People are the most important components of business…
It’s only right to make sure you’re hiring the best people for your team. But how? Have you got time to read an inbox full of CV’s and applications? Can you write an attention-grabbing job advert that’ll attract only the best digital marketers? Can you draw on 20+ years of interviewing experience to get the best and worst out of your candidates? My guess is probably no.
Save time
As I write this I’ve just come off a phone call with a business owner, where we discussed that fact he didn’t have time to write a job description. To which my response was, ‘don’t worry about that, I can help put one together’. He also said he didn’t have time to read a lot of CV’s or meet a lot of people. Again, not a problem. I’ll always prescreen and shortlist candidates so he’ll only meet a couple of people who can really do the job. It’s what specialist recruiters like clockworkTalent do. I take away the ‘faff’ and as he put it, he definitely needs a bit more de-faffing in his life!
Protect your brand reputation
There’s nothing worse than a poorly written job advert, or to see people sharing job vacancies on social media, for the wrong reasons! Recruitment at it’s best is a fantastic PR exercise for a company, at it’s worst it can turn people off a company altogether. We want everyone coming away from a recruitment experience thinking ‘what a great company, maybe one day I can work for them!’
While it can be time-consuming, it’s always best to give feedback and let people down gently. It’s valued and can even be constructive for their future careers. This is where a specialist recruiter can protect your brand’s reputation by taking the job away from you and ensure all applicants are contacted.
Deep digital marketing industry knowledge
The real plus of the specialist recruiter is the deep sector knowledge. From bringing great insight on the wider digital marketing landscape (from both agency and inhouse perspectives), to how career paths evolve, the challenges, salaries, methodologies and best practices. It’s a minefield for any hiring manager, let alone trying to recruit technical roles. Using a specialist recruiter helps clear a path through those landmines.
Being able to craft enticing job adverts with the right language is important. As is being able to deeply question skills, experience and achievements. Without industry knowledge, this becomes a lot more challenging. In the CV screening phase, my deep industry knowledge means I can interpret CV’s, suggest areas which might need further exploration at interviews and gain insight into people’s careers, identifying notable highlights (both for good and bad reasons!). It also means I can spot the blaggers who can talk a good talk but won’t be able to deliver the goods in the job.
100% guarantee
Recruiters often offer a guarantee on people they get hired. Normally it’s a reducing rebate which diminishes over a fixed time period. When we started clockworkTalent, I decided to put a 100% guarantee on our placements for 10 weeks. This 10 weeks period gives both the employer and employee time to get to know each other properly. As well as both parties ensuring it’s been a good career move and hire for the business. If for any reason it doesn’t work out, other than redundancy, we’d initially try to find a replacement but if not, we’d return the entire fee. This means our employers are only paying for successful recruitment.
How to spot a good‘un
Recruitment agencies are often likened to estate agencies. You either love them or hate them. But how do you find a good one? Repeat recruitment work is a sign of a successful recruitment agency. For an employer to return to a recruiter to help their business grow means the recruiter must have done a good job in the first place. It’s one of the reasons I’m proud to say I’ve hired 4 or 5 times for some clients as their businesses have expanded over the years. We’ve also got better and better at predicting their cultural fit and often have a 1:1 conversion on sending a CV to making a job offer.
Handholding both employers and job seekers through the negotiation of a job offer is important to me. I manage expectations right the way through the process so we’re more likely to get an acceptance to an offer with no surprises in a job seekers expectations. At the point of resignation, I’m still by their side making sure we don’t all waste our time by losing them to an unexpected company buy-back scenario.
Even once your new employee starts, I’d keep close with both the employer and the new starter. Just making sure everyone is happy. Not allowing little niggles to escalate into actual, unnecessary problems. Sometimes it’s much easier to ask your specialist recruiter to relay advise to your new start.
The experience of one project can make or break an opinion which is while I believe the personal touch is important. Over the years we’ve worked with thousands of people and I’m pleased to call so many of them friends. I’m pleased to share reviews from just some of clockworkTalent’s past projects from both our employers and successful job seekers.
Whether you’re a business owner looking to hire your first pair of safe digital marketing hands, or a hiring manager looking to expand the digital marketing team with specific skills in Tech SEO, Paid Media, Analytics, Content, Social Media, please email hiring@clockworktalent.com or call me directly on 02037514108 and I’d be pleased to discuss your project and how we can help.
