Good recruiters need more than pay

HIGH SALARIES could be attracting money driven, aggressive sales people to the recruitment industry rather than focused professionals, according to the head of a local recruitment firm.

Speaking on a panel at a recent Recruitment and Consulting Services Association (RCSA) conference, Wayman Chapman, CEO of Rubicor, said: “Paying people too much, too quickly can lead to a dominant focus on sales and remuneration.”

“As soon as young professionals entering recruitment move up the ladder, which usually happens quite quickly, their remuneration figure can double and this tends to provoke behavioural and attitudinal change in people.

“Recruitment companies need to be talent managers of their own talent and should look at a variety of ways to remunerate and retain quality staff- paying them more is not the answer,”he said.

Panellists also said focusing on genuinely servicing candidates rather than just clients, competing on service rather than price and solving attraction and retention issues are some of the recruitment industry’s biggest opportunities for the future.

“In the scheme of things, companies that can solve candidate issues, both attraction and retention, will do well,” said Steven Cartwright, CEO of Chandler Macleod.

“Bright and capable high performers get bored after 18 months and money is simply not going to hold them.”

Deb Wilson, executive chairman of Hamilton James Bruce, said: “It’s about re-looking at the way we engage staff, as different people have different motivations.”

While attraction and retention of quality staff was seen as one of the biggest issues affecting the recruitment industry, the biggest opportunity identified by the panel for growth in the industry is to start servicing candidates more effectively.

“The single biggest opportunity for the recruitment industry is to conquer the magic in getting our minds beyond servicing clients and start servicing candidates,” Chapman said.