SOME ADVICE IF YOU ARE EMPLOYER

A recruitment consultancy is an extraordinary way to achieve your recruitment in the long term :

• it ends up less costly than if you would do it yourself and it gives you the advantage to calculate the cost that it represents ;
  
  
• it allows you to define the profile of the candidate in a more objective way and to present your company in a more respectful shade ;
  
  
• it's a precious tool for your Human Resources staff if the post in question isn't frequently looked for, or if it involves particular technical know-how or simply because your Human Resources department is overwhelmed with work ;
  
  
• it gives you the opportunity to find candidates who are already at post, or do not know your company, or even might have a bad, or neutral image of it...

All the same, the relation between an employer and a recruitment agency isn't always that blunt. Why ? The following lines, written with a straightforward and balanced ambition, will hopefully give an answer.

THE ROLE PLAYED BY THE RECRUITMENT AGENCY
(Why they frighten some employers ?)

Most people do not deny the mixture of attraction and repulsion, when they hear of a recruitment agency, in particular when talking of " head-hunters ".

The cabinets may frighten, as they are working with, directly or indirectly, basic important values : money, work, the individual future of the person and the questioning of the competencies of the employee.

What are the recruitment consultancy firms ; judges, obstacles, destabilising elements or on the contrary facilitators , ambassadors and stabilising elements ?

Generally, the candidate, or the one whom eventually one day might become one - accept to be evaluated by his future employer, but does not accept the middleman, the intermediary, that is the agency to do so. This because the candidate feel that the agency lacks the moral right and the competence to judge him or her. It might be interesting to stop here and to look on what the origins of these feelings might be.

BY WHAT RIGHT ARE YOU JUDGING ME ? (the moral right)

" Who are you to judge me ? How dare you, by your standards, put my career, my future employment at stake ? "
Particularly in France the recruitment consultancy firms or the intermediaries or more generally the servicemen provoke suspicion (" the middleman is not the hand that'll feed you "). One of the professional test that some of the candidates undergo at our cabinet INTUITU PERSONÆ result almost always by putting the responsibility at stake of a firm of auditors and advice... Our civilisation rely to " la chose tangible ", carnal, material, in its heavy and visible evidence : a museum, or a feast hall will be preferred, by a community counsel, to any nursing plan for elderly people or a group of social workers. This moral right of the agency to " judge " and " evaluate ", and at times to " discriminate " is attacked, as it touches the " essentials " of life, or anyhow what " society " considers essential :

• Money ;
  
  
• Rank ;
  
  
• Intelligence ;
  
  
• The Ego (by personality tests) ;
  
  
• The Principles of life (opinions concerning the politics of a company etc.)

PROVE YOUR CAPACITY...

The profession still grows in a certain untouched ground : it is not yet under ossifying enabling acts, nor under heavy administrative authorisation rules, to start up a recruitment agency. There is not yet any specific administrative legislation for this professional activity.

It is the market that allows to recognize the good ones from the bad ones. After all it's not too bad, but, as freedom creates incertitude. Some attempts have been done in order to impose a certain standardisation like the ISO 9000 of quality guaranteed. They haven't though, been met with a lot of enthusiasm. Evidently it is difficult to see how it could be otherwise, as truly as it comes down to very relative things, " intuitu personae ", between the company and the consultant, that make the difference, even before renown and reputation.

What is more, the companies demands are very different and the success of the recruitment may very well depend on the company's attitude...

It is true that many consultancy firms were started in the eighties, due to the economical growth and the job markets heavily need for new employees. The way to perform with simply a large number of addresses and a good deal of connections with companies seemed to be sufficient enough. If you had a diploma with a " psychology " in it, it was even better.

In reality many of them did not realise the obstacles ahead. It wasn't that easy. The management of the agency's image turned out to be very costly, something very important to a supplier of services. So many of them failed and failed in the nineties economical crisis. The difficulties came from inherent consultants and an inhabituated managerial team.

HOW TO BVE A GOOD CONSULTANT

The essential qualities necessary to a good consultant are many and more various than you might first imagine. Being in possession of a diploma in psychology doesn't by necessity gives you empathy and the aptitudes of being analytic. It's nor a guarantee that the consultant has the know-how of the business world and thus the profession he or she is assigned to recruit for.

Having a diploma is simply a presumption, unfortunately a rather often proven wrong presumption, that the consultant has an analytical mind and knows how to interpret and synthesise a situation. A diploma is not enough. The feeling and the common sense is generally not found in books and thesis.

Nor is the mind of business.

In fact one shouldn't forget that the consultant is always trying to sell something to someone: the agency (its image and its services) to the clients, the client (the company) to the applicants, and the client (his potentials and his know-how) to the company.

Other qualities are necessary. Like for instance working rapidly. It has to do with managing your time-schedule. Any consultant is in a way, a project manager : he finds his clients, he assumes a " production ", he is in charge of his agenda. It all has to do with decision-making. Often the interview with the applicant is the decisive factor, whilst this meeting cannot be too long, as any company, the agency as well, needs a positive turn-over.

To be firm, that is, being capable to say " no " is likewise an imperative being consultant. No, to the company, looking for a non-realistic profile. No, to the candidate at first contacted for the position and whose personality doesn't fit in with the company. No, to his own personal subjectivity and no to other things more.

Let us look a bit more closely to these different points.

The non-realistic profile is troublesome for the consultant. In reality nothing is impossible. Everything depends on how much the client is ready to spend in order to achieve what he wants. If the delay is short , the selection and the hunting must be accomplished by many consultants at the time, the costs will obviously be more important.
A top-profile suppose that the company is attractive enough (perennial, top salary, good market-prognosis etc.) The impossible profile is often the result of the ambition to realise a dream that comes up when there is a demand to employ. Many times the idea to look for somebody outer the company might be that this person should be able to solve all immanent problems of the company. When thinking like that, there is a tendency to define the profile of the employee to something that is not existent and rather the result of a fantasy. It comes to the consultant in that case to redefine with the client a more realistic profile.
Sometimes it's in the interest of the agency to say no to a candidate most willing to work for a company as the company's profile risks to come out very negative for the candidate in the long run. The candidates are clients, as well as the companies.

It's a question of match-making. If the candidate turns-out to be too good for the company the company will suffer thereof as well, as the employee will be disappointed and not at ease on his new post.

THE OBSTACLES THAT THE CONSULTANT WILL FACE

The inspirations for many a service suppliers are often the reasons why the companies are puzzled with our work. In fact, the attitude of plenty of company-managers and those in charge of Human Resources varies between negative resentments (despise of the mercenary, fear of being judged, fear of the competitiveness of the company or simply the scepticism of letting " outsiders " inside, the vindictiveness) and positive one's like the consultant will do miracles with the company and resolve all problems because " he knows what's on " in other companies and has got methods that are unequivocal.

• The fear of being esteemed. Any decision to recruit is to raise doubts about the company's internal organisation. Normal conservatism and self preservation to this fact give at hand that you're more likely to look for someone whose personality and know-how correspond to the person you're about to replace, though this profile and his or her personality are at times more the result of coincidences rather than of what the market is asking for. This might be the beginning of a mission impossible.
  
  
• Confidentiality. The fear to reveal certain information about the company due to confidentiality, may be protective enough, although it may in this case lead to that candidates are given the wrong impression and are guided onwards to the company where they wouldn't ever fit in.
  
  
• Vengeance. Revenge is a rarely spoken about factor, though sometimes people with responsibilities who never had the luck to be proposed a position when they were in relation with a recruitment agency, could be rather despising and arrogant when having to work with recruiters that are head-hunters.
  
  
• Positives that might be negative. Sometimes, the idea that the consultant is a wonder-maker for the company's recruitment lead to that the disappointment wouldn't fail as it turns out that the consultant is merely a man.

It is true that the agency inspires these two great ; repulsion and attraction.

AND STILL COMPANIES ENGAGE RECRUITMENT AGENCIES

The reasons why one engages recruitment agencies whilst intending to recruit are of two kinds : Acknowledged ones and obviously not-acknowledged such reason...

Acknowledged reasons might be : " I haven't got the time myself , I can't find someone I'd like at my competitor as it's illegal for me to hunt as an employer, I'd like to have the advice of someone who knows the job-market, who is more objective than me, who has the interest that the recruitment works. Let us stay a bit at this latter ; in theory in the absence of a contract telling otherwise, the agency is not bound to an obligation of results but to an obligation of means.
The jurisprudence in this matter is clear and firm, by the French courts, applying the legislation and the doctrine of contract-law. This means that the agency is compelled to use all the means necessary to find the candidate wanted but that it is under no obligation to find what is not possible to find. Compelled to hunt, but not to present game.
Practically, due to commercialism and finance, things are often a bit different.
The client doesn't pay the balance with a happy face if the candidate hasn't been found. Likewise the agency extends the mission if it doesn't find a candidate that pleases the consultants, or if the candidate doesn't accept the work-contract proposed.

And as any other firm, the agency is eager to receive the balance a.s.a.p. ; and thus to end successfully the missions. To end a mission after all is to have a successful recruitment.

There are many other acknowledged reasons of course.

Not so acknowledged reasons are various as well. If the agency is specialised in the recruitment of bookkeepers, for making an illustration, and the responsible of the recruitment department within a company knows nothing about the profession in question it might be a good idea to have the assistance of consultants that daily deals with the recruitment of bookkeepers. Normal as companies in general doesn't recruit this kind of professionals. Turning to a recruiter allows you as well to avoid " interventions " and other recommendations (the INTUITU PERSONÆ agency is well aware of the fact that questions concerning recruitment have a tendency to interest a large number of persons) from people around and within the company. It does happen that employees are trying to put a pressure on the recruiter or the recruitment department of a firm, they have preferences on whom to recruit etc. Engaging a recruitment agency makes it easy to answer that any question concerning the recruitment is dealt with by the agency and that only they impartiality decide on whom to receive for an interview.

Not to forget, that if so should happen, the recruitment doesn't turn out to be a success, the one to blame is the agency, that reruns the mission as there is a guarantee (INTUITU PERSONÆ applies normally a guarantee that runs for one year after the initial recruitment).

Engaging an agency gives you as well the advantage of confidentiality and discretion, like this you can escape to pass advertisements in the press in the name of your firm. The reasons for keeping this secrecy vary of course.

Evidently there are a multitude of not so acknowledged reasons for engaging an agency some even immoral and penalised by law. Sometimes companies want the head-hunting cabinet to hunt down all the personnel from a particular competitor. This is clearly contrary to the legislation.

The variety of reasons demonstrate that it from time to time clashes between the agency and the client.

• The company doesn't want the recruitment agency to have exclusivity at the mission.
  To put several consultancy firms in competition, or to continue by itself to look for persons for the post in question is dangerous and could be harmful as even though the intentions might be the best, risk that candidates are being contacted several times for the same position, confused by this and the image of both the consultancy firm and the company suffer.
  
  
• The company doesn't like to pay other than on the result.
  It has in this case to do with what one considers by " result " insofar as the company rules what is to be considered a result, in this case the company is both the judge and party, obviously this situation doesn't really coincide with good business manners. Any serious company knows that effort demands pay. This way to work exists but it remains rather rare.
  
  
• Companies that have internal discords.
  The agency can hardly involve itself in internal conflicts within the structure of a company. Let us imagine a Human Resources department that doesn't like a candidate but he or she is appreciated by the General Manager, but not by the staff of the department where he or she is supposed to be functional. This is something that certainly refrains the recruitment agency from performing at it's best.
  
  
• The company changes the profile whilst the mission is running.
  When defining the profile many things may be well and sound in theory, but facing reality, things may very well alter, the market doesn't need the particular know-how and so on. The market and its demands do fluctuate tremendously fast. In such cases the client may feel that he or she wants to change the profile. This is disastrous if the agency is not informed. Most important is that the agency and the client are on the same level. Efforts to discover good " hunting-places " might come out to be in vain if any change is done. Not to forget the fact that a candidate finally found doesn't necessarily fits to the job in question.