I have to admit Interim management is something that I have not recruited for in my recruitment career and therefore is a subject I know little about. However after reading a news article on Interim Management Jobs, I thought it would be a good excuse to finally understand the differences.

While researching this market I realised that it was a fascinating sector of recruitment and could be described as the “search and selection of the temp/contractor market”  rather than what was previously seen as the dumping ground of the over 45’s!

What is interesting is that the majority of Interim Management Jobs would be filled, not necessarily via recruitment companies, but by the interim manager themselves. This I suspect is because they are either networking at a senior level or are known by a number of Private Equity companies who understand the difference they can make to their portfolio of businesses.

None the less recruitment companies are an important link in the chain for companies to find the right manager, but again consultants need to be able to deal at board room level, otherwise they will not be privy to any changes a client may want to implement.

The areas where Interim managers are required tend to be related to a change in direction or a new product being developed, where the skills needed are not in house. The advantage of course to the client is that the Manager can focus on that task and not get involved in office politics, thereby ensuring the project is completed on time and within budget. More importantly the manager will be able to advise the client honestly whether it’s feasible and what changes are needed to ensure success, because he or she is not concerned about job security, promotion etc., which in turn will mean the CEO can be more frank with the manager and vice-versa.

Being an Interim Manager can prove to be quite lucrative, with the average daily rate at around £650 making it quite profitable for the Recruitment agency and when it all goes to plan, the CEO can take all the accolades from the shareholders!

But what is fascinating are the effects of recruiting quality Interim Manager on business, like in the case of West Sussex hospital who employed an interim manager and managed to save 1 million in costs or the when it goes pear shaped as in Leicester .

And they are often are used in the field of sport as in Middlesbrough FC , mind you we all know how fickle it can be in football!

Yesterday I received a comment on my site, by an obviously disgruntled candidate. Of course not all agencies operate the way he suggested and if only I could earn 200% of the basic salary, I could have retired years ago!

None the less I felt Michael raised some very good points, that I believe in and new recruiters should take note of. Saying that in defence of some recruiters, what Michael may not realise is often we will champion his case, only to find that HR will knock back our candidate just because he doesn’t tick all the boxes!!!

Michael’s comments are below:

Is it not time that additional statutory rules were introduced into a Recruiters’ ‘Code of Conduct’? Any rules or standards that do exist frequently do not work and/or they are demonstrably unenforced.

The main reason Recruiters are employed by employers is to reduce the administrative burden of recruitment on Employers. However, the services that many Recruiters provide are highly questionable and/or lacking in any real ethics.

Most Recruiter staff have little more than an ability to design highly misleading web pages about their ‘care’ and ‘service’, talk fast and/or to blatantly lie. Many are on a ego trip while providing little real value to employers or candidates. The result is that Employers often do not even get to consider candidates who may be best suited to the position being ‘managed’ by external Recruitment agencies. That ‘management’ frequently appears to be limited to promoting the lowest cost (lowest salary) candidates to Employers i.e. Recruiters gain higher staff placements by immediately eliminating higher VALUE candidates from the selection process. Employers are often short changed because REAL and qualitative evaluation does not exist in many Recruitment agencies.

1. Many so-called recruiters are unqualified to judge the qualifications, experience or quality of candidates they attract.

2. Many Recruiters simply process people as numbers, seeking to minimise their own costs to maximise their own often exorbitant fees.

3. All Recruiters should be obliged by statutory regulation to:

a) Confirm that the person who is processing the vacancies and applications holds qualifications in the field for which they are recruiting…this gives some degree of assurance that they actually have significant and relevant professional knowledge of the essential qualities of position advertised and the candidate’s qualifications.

b) Respond ‘IMMEDIATELY’ (24 hours say) to all candidates, confirming receipt of their applications AND when the client will confirm the selection of shortlisted personnel.

c) Provide a detailed weekly update to candidates on the progress of their applications and/or of candidates’ failures to meet the employers’ requirements AND why.

Given that Recruiters purport to be ‘professional’ and that their fees vary between 20% and 200% (say) of the candidates’ salaries, MANY (not all) Recruiters demonstrate that they:

i) are highly Unprofessional

ii) lack any understanding of ethics or even basic courtesy

iii) are opportunistic liars

iv) care little or not at all about applicants, despite their ‘oily’ claims.

The lack of the above requirements in an enforceable Code of Conduct damages the reputation of good, ethical and truly professional Recruiters.

Unfortunately, candidates have no way of distinguishing between the good and the bad simply because of the facts that Recruiters get away with claiming almost anything in their websites and other marketing media; there is little evidence that the Recruitment industry is ethically and effectively controlled. It therefore attracts may rogues posing as professionals.

The practice of asking candidates to state their previous salaries and/or requirements is highly unethical. Most positions have a value that cannot be defined other than by the employer. Candidates previous salaries were particular to their previous roles that often were not reflected in their job titles. This practice is highly unethical and Recruitment Agencies and Employers who support it demonstrate simply that they care nothing about candidates and everything about taking unfair advantage of their candidates and employees.

Will the good agencies out there take steps to eliminate the bad from their own profession? Or is the industry so weak it cannot control itself? I and many thousands of others would like to see and experience some true professionalism in the Recruitment industry. Those who resist are surely those who should not exist.

What made me pose the question in the first place, was that while I was canvasing recruitment consultants within the driving/logistics market, I was amazed how few were actually using Linkedin or any form of social networking. I can understand that there will be very few lorry drivers who have a profile, but there are a few thousand decision makers!

So I decided to look at a sector that would be more suited to using LinkedIn and decided to focus on REC members who specialise in accounting staff within the NW. As it turns out there are only 25 companies to look at. It may not be a huge sample but given the specialism I thought it should be a good industry given their profile to test, rather than IT or construction sector.

So with all the hype about LinkedIn for recruiters, I was expecting at least 90 % of these recruitment companies to be utilising the site to its full potential, but in truth the reality couldn’t be any further away.

Of the 25 recruitment companies only 7 had a company profile and just 8 had more than 500 connections. What was even more surprising was that there were 9 companies with no representation at all on LinkedIn! I thought I cannot believe it given the benefits, so I thought I would have a quick look at the healthcare sector and within minutes I was getting the same results, well to be honest worse.

So going back to Accountancy recruitment I thought I would see how many accountants were actually registered on Linked in in the NW (25 mile radius to be exact) and I came up with just under 4,000

I have to admit I was dumfounded and interestingly the companies that did have a profile were the more successful organisations.

When you think that LinkedIn is free and is probably one of the best ways to show case your abilities, it beggars belief that less than 30% have a corporate profile.

I do not think I need to say much more to be honest, except that maybe I shouldn’t have let out this piece of news!

I am sitting here looking at mypeoplebiz.com in a kind of amazement really, when you consider they launched back  in May and find that 6 months later they have only 32 vacancies available, tells me they are doing something wrong

OK there may have been some criticism at the time from Sirona, but at the end of the day the concept is fine and is different enough to succeed. If you then consider Ford are offering just under £6,000 as a placement fee to any agency who can find a Inventory Parts Manager, surely that shows there is some potential.

I am thinking someone at the company isn’t selling this service they are just waiting for clients to call them, how difficult is it to say to the HR Manager “How would you like me to stop the 100 of calls a month from recruiters and at the same time never miss a quality candidate” on top of this wouldn’t it stop the problem of duplicate applications?

Correct me if I am wrong, thousands of companies use agencies, they all want to save cost or be seen to use alternative methods to find candidates, then why has mypeoplebiz only got just a dozen or so clients.

A standard recruiter could achieve more than this on his or her own, it cannot be that difficult to sell!

Obviously it will not suit every company, but 32 vacancies I ask you, even I could do a better job.

I have been harping on about this for sometime, that if we are going to get through 2009 we really need to step up to the mark and start behaving like real recruitment consultants and be the professional that we can be.

I and certainly many others believe the way forward is to work closer with our clients, so they can see the value we offer. There are of course many ways to become a better recruiter which I have talked about recently. On top of this being innovative or having a USP “Unique Selling Point”, I believe will also give you the edge over the competition.

As a general rule most agencies are the same, it is difficult to stand out from the crowd, when we are all saying “we are different”. Then today via Twitter, I came across Paul Halliwell of The Urquhart Partnership. On another point I am finding Twitter to be an amazing way to connect to people, with like minded interests. Now before I go off in a tangent, which I did, I wanted to bring your attention their way of doing business, which is best described in Paul’s blog post Some Questions to ask a recruiter, where he reiterates what he believes a consultant should be.

Having read through his article I found there were many points in which I agree and I certainly felt the company had an excellent USP, but one point that did catch my eye in regards to fees, is where he says

“compare this against what you are charged by a solicitor, accountant or other professional. The results are generally interesting to say the least.”

Although Paul in this case is comparing recruitment costs to solicitors costs, what I believe he has missed is that being a recruitment consult does have an affinity to the role of a solicitor or an accountant, which is important to bear in mind when doing your job as a recruiter. If you do it will help you focus on giving added value to your clients, especially if say to yourself “What if I was charging my client  by the hour?”

There is one area in which I would disagree and that is in regards to his point about recruitment consultants shouldn’t be sales people, because to be a successful solicitor or accountant sales skills are just as important, mind you Solicitors and Accounts wouldn’t admit to that!!

None the less there is no doubt that a client will be able to see why they should use The Urquhart Partnership, so long as they have someone to sell their service

As we all know the UK recruitment market is going through its toughest times at the moment, with the countless job losses. So when we here of the 100 job losses by Google which may seem insignificant, what we do not know is how many jobs have been lost with Google cutting back on out sourced work, a figure which I am sure will be much more significant!

Still I digress just a little, but wherever there is a down turn there are always industries growing, which any smart recruiter can take advantage of. So with a recent press release from Monster jobs in amongst all this negativity, they have given us some clues to which markets are seeing a growth.

In contrast, hiring of education workers rose, partly due to demand for training from unemployed workers. Modest increases were also noted in the legal; and R&D sector. you can read the full press release here

Also within markets, companies will be doing well. You only have to read this recent article on Aldi , who have just increased their graduate hires by 50%, a stark contrast to Marks and Spencer. Also with more grads fighting for less vacancies, some clients I think  could use our help Aldi in fact was one of those companies mentioned by the BBC Gold in the Gloom I gave it a mention back in July, so clues are out there.

So if your market is struggling the question is, what are you doing to survive 2009?

After a much needed break from writing posts I have to admit I am now excited to get back into the swing of it, even with the current on going doom and gloom.

So before I start I would like to thank all my readers for sticking with me during 2008 and I wish you all the best for 2009.

This year is going to be a very interesting year for recruiters with some major challenges ahead with the impact from the down turn and the many redundancies, which brings me to the current news from Marks and Spencer making over 1000 redundancies.

But what caught my eye and wasn’t really mentioned in the above article, but significant none the less was back in August a Tony Goode (Ex employee of M&S) exposed the plan that they were going to cut redundancy benefits and as a result was fired.

It now seems that this cut was all part of a master plan by M&S to fiddle their employees, knowing that they were going to make redundancies in the new year. But to rub salt in the wound, a recent redundancy payout to the ex Food Director Steve Esom of £500,oo0.00  for under performing after just a year was OK, whereas employees with 30 years or more would have lost £9,000 by the stroke of the pen!

As I write this I cannot see if the proposal that was instigated in August went ahead, but if it didn’t then Tony is a hero, but I suspected it did.

Oh well I suppose the £1 billion in profit their employees made for them last year, means nothing!

I am just a little late with this post, but I was still keen to post as it was an interesting read, well so long as you are not on the end of the scenarios below.

The article is from Rebecca at www.theladders.co.uk, still I she has missed a couple of signs, not been invited to the pub at lunch time and conversations suddenly stopping as you walk in to the canteen, oh what horrible times!

Jobs in Jeopardy: TheLadders.co.uk Checklist for

At-Risk Executives

Executive Careers Site Maps Out Warning Signs and Offers Tips on

How to Protect Your Career in Turbulent Times

London, 21^st November: – Is your job safe?  UK unemployment is rising at its fastest rate in 17 years, amidst widespread projections for more belt-tightening throughout the remainder of 2008.  TheLadders.co.uk, the UK’s leading the senior executive careers site, has put together a culling checklist for high-level workers feeling threatened by the current market.

TheLadders.co.uk checklist highlights the telltale warning signs that your job is at risk and helps employees to protect their positions in periods of corporate cut-backs.

“It is easy in these turbulent times to panic about the stability of your job and perhaps act in haste,” says Derek Pilcher, Managing Director of TheLadders.co.uk.  “Employees need to keep their options open but at the same time they mustn’t lose focus on the job they are already doing.  Be prepared at work to put that little bit extra in and voluntarily take on a little more responsibility so that you are indispensable. Keep networking in your businesses’ industry and don’t be tempted to run away and hide from the current climate – embrace it and you will come out fighting on the other side.”

Derek Pilcher, Managing Director of TheLadders.co.uk is available for interview. For more information, please contact Ken Hooper at Cherish PR, Tel: 0208 996 9545 or email: ken.hooper@cherishpr.com

About TheLadders.co.uk

TheLadders.co.uk is the UK’s leading online recruitment service catering to the hi-end £50K+ job market. Launched in January 2008 the London-based company is the first port of call for senior executives to keep their finger on the pulse of the elite job market, with a suite of services including access to the most £50K+ jobs in one place, links to the UK’s biggest corporate employers, agencies and headhunters, CV critiquing and customised profiling, regular email alerts and an environment to prospect for new opportunities within the country’s biggest industries – finance, sales and marketing, legal, technology and operations.

TheLadders.co.uk is owned by TheLadders.com. Founded in 2003 by Marc Cenedella TheLadders.com has grown into the largest specialty employment website in the world, with over 1,900,000 members and over 35,000 recruiters. TheLadders.com is headquartered in New York with European headquarters in London.  To see more, please visit www.theladders.co.uk

As the hype continues in regards to the recession, I was happy to read on Recruiter about Daulton Construction Personnel, who are bucking the trend and are actually growing at their fastest rate in 14 years.

I wanted to give this a mention as I know some recruiters are struggling particularly within the construction and finance sectors at the moment. As I said back in July “Thank heavens for the Recession” you can succeed in difficult trading times. The key is to be aware of it but not get dragged down with the continued negativity from the media. For me when times were difficult you only had to look out the window and see the lorries are still flowing up and down the motorways and people still need to eat and drink.

As a result the world is still ticking over, granted it will be more difficult, but there are still opportunities like you can see with Michael Daulton who is succeeding within one of the hardest hit sectors.

You can read the short article here.

So dont Panic!

I have been meaning to write this article for sometime, mind you it is the only way I am going to empty my inbox! I didn’t want to delete them as I felt they were quite unique and an interesting niche, so I wanted to give them a mention.

They are a relatively new company called ten2two, the name is based on the ideal hours for a mum, who wants to carry on working once the kids are old enough to go to school or nursery. Although I am not a mum, but a proud father I can relate to this on a number of levels, but for me to have been able to work from home and watch my two daughters grow up has been a privilege, which many fathers miss.

It is an undeniable fact that there are many professional and highly qualified women (and not forgetting the men of course) do not work, because companies generally do not have the imagination that maybe someone with the skills and experience could actually achieve the same if not more, than less experienced candidates who work 9to6.

I know I have said this before, but I will never forget meeting one of the top consultants at a major search and select company who worked flexible hours, she produced more revenue than her colleges in nearly half the time while bringing up her children.

Thankfully I am lucky to have a boss who was willing to take a chance, apart from not being in the office I am in another country and in the time I have been with Arithon, I have managed to double the amount of new clients to the previous year, which says it all I think.

There is no doubt that ten2two will suceed, the key is getting clients to see the advantages.