Recruiting Yourself - Don't fall into the trap!

I am seeing more and more of our clients taking the view that recruitment will be easy in this market as there will be more quality candidates to choose from. Well I have news for them - this is not always going to be the case as their brand may not have the pulling power that people working within it believe it has. When undertaking the recruitment process yourself you are totally reliant on your brand working for you. Despite the fact that you may think it's the best damn brand to work for - guess what others may not have that view. I recall asking the question to a group of people whose roles had been disestablished around who they wouldn't work for. One lady bless her cotton socks was adament that she would never work for Inland Revenue - no way was she going to work for them. I quizzed her as to why not and it was all because of her experience with dealing with them over tax issues associated with her redundancy. She felt that she had not been treated well and had the view that all Inland Revenue staff were like this (which I know is not true and in fact it is a great place to enhance your career). This just shows that perception can be a powerful reason for not applying for a role and why the quality of candidates applying for roles has not increased from 12 months ago. In fact the time spent going through the 100 odd applications that organsiations are now receiving for roles is time consuming and not really what the people have been employed to do - they hate doing it! Leaving it to the experts will obviously come at a cost, but when you add up the cost of doing it yourself and the hours that it involves you and others it's a no brainer. but hey some would say I am bias! I would say I am a realist!