Tag: head hunting

30 Aug 2018

Why should I use an executive recruiter or an executive recruiting firm?

Many companies take advantage of the services offered by executive recruiters and executive recruiting firms to aid them in finding high-level candidates. Executive recruiters are skilled specialists in the recruiting field who can find and fill those critical management level positions. But why should I use an executive recruiting firm to fill my executive level roles?

Here are four reasons you should use the services of an executive recruiter or an executive recruiting firm.

  • Executive Recruiters have a network of contacts

Executive level candidates are scarce and the positions are usually hard to fill. Why? Many executive level candidates are not actively job-hunting. They are typically already gainfully employed and might not be thinking about a new job. This thus not mean, however, that these candidates would not be open to a new opportunity. They would be open the opportunity was available. In-house human resource departments have a limited number of contacts when compared to a wide net that is available to an executive recruiter. Executive recruiters know what is happening in the employment marketplace and the client’s industry and are better positioned to make calls and contact with the right candidates for the role.

  • Executive Recruiters weed out the “Bad” candidates

Once you post a job advertisement, be prepared to be bombarded with many unqualified candidates that will email, call or message on LinkedIn at the office. No matter the method that is chosen, the one thing that is in common with these persons is that they are not qualified for the job. Your company’s HR department being occupied with the influx of resumes and applications will struggle in making any substantial progress in its search for qualified candidates in addition to keeping up with their everyday tasks. The Executive Recruiters will trim and narrow down all applicants that have applied, and provide you with the three best-qualified candidates for the role.

  • Executive Recruiters are Confidential

Some job openings that are available for organizations can leave them particularly vulnerable, thus requiring a certain level of confidentiality when filling that role. Whether it is an existing position that is to be filled or a newly created position due to a new market opportunity, the process must be kept confidential from either the existing job holder or from the client’s competitors. This confidentiality is important in keeping everyone unaware of any management shake-ups, new products or new market initiatives. Search consultants value the highly sensitive information they become privy to during the search process. They are acutely aware and respectful of their client’s vulnerability which would be reflected in the recruitment process from advertising to screening.

  • Executive Recruiters save Time and Money

Steve Viscusi in his blog identified that “the benefit of using an executive search firm can be weighed against the cost of preparing and executing an advertisement/recruitment campaign, screening and qualifying candidates, and operating without a needed employee for an extended length of time compared to the relative insurance of getting the right person for the job.” As discussed before your company’s HR department can be filled with resumes and applications taking time away from everyday tasks.  Mark Wayman in his blog post asks these critical questions “Would you rather run the business or sort through the resumes of unqualified candidates? Is it worth it to have an Executive Recruiter save you a hundred hours of interview time by providing the three best candidates? If you hire the wrong person on your own and they leave after six months, how much does that cost? In the long run, it is more cost-effective to hire the right person the first time around.” Using executive are an investment in the improvement of the quality of an organization’s managerial personnel and thus an improvement in the organization’s productivity.

Caribbean HR Solutions has a team of experienced executive recruiters in Jamaica that will help you to fill those management level positions. For more information feel free to contact us at 1-876-971-7632 or email us at sales@caribbeanhrsolutions.com.

 

06 Jun 2018

4 Tips That Attracts Good Talent

1. Teach Your HR Team to Be Active on LinkedIn

Most of the time, talented candidates are already employed and aren’t actively looking for new opportunities. But you can find them on social networking platforms like LinkedIn where they show off their skills and share their expertise. That’s why your recruiters should create a LinkedIn profile for your organization and share news about vacancies. A well-written job description will attract talent hanging out on the network.

All members of your HR team also need to optimize their personal LinkedIn profiles so passive candidates can find them. Make sure your recruiters know how to effectively search for LinkedIn profiles of professionals who have the right skills and qualifications. Once they identify these candidates, recruiters should have engaging recruitment messages on hand so they can approach and target these professionals.

“If you’re after candidates with niche skill sets, consider building a candidate database. Your recruiters will be able to keep track of professionals and respond quickly to candidates who apply for a position.”

2. Keep Your Recruitment Process Short

Glassdoor recently revealed that the typical hiring process lasts around 22 days.  If you ask any candidate, they’ll tell you that three weeks is way too long. A recruitment process that drags along will never attract and engage talent. A slow response from your team won’t keep talented candidates interested in your offer. And other employers might snatch these candidates out of your hands.

How can you shorten your recruitment process? Here are some key strategies you should start implementing in your team right now:

  • Make your careers website mobile-friendly – candidates like to check new job offers on mobile devices, so reach them by optimizing your content for mobile.
  • Ensure that your team reviews applications daily – you can’t afford to lose talented leads who come knocking at your door. Recruiters need to pay close attention to incoming applications and address them promptly.
  • Schedule interviews as soon as you accept a resume – your HR team should quickly respond to applications from talent and be flexible in adjusting to their schedules.
  • Follow up with candidates on a regular basis – talented candidates need to be informed about their current stage in the recruitment process.
  • Don’t hesitate to present the offer when the hiring manager agrees to hire a candidate – recruiters should be quick in following up with an offer. It can be the same day or a day after. Otherwise, they risk losing the candidate to another company.

3. Personalize Your Hiring Process

Sometimes it’s hard to imagine that recruiters should personalize their communication when hundreds of candidates apply for vacant positions. Personalization is a challenge, but your team should never forget that resumes represent real human beings who deserve respect. Talented candidates spend a lot of time crafting their resumes and tailoring their applications to match the job description. From their perspective, it’s fair to expect a personalized approach in return.

A cold and impersonal recruitment process will inevitably damage your employer brand. You’ll never attract the type of candidates that you’re trying to source. Help your HR team realize that every time they get in touch with a candidate, they’re representing your company. The hiring process should be efficient and transparent. That’s how you build a positive employer brand that catches the eye of top talent.

4. Emphasize Return on Investment (ROI)

A recent report showed that companies that actively source talented candidates can boost their revenue by over 200% compared to organizations that don’t engage in such activities. That’s why your HR team should stop focusing exclusively on candidate skills and qualifications, and look instead into their quantifiable achievements. If a candidate writes on their resume that they’ve increased sales by 12%, your team can bet that they will achieve similar results in the position they’re trying to fill.

Your HR team needs to have a good understanding of how significant ROI and revenue are for your company. They’ll look for candidates who can streamline processes and optimize them to impact your bottom line.

Key Takeaway

Attracting, sourcing and engaging talent is a top priority for every organization these days. You need a smooth and personalized recruitment process to engage these passive candidates efficiently, especially if you’re searching for unique skill sets. Use these four strategies to teach your HR team how to hire the most impressive talent in your niche.

 

For more info:

 

23 Apr 2018

Industry Talent Composition & Improvement Areas to Foster Growth

The 1st Outsource2Jamaica Symposium & Expo was held on April 11-13, 2018 at the Montego Bay Convention Centre, Montego Bay, Jamaica.

This BPO event hosted by the BPIAJ (Business Process Industry of Jamaica) is the 1st of its kind to be held in Jamaica bringing together a diverse group of global experts, technocrats, local entrepreneurs, Government officials, BPO leaders, buyers and service providers at the first ever Outsourcing Symposium and Expo in Jamaica. It was a great opportunity to network and interact with key stakeholder’s in the BPO industry and listen to presentations made by experts in the industry.

Debra Fraser, CEO for Caribbean HR Solutions, presented on “Industry Talent Composition & Improvement Areas to Foster Growth”. She examined the need for training in the BPO sector and possible improvements that could be made to the existing training avenues. She highlighted the importance of having pre-trained candidates and the need for assessments to determine the skills and talents of individuals prior to training as this will help to boost productivity and profitability.

 

Here are four steps that need to be used by the training institutions and the organizations in the BPO sector to ensure that they receive the best performance from their employees.

  1. Better Pre-Assessment of natural giftings, skills, and attitudes and desire.
  • Assess #1- What industry and job is this job-seeker best suited for? BPO, Finance, Hospitality? Entertainment? Construction? -assessed for industry ‘fit’ – not just typing and talking, but a deeper and more objective assessment of natural proclivities
  • Assess #2 – If the person is suited for the BPO industry, what type of BPO job are they best suited for: Sales? Collections?  specialized in areas like Customer Service, Sales, Collections and Technical Support, comprising while others Virtual real estate schedulers, remote data analyst, remote payroll administrators, virtual Executive assistants,
  1. Use objective assessment tools. i.e psychometric assessment, computer-based test etc
  2. Use technology to ensure the assessments can be fairly administered and administered in mass. If you have the discipline to screen persons ‘out’, then you will need a much higher number of persons to screen in order to supply providers with necessary requirements. We have developed a Prescreening Psychometric screening tool, cloud-based skills and personality assessment which our clients use to ‘weed out’ and find the best candidates.
  3. Begin to use the same objective approach in selecting and accepting students for supervisory and leadership development courses. here is a large training gap in the BPO sector particularly as it relates to the training of middle-level management. Some BPO companies, for instance, Sutherland, Teleperformance, and Startek have invested heavily in training and development internally and this has contributed significantly to their sustainable growth.

 

In Summary, finding the right fit requires employers to source true talent. Employers in the BPO industry can achieve a greater ROI when more time, effort and resources are invested in effectively assessing raw talent by leveraging the use of technology and specific assessment tools.

 

 

28 Mar 2018

Are you kicking your best talent out?

Don’t Be Surprised When Your Employees Quit

lattice-4I recently wrote a post about the financial cost companies incur from losing talented employees. My hope was to illuminate in concrete terms just how expensive it is to lose good employees. In this post, I’ll discuss how you can keep them.

Fundamentally, it starts with empathy. The employer-employee relationship is just like any other personal relationship; strengthening it requires putting yourself in the other person’s shoes.

Companies need to start by thinking; why would an employee quit? From there they can improve their organization to better retain top talent.

Reason 1: Bad managers ruin everything

“People leave managers, not companies.”

Many of us who spend time thinking about management have heard that phrase.

As it turns out, it’s true.

Of all the reasons people leave companies, having a bad manager tops the list. According to Gallup polls, a full 50% of employees who quit cite their manager as the reason.

People might join a company for the compensation, growth opportunities, or mission, but they frequently leave because they don’t have a good relationship with their manager.

Unsurprisingly, the manager relationship is highly correlated with employee engagement. A good proxy for the strength of the relationship is how comfortable an employee is approaching their manager with any type of question. The responses to this statement has a clear relationship with employee engagement:

lattice-1

Source: Gallup poll

And why shouldn’t an employee place substantial value on her relationship with her direct manager?

A good manager will give you the freedom to grow, mentor you to be better at what you do, and make your daily work enjoyable. A bad manager, by contrast, can hold you back professionally, developmentally, and make you unhappy.

Solution: As a company, be obsessed with the quality of your managers

The cost of a bad manager is too high to tolerate. Not only will people quit much more often, but they’ll be much less productive before they do.

Being a good manager isn’t rocket science, but it takes work. And unfortunately, a lot of managers don’t put the same dedication into the craft of people management as they do into the craft of what they consider their “real” work.

Good management takes effort and experience, but it’s really pretty straightforward.

versusThese differences make a huge impact. Looking at just one example of a basic management function, goal setting, shows this. When employees were asked to rate their feelings on the statement “My manager helps me set performance goals”, 69% of employees who said “strongly agree” were considered engaged in their work, compared to 8% said “disagree” or “strongly disagree”. (Source: Gallup poll)

The other basic principles of management are similarly important; these are tried and trued foundations for how people work well together.

So companies, beware: A bad manager is much more detrimental than you think and needs to be corrected as quickly as possible.

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