBrokers never go into an office? Hell no!

We have access to office space when we need it globally AND most importantly to our spectacular Corporate HUB on Bay St. in Toronto and our CareerBroker training HUB in Eastern Ontario conveniently located along the shores of the St. Lawrence River bordering Ontario, Quebec and New York State.

Even the best Mobile CareerBroker needs a place to get that “water cooler” effect or work and train in a real “BullPen” with some of the best in the business. So, if you want to unchain yourself from the desk, get out of the 9-5 and that awful commute…GO MOBILE!

THOUGHT LEADERS, MAKE RECRUITING A SHARED ECONOMY

With over $400 Billion dollars spent globally on recruiting by corporations, it is time to look at a better way to share the revenue of this large pie.

Currently most of the pie is eaten up by the multinational staffing firms, leaving thousands of SME’s and independent recruiters by the wayside with the scraps.

Interestingly, we have already seen many industries from transportation to housing, find a better way to create a shared economy in their own billion dollar industries.

So, why not the recruiting industry?

There are many complexities to the answer but the 3 Keys to the solution revolve around Recruiters, Clients and Candidates.

All the stakeholder need to be on the same page

An excellent starting point would be the need for Key #1, the recruiters, to see the benefits of sharing.

From lower costs to increased placement volume or lower turnover to standardized training, the benefits are vast.

It’s interesting to note that even as children we were taught to share. However, as grown-up recruiters we seem to have forgotten this basic life principle.

It also appears that due to lack of regulation and the failure to certify recruiters as a profession, we have failed Key #2 and Key #3, the candidates and clients.

But its never too late to solve a problem. We have already seen other professions like Real Estate, Insurance and Financial Planning lead the way. They have shown us that you can build trust and integrity by creating a true profession. So now we have some examples of the path we need to take

With some of the greatest minds in the recruiting industry there is no reason that these same minds can help lead the way to a shared economy. They have already helped make the industry great. But now its time to make the recruiting industry greater!

Together we are stronger. United we stand divided we fall!

I invite you to an open a dialogue via the article comments below. I look forward to your thoughts and feedback.

Going to your first interview is no different then auditioning for the the lead role in a movie, except that YOU are the one auditioning and hoping to land the next big step in your career.

Going to your first interview is no different then auditioning for the the lead role in a movie, except that YOU are the one auditioning and hoping to land the next big step in your career.

So how do you prepare for the audition? Here are 5 Audition Tips:

1) You need to have the mindset of winning. You are competing with many other people who also want the role but unfortunately only one person can win the part. You need to ask yourself “what is my competitive edge and how do I win?” Make sure your answers demonstrate and clearly express that edge.

2) Research the role you are auditioning for. Research is the key to knowing as much about the position you are auditioning for. Examples include:

Finding out what the job entails, the history and current news of the company, what the professional backgrounds of the people you are meeting with, knowing the corporate culture of the company or why the last person left the role. Make your edge SHARPER.

Between Googling and the Company’s website, you can find out all the information you need to be prepared.

3) Practice your script. As the expression goes, practice makes perfect! Stand in front of a mirror and ask yourself the typical types of questions you can expect from the interviewer. Common questions include: What makes you a great candidate for this role? What do you know about our company? What are your salary expectations? and the most difficult one: Tell us a little about yourself. Recording and listening to yourself will help too.

4) Dress the part. If you interviewing for a role that requires a corporate image, be prepared to look the part. That could mean suit, tie and shiny shoes or a white shirt and blazer with low heels.

Even if the company website looks like it is “business casual”, show the director a great first impression by looking your best. Look them in the eyes, sit up straight and be ready to present the best you because that is who they want to hire.

5) Always have a final pitch ready when asked “is there anything you would like to add?” This is your final chance to add some sizzle to your audition. This is where you are free to improvise, free of script and express who YOU are. Pull out your portfolio of awards and accomplishments. Put them on the spot by asking when you can start! Show them your references. Or leave them with something thought provoking such as why you believe you are a great investment for the company while explaining how much ROI you will create for them.

So, who knows you may become the next Tom Cruise or Julia Roberts and be a star in your next career move!!

So, what did you do with your summer?

Did you kick back and relax? Or did you vacation at your desk while others were enjoying the sun? Or did you manage to close deals and write up new business all while sipping Mojitos off the end of the dock? Whatever you made of your summer, hopefully, you are not chasing your tail and behind the eight ball on all the new business you need to finish off with what’s left of Q3 and end the year with better billings then last year. If you are the latter well then “lock & load”, smile and dial and hopefully there are some scraps left for you! Those that enjoyed the Mobile lifestyle in the recruitment industry are surely already ahead of the game and ready to fill all those orders that they picked up over the summer. The end of Q3 will be filled with bells ringing while those chained to a desk are still hitting the bricks.

As we all get back into our routines I am not going to do my usual singing from the mountain tops about being Mobile because it is not complete without one other very important element…..we will get to that in a minute. The picture you see above was taking from the top of “La Roche” trail in Parc Mont Tremblant in Quebec, Canada. For years now I have been progressively exposing my children to more challenging adventures in nature AND no cellular signal, essentially, “off the grid”. Well, all the “mobility” in the world will not do you a lick of good deep in the Laurentians. Being “off the grid” in our world can be scary especially if you have deals still on the table and it is very common for us as CareerBrokers to close deals on our vacations because of the mobility we enjoy. On this trip, I was fortunate enough to close one of the largest deals of my career WITHOUT wifi or a cell signal.

How you ask?

Back to that other very important element which facilitated this billing opportunity…..COLLABORATION! Mobility is enhanced by collaboration. I can be the best Mobile/Remote recruiter but by myself I am just a “Lone Ranger” and will never really reach my true billing potential. That adage of “Many hands make for light work” couldn’t be truer in the world of headhunting. Having a strong team to rely on not only helps with that elusive 3rd candidate on a tough search or in my case, closing a deal while you are off the grid because you have a strong reliable team to lean on.

This will be my 10th year as a professional Head-hunter and 2 things still boggle my mind in this industry. 1. No barrier of entry (another topic for another day) AND 2. Lack of collaboration. There tends to be too many egos in this industry to create a truly collaborative environment. However, our collaborative community at The Staffing Exchange miss second to none. Our CareerBrokers collaborate every day to maintain an edge in our industry with 90% of billings happening by way of….COLLABORATION. I am inviting you to stay tuned for a series of information sessions I will be hosting in the coming weeks for our Fall training session in October. If you want to work smarter and not harder, “Get Connected!” and take yourself up to the next level by becoming a Career Broker!

While the North American Manufacturing industry is a cornerstone of economic vitality, identifying and hiring apt executive talent continues to be a challenge for many companies. Having 20+ years of hands-on experience in Manufacturing recruitment, our CareerBrokers have compiled 6 proven strategies that can help you hire the executive talent you need.

1) Expand Your Network and Industry Connections
Networking with industry professionals and passive candidates plays an important role in recruiting executives. In fact, this LinkedIn survey indicates that 85% of all jobs are filled through networking. Our experienced team of CareerBrokers has experienced this too.

Our team has also witnessed that qualified executive-level candidates like VP of Operations, Plant Managers, Production Managers, and Maintenance Directors are found through networking.

2) Collaborate with Executive Search Firms
If you want to save time and hire a qualified candidate, partner with an executive search firm. Executive search firms like The Staffing Exchange Inc. have robust networks of passive candidates which is why they can introduce you to the most eligible candidates.

A report by the Association of Executive Search and Leadership Consultants (AESC) suggests that 60% of manufacturing companies use executive search firms to fulfil senior positions.

3) Develop Compelling and Visible Employer Brand
Having a compelling and visible employer brand is essential for grabbing attention of top-tier executive talent. Your employer brand builds trust amongst people. It also conveys your organizational culture to executive-level candidates.

A LinkedIn study shows 72% of job seekers pay attention to the employer’s brand even before even before applying to their job. In order to build your employer brand, highlight your company’s case studies, career progression stories of candidates, future plans and potential, employees’ testimonials, and industry awards.

4) Craft Irresistible Compensation Packages
Companies typically have salary ranges for almost all roles. However, it is imperative to craft irresistible compensation packages for senior roles. That also means you need to be flexible with compensation packages when you consider hiring for a senior role. To craft a competitive compensation package, it is important to have a comprehensive know-how of the market value of the role, market trends, and industry standards. Apart from this, consider doing a survey on perks, benefits, and bonuses. Using these steps, you can create a competitive compensation package for the right candidates.

5) Create Effective Succession Planning Strategy
Succession planning is imperative to attract qualified executive-level candidates. This strategy also helps candidates get “psychological safety” and can clearly see their growing career path. Besides hiring top talent, this strategy can help your company in many other ways, including mitigating leadership gaps, retaining top performers, and improving company’s performance.

6) Focus on Diversity and Inclusion
Diversity and inclusion are important aspects of a hiring process. Keep your shortlisted candidates updated with status on their application throughout the process. With 20+ years of experience in the industry, we can say that this culture helps companies hire best-fit candidates for senior roles without making any biased decisions.

Conclusion
Hiring executive talent in the manufacturing industry requires a multifaceted approach. These strategies, supported by industry data and best practices, provide a comprehensive framework for successfully navigating the complexities of executive recruitment in the manufacturing sector. If you’re looking to hire proven executives for your team, please reach out to us at info@staffingexchange.com