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Our COO for Xenitho used to work for a major Bank.
She worked in their HR department. They had one of the most sophisticated HR setups in the country.
No surprise, they are a bank.
They also had all the facilities for doing in-house recruitment too.
Guess what. They still used agencies.
But that isn’t what surprised me.
What surprised me was the level of poor service that they expected and tolerated from agencies.
So, a typical role would work like this.
They would send the job spec to the agencies.
Who would send them 20 CVs back.
In some cases, lightning fast. I’m talking something like 1 hour to send 20 CVs!
Wow! That sounds impressive. Amazing service, isn’t it?
Or is it really?
You know Xenitho offers a 3 week exclusivity on our talent search services. This means that the company gives us 3 weeks to do the role on effectively a sole mandate. We tell them it is 3 weeks, because it puts pressure on us to deliver fast, but still gives us enough time to do the job properly.
So, I was talking to one of our Exclusive Clients. We had just completed our site visit and cultural assessment. I actually told him that I was really impressed with his company and would actually refer business his way, as so many of our clients have the problem he solves.
So, we were sitting in their boardroom. I said to him, ok I would kick off the role as soon as possible and it would take about 2 weeks to send him his person.
And here came the kicker. He said to me, “Don’t rush. I would rather you take slightly longer and find me the right person.”
In other words, he did not really care about us pushing for speed. He wanted quality.
And you know if we think about it. That is not the first time we hear that from customers. In fact, most of our customers care about quality over speed.
So, if we think about our COO’s bank hiring experience again.
It amazes us that the organisation was content to trust agencies that push speed over all else. And let me tell you a dirty little secret from the industry.
There is a very good reason why agencies push for speed over quality. And it has nothing to do with good service. It is called CV spamming. What that means is they send as many CVs as possible, in order to prevent other agencies from competing. As companies operate on a first referral basis.
So, they know that if they send the CV first, even if someone else submits the CV later having done the work, the company will still pay them.
Which is kinda unethical, if you think about it.
But that wasn’t the most frustrating part of our COOs experience.
The most frustrating part was that every agency was doing it.
They were sending here CVs that were not relevant. She had to go through them. Tell them they were wrong, and then they would send her another 20 CVs to go through. It was clear they had no clue on what was required to fulfil business needs. It was also clear that there is no way they had tested the candidates for suitability to the role. How could they in such a short time period?
Now if it was just 20 CVs at a time, it would have been manageable. But as is common wisdom, in the industry, you must use multiple agencies and make them compete against each other. That gives you the best chances of success. But, is this common wisdom or is it in fact an old wife’s tale.
So, what would happen? She would get multiple rounds of 20 CVs from multiple agencies. The poor women would eventually end up having to review 200+ CVs for a role just to find some sort of shortlist to send to business! At that rate, she may have well done the job herself!
It drove her crazy, and I’m sure it has driven you crazy too.
Such a waste of time and resources.
She often lamented the fact that they did not have a company like Xenitho, which was not an agency, but a Talent Search Consultancy. Who took the time to do the job right, find the best people, and then send 2 or 3 Candidates who had been properly vetted and tested vs the role requirements. Using sophisticated techniques such as Role Driven Competency Testing, Career Analysis and Brain Profiling.
She often lamented that they were missing good candidates because they did not have good looking CVs. And that often they would hire candidates that looked good on paper, interviewed well, and were then duds when they hired them. HR just did not have the skills to separate the pretenders from the real deals.
She often lamented that they did not have a Talent Search Consultancy that would partner with them on a role. Take the time to sit with the line managers and understand the requirements first time. That would even visit their premises to understand their culture to ensure cultural fit.
And if you think about it, perhaps you have some of the same lamentations too. We know many of our customers do.
So, next time you need to hire critical talent. You can consider whether it really makes sense to follow the old wife’s tale of making multiple agencies compete for a role. Which means they will just rush the whole thing. Hoping to get their candidate in first, but never taking the time to do it right.
Or, is it better to partner with someone who treats you as a true partner, and who you treat as a true partner. And work together to find the person that will lift your company to new heights.
Based on our feedback from our client partners, we already know what they prefer.
And, we suspect that you do too.