Luring them in and keeping them in the net. Fishing for candidates is about to get tricky, reports Heidi Lambert

Greg Savage, CEO of Aquent, Asia Pacific, has some pretty strong views on where the recruitment industry is going wrong in this area. “The vast majority of recruitment agencies have an opportunistic and cyclical approach to candidate care,” he says. “When the market is candidate-rich, they treat applicants with disdain, don’t call them, and don’t listen to them. Then, when the cycle changes, they suddenly throw money at them and take them on harbour cruises. It’s a knee-jerk reaction, and candidates recognize this.”

Hays Personnel’s Australian Managing Director, Nigel Heap, agrees, “the industry in general doesn’t provide a particularly good service to candidates.” But he things most damaged relationships can be repaired with a lot of hard work.

According to Savage, retaining candidates is a no-brainer – at least it should be. “You keep people by finding them the work they want. Responsiveness is the key. Take candidates’ calls, or call them back – quickly. Call candidates you don’t have work for to keep them briefed.”

“The candidate shortage will become increasingly acute, but there will come a time again when we will be so swamped with candidates we won’t know what to do,” Savage predicts. “We’ll treat them like cattle, and when the cycle turns again we’ll start to seduce them with newsletters and free movie passes. It’s stupid. Real candidate loyalty isn’t based on free stuff.”

It seems he’s on the money. Talking to candidates, the overwhelming response to agencies’ “value-add” products – salary surveys, market reports, seminars, drinks’ nights, newsletters – was a resounding “not interested”.

Telco Group Strategy Manager Pennie Addabbo is turned off by agency-led events, but believes that to attract candidates recruiters should be “more visible in their industry of choice – at conferences and forums”.

Savage thinks events need to contribute to enhancing a candidate’s employability for them to have an impact. “We get a great response to software information sessions, where candidates learn about the latest features and updates. And we recently help a portfolio night, inviting top candidates to show their work. What we get from that in immediate dollar return is nothing, but it helps us to better understand our candidates. What we get back in goodwill for our proactive approach is massive,” he says.

Philip Pearce, Director of Brisbane-based Bond Recruitment, agrees it’s best to steer clear of gimmicks to pull in candidates. “It’s always been the little things which count – getting back to people, being caring. We’re not going to place every candidate, but there are professional courtesies we try to observe in a market were a lot of people are still pretty slap dash.”

Baytech Industrial takes a different approach, offering candidates 24-hour telephone access to consultants. National Manager for the industrial and labour hire division, Dean Sherwell, says it’s all about supporting candidates, which in turn wins their loyalty. Offering detailed performance feedback to candidates is another Baytech method, which Sherwell says, helps to develop candidates’ careers over the longer term.

Overall, recruiters say candidate referrals are the single best way to attract good people. “This is our main goal in the current market,” explains Ambition Managing Director, Paul Lyons. “And employing excellent consultants is also vital. They’re the face of the company. It’s rare in this industry to find people who have strong skills in both sales and candidate care – so we have consultants specializing in different areas to address this issue,” he says.

Michael Page’s Australian Managing Director Stephen Moir believes the right company culture helps bring in candidates. “We invest a lot in training and we recruit many people from industry disciplines and train them up,” he says. Moir believes this approach helps tackle the common candidate complaint that consultants don’t understand their industry.

It sounds like a good tactic, as most candidates say they’d be more inclined to show loyalty to a consultant with detailed industry knowledge. According to new media Marketing Manager Leigh Birch: “Some of the more senior people in agencies seem to have reasonable industry knowledge, but frequently the newer consultants are obviously floundering but trying desperately to cover up the fact they don’t know anything about my market.”

Telco product manager Bryce Blacker says, “A lot of the agents you meet from larger companies have no background in your target industry, and have trouble interpreting your skills if they don’t fit a generic role. But I do find some smaller, niche agencies have excellent knowledge and good contacts.”

And while advertising – press and online – is an intrinsic part of the recruitment process, there’s a growing consensus that the quality of applicants sources from the net isn’t what it used to be.

“Service will be the way to attract candidates over the next few years,” says Moir. “And more and more recruitment companies will be scrutinising the value of getting candidates (from job boards).”

Malin agrees job boards are failing to deliver on their promise, particularly for jobseekers. “Right now it seems that job boards are more effective in meeting the needs of generalist recruiters, but my concern is that specialist professionals using them as the first port of call may find the experience akin to looking for a needle in a haystack.”

Carey Eaton, Michael Page’s Regional Internet Manager, Asia Pacific, believes what matters to candidates are the things that are less measurable, like word of mouth, and reputation. He says sheer advertising spend is rarely the most important factor.

But Hudson New Zealand ’s General Manager, Greg Thompson, feels that heavily investing in branding and advertising – particularly in premium press – is still worthwhile. “This is how a lot of people learn about our organization and what we do. . .we advertise extensively which simply means that people recognize us,” he says.

In Nigel Heap’s opinion, the Australian recruitment market is changing, from one where people only contacted a recruitment company about a particular job they’d seen advertised, to candidates approaching agencies for a job in the first place. But he says simply relying on advertising of any kind to attract candidates is not going to work.

And while candidates do respond to job advertisements, many prefer to find a consultant via work of mouth, and most say they would use an agency they’ve never heard of if a friend recommended it – particularly if the agency had a reputation for listening, and being honest.

It seems they want to trust recruitment consultants, but find it hard to do. Leigh Birch says she’s seen every trick in the book. “From consultants blatantly lying about positions and making up roles to attract specific skill-sets, to sending my details through to a client speculatively but telling me there’s a live job there.”

“I once went to 12 interviews for one job,” says project manager Julie Stevens, “then I got it. Then I found out the money wasn’t what we’d discussed. The agency knew this but just didn’t listen. They assumed I would take the job anyway because it was a big-name client – I didn’t.”

Perhaps the most important lesson for agencies to learn then is a very simple one: candidates have good memories – and many hold long-term grudges. As candidates become clients, and then candidates again, this could spell disaster for the recruiters who only bother to think about candidate care when there aren’t any around. Consider yourselves warned.