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Savannah
18-08-2012, 12:38 PM
Recruitment practices for entry level sales/customer service positions are more sophisticated in this day than it was six years ago. A typical process at present would be in the following chronological order should every stage be successful:

1. Phone Interview with Recruitment Agency
2. Face to Face Interview with Recruitment Agency
3. Face to Face Interview with the Company hiring for the role [No HR Manager involved]
4. Online Assessment / Personality Test
5. Second Face to Face Interview with the Company hiring for Role [No HR Manager involved]
6. Reference Checks
7. Job Offer

[The above process can last 4 to 6 weeks]

Six years ago, for the same position in a well established company, an industry leader with above market entry level salary plus additional perks; the following process applied:

1. Phone Interview with Recruitment Agency
2. Face to Face Interview with the Recruiting Agent that conducted the phone interview as well as with a HR Manager from the Company that is hiring for the position at Company Premises.
3. Advised immediately after the Interview of success; Reference Checks
4. Job Offer

[The above process lasted 1 week]

What I have found is that the recruitment process six years ago was simple and straight foward compared to the so-called sophisticated methods undertaken by recruitment agencies/companies at present and yet the quality and standards of todays employees at the same level, in the same role and earning the same as those six years ago have declined dramatically.

Has anyone else noticed the above?

Qld IR Consultant
22-08-2012, 12:43 PM
Short answer....Yes.....6 years ago employers were doing more recruitment in house which meant ownership of the process from start to finish....now in my opinion, which may upset some, its all about justifying numbers....Purely my thoughts of course....

Moz
22-08-2012, 02:35 PM
.....6 years ago employers were doing more recruitment in house ...

My experience has been the complete opposite.

In 20+ years working in, or associated with, the recruitment industry, I have never seen such a massive shift back to in house recruitment as I have seen in the last 6 years.

Many many medium to large companies have hired specialist internal recruiters, in some cases whole teams of them, and mostly the people have come from the recruitment industry itself, (they are not HR people).

Savannah
22-08-2012, 03:21 PM
Short answer....Yes.....6 years ago employers were doing more recruitment in house which meant ownership of the process from start to finish....now in my opinion, which may upset some, its all about justifying numbers....Purely my thoughts of course....

Thank you for your response QLD IR Consultant. That totally makes sense.

What I'm finding now is a seemingly complex recruitment process with a lot fancy tests involved and numerous interviews with so many People and yet turnover rates are extremely high and the quality of workers on the whole is poor.

HR Personnel at a lot of Companies are being under-utilised or virtually non-existent as Recruitment Agencies deal directly with Department Managers. But meeting the Department Manager does not seem to be enough as you are also made to meet more Senior Managers or Managers of other Departments who do not have the necessary skills that a HR Manager would have in conducting interviews. And on and on the process goes for the same Job; from one interview to another - from one assessment test to the other to find something that exists only in their mind but not in reality.

So many People and Processes are involved for the one role that the line of hiring becomes distorted as Personnel from the Company fail to communicate effectively with the Recruitment Officer from the Recruitment Agency and can end up leaving all Parties frustrated and the wrong Candidate being selected.

The way the Recruitment process runs these days is like the Couple that finally got married after their 10th year of dating and then got divorced after their first year of marriage. It took so long for them to find out they weren't right for each other, lol.

Savannah
22-08-2012, 03:38 PM
My experience has been the complete opposite.

In 20+ years working in, or associated with, the recruitment industry, I have never seen such a massive shift back to in house recruitment as I have seen in the last 6 years.

Many many medium to large companies have hired specialist internal recruiters, in some cases whole teams of them, and mostly the people have come from the recruitment industry itself, (they are not HR people).

In the last 6 years I have seen Companies not only cut their ties with Recruitment Agencies they had contracted to hire their People - but they have also all but dimished the role of HR in not only the hiring process, but in also managing the well-being of their workforce as Department Managers now do EVERYTHING from one end of the company to the other. Department Managers have now doubled up as HR/Recruitment Managers in addition to all the other added Job Roles they have had to undertake as per Company cost-cutting and downgrading measures.

I was very fortunate to have been recruited by a In House Recruiting Agent in the past. The Recruitment Agent had complete control over the entire process from end to end with the HR Manager from the Company only acting as the sidekick. It made for a very healthy, vibrant, STABLE and PROFESSIONAL workforce/environment.

In this day and age - People and Processes have become dis-engaged.

Tiger
22-08-2012, 03:57 PM
Yep - definitely trending back to inhouse (Agencies have become too costly in times where costs are really monitored and budgets cut by organizations).
Time to recruit also longer because now employers have to be so very careful to get the right person because it has become so hard to get rid of someone if you make a mistake - sadly few managers (I've come across anyhow) know how to manage during probation so that window of opportunity is often lost. So things like pre-employment medicals, police checks (not necessarily around back then) add to the time factor. More companies do it with same amount of doctors out there - they are booked weeks in advance and sometimes the wait for a PEM is weeks - often leading to loss of the candidate 'cost they got another job!

Further, we live in an increasing environment of employment legislation with all sorts of threatened fines etc (on individuals) so paranoia becomes the norm in some places. Finally, the biggest issue is hard to find skills. In some industries (think IT), it can take 3 months (Agencies have the same problem here), to find someone and even then they may not quite have the skills!

It's a tough world out there and just sometimes I yearn for the days of the "fireside chat" interview, quick decision and you have the one you want on board quicky.

Moz
22-08-2012, 04:14 PM
In this day and age - People and Processes have become dis-engaged.

With respect I think that's an over-generalisation.

There are a lot of organisations out there and some have HR depts that are really plugged in to the org and provide an extremely valuable service.

At the other end of the spectrum there are companies as you say that have no HR dept, or if they do, HR simply attends to "personnel" admin tasks.

Then there is everything in between ... :)

Qld IR Consultant
23-08-2012, 07:33 AM
My experience has been the complete opposite.

In 20+ years working in, or associated with, the recruitment industry, I have never seen such a massive shift back to in house recruitment as I have seen in the last 6 years.

Your probably right Moz. Depends on peoples perception I guess. I've done a lot of research in the last 6-8 months on IR specific recruitment and it was a case of employers sending it all out to agencies....unfortunately when it comes to specialists roles some agencies struggle a lot......

But I think in al honesty if an employer has the capacity to have recruitment back in house than they should do it.....IMHO of course.....