Its an interesting debate as to whether the general consensus in
recruitment terms is always go big. If you are recruiting a
Marketing Director/ Sales Director / Head of BD are most clients
more comfortable in the knowledge that their role is in the hands
of a big well known brand or a smaller niche specialist? The jury
is out evident in the diversity of recruiters out there and the
wide range of recruiters that clients engage for senior roles or
indeed volume campaigns.
Recruiters are designed to manage the recruitment process from
start to finish. The majority of Recruiters hold large databases of
candidates and can advertise and undertake search projects on
clients behalf. Advertising methods include both print and online
mediums although the latter has become more common in recent years.
The key to a recruiters use however is the quality of information
that their database provides and the quality of the relationship
the consultant has with those particular candidates. How able is a
recruiter to maintain strong relationships with all of the
candidates they register if they are receiving applications in the
thousands on a daily basis. Arguably most major brands will
maintain that they put this at the forefront of their consultants
operations however candidate research begs to differ. Roughly 25%
of the candidates one particular Professional Services niche firm
registered had experienced poor service levels form major brands
and had subsequently decided not to work with that particular firm
again.
I spoke to a BD Director of a major law firm who maintained that
the key deciding factor for them in finding the right people was
working with someone who knew their business and their sector and
was able to be consultative and advise them on the market as a
specialist within their particular area. His concerns with a major
brand was how much time will this individual dedicate to me when
they have 20 other clients they are concurrently managing projects
on behalf of. Another Marketing Director felt that a big Brand was
imperative in attracting the right people, especially when
recruiting at a senior level.
Large consultancies claim they provide a more cost-effective
service through consolidated reporting, invoicing and overall
charging the bigger the client, the greater the proportional
savings and the better the quality of candidate they claim to
attract. They also claim to have spending power to devote more
investment to candidate attraction.
Smaller consultancies also claim that, while large consultancies
may deliver to a large client's overall branding and culture, they
find the exact individuals for roles by a better understanding of
niche markets, and in consistency of contact by having less staff
turnover.
A resourcing manager at retail giant Blacks Leisure, says while
her business uses large and small consultancies, its preference is
for the latter as "we're more likely to get that direct
relationship with a smaller firm. You can hold a smaller one more
to account".
Its interesting when applying the same theory to animals,
Generalist animals are those adapted to a wide range of
environmental circumstances and food sources, while specialist
animals are really good at one narrow thing they do. An example of
a generalist would be mice, which can adapt to practically any
environment and consume a variety of seeds, grains, and nuts. An
example of specialist animals would be the koala, which
lives in eucalyptus
trees and exclusively consumes eucalyptus leaves, one of the only
animals capable of doing so.
In general, generalist animals appear to be more successful than
specialist animals, as they can take advantage of a wider range of
circumstances. The downsides of generalism are stress and
competition -- because they compete in crowded biological niches,
generalists have to elbow other generalists out of the way to
survive on a fixed amount of nutrients. Meanwhile, specialists can
pretty much enjoy their narrow niche without much competition.
Possibly the specialist therefore has more time to dedicate to the
quality of what they are doing. Whereas the generalist competes
aggressively in a volume driven environment.
KEYWORDS:
Recruitment, professional services, legal, business development,
marketing director, sales director, head of business development,
marketing recruitment, business development recruitment,
professional services recruitment.
Copywright - www.weareadam.com
