When trying to estimate the odds of success of flipping a coin or pulling a card out of a deck, the way most people appraise the odds of success is simple. You know the set number of possible outcomes and divide this by your chance of success.

However, when it comes to a situation where the odds of success are less visible, most people abandon the above system in place of memory. When asked to predict the chances of success in a job, most people will think back and remember how many people they know or have heard of being successful in that job.

This abandonment of looking at the odds in favor of memory can be seen in people’s fears. People will worry about being killed by terrorism, Ebola or a plane crash more than they worry about being killed by a swimming pool. But the swimming pool is far more likely to kill you than the combination of the other three.

It works the other way too. The odds of winning the lottery are infinitesimally small, but people still play because we see a lot of winners in the media. If everybody who lost last weekend’s lottery were to be interviewed for 30 seconds it would take your undivided attention for the next 9.5 years to watch it. If at the end of that you were to be asked if you wanted a lottery ticket, you’d be likely to say ‘no thank you’.

The point is this; things that come more slowly to mind aren’t necessarily less probable.

Recruiters who have worked in an environment that is heavily KPI orientated, unsuccessful or unrewarded will often believe that this is the likely outcome of working as a recruitment consultant for any other business. This is because they are estimating the odds of success based on a comparison to memory and not to the likelihood of success in the industry or in other businesses.

Take a signal recruiter using memory to estimate the odds of success. There are approximately 11,000 recruitment businesses operating in the UK today. If a recruiter has worked at two businesses they have experienced 0.02% of the industry. You may say ‘Ah, but they have five friends working at different recruitment businesses whom they have shared their experiences with’. This is a methodology that many recruiters cling vehemently to. But, even if our recruiter takes into account their 5 friend’s experiences, we’re still only talking about a combined experience of a tenth of a percent of the industry.

So what is a better system? Go back to the odds.

At a macro scale the average earnings in the recruitment industry are way above national average and 49% of recruiters have been in the industry for over 5 years. So this tells us that if you stay in recruitment passed those tricky first few years you will have better than average odds of being above averagely successful.

On a Micro scale, look at the businesses you could potentially join. How many recruiters have been successful, how many have not. How successful is the top consultant/ what is the ‘peak’ of success at this business. What is the success rate on your desk/ area of business. What is the industry average rate of success in that desk/ business area?

And in this way you can be far more systematic about your assessment. The rewards, good working environments and successes are there in recruitment. Finding it is more of a science than an art.

Richard Clarke richard@logicr2r.com

And, if the Twilight saga has taught us nothing else (and it hasn’t) it’s that monsters such as Vampires and Werewolves can be evil blood curdling denizens of the night, or misunderstood emo’s for young girls to swoon at.

Bear with me, it’s still about recruitment.

The point is, you know what all the recruitment terminology below means to you, but you might be surprised at how different a phase such as ‘360’ is taken to mean very different things to different people.

So, for my Halloween Blog, I wanted to be your guide through some commonly used recruitment terminology, some of witch are misunderstood monsters and others that are wolves in sheep’s clothing.

360 Degree Recruitment -Most like: The Mummy

Which can mean very different things. To some the phrase 360 will conjure up images of a stone cold desk with just a phone and the yellow pages with which to make money – usually accompanied by a tyrannical Team Leader ready to fire you at the slightest sign of not ‘mashing up ‘de phones’.

However, this phrase to many simply means having control over the full recruitment cycle, a 360 degree involvement, with both candidate and client contact – which can include delivery and account management.

• How to tackle this monster: Unravel the Mummy.

• Only take this phrase as meaning that you will have contact will all parts of the recruitment process. It doesn’t necessarily mean a stone cold desk, you’ll need to know more about the job specifics.

Business Development – Most like: Vampire

Yes, it can suck, and is often considered one of the more demanding parts of the recruitment job, and it will never die. But, ‘BD’ methodologies and starting points differ greatly. At one end of the scale you could have no existing leads, clients or traction and the expectation is that you create something from nothing.

At the other end of the spectrum this could mean picking up more business from familiar faces who welcome your call or visit and want to encourage you to send good talent their way.

• How to tackle this monster: Look into the eyes of the beast and find out if you’re about to drive a stake through the heart of Nosferatu or Robert Patterson. I’d suggest exploring what your starting point is, what methodology is used and what the expectations are.

KPI’s  -Most like: The Skeleton

Terrifying if you’re being chased by one, but we need at least one to keep us standing.

The existence of KPI’s in a business doesn’t tell you much, it’s how they’re applied which really matters. If KPI’s are just a bunch of numbers used for senior people in the business to hit you round the head with they are no good and counter-productive. Unfortunately this is widespread in recruitment, which is why the phrase ‘No KPI’s’ has become so popular among businesses wanting to attract recruiters.

But, do you really want to work in an environment with no KPI’s? If you ask ‘how can I be successful?’, or ‘what do I need to do?’ do you really want to answer to be ‘We don’t know’.

• How to tackle this monster: Like the Skeleton if it can be supportive or, if possessed by evil spirts, it can be a nightmare.

• Key Performance Indicators can be helpful. Ask what they are, if they are the same for everybody or adjusted to suit desk, seniority etc and ask what the business does if someone isn’t hitting KPI’s.

Internal Recruiter – Most like: Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Its very popular, and seems like a friendly face that can protect you from the other monsters, but is this really the box set you want to be watching for the rest of your career?

I place people into Internal roles and they can be great if it’s an option that has been carefully thought through.

Two common misconceptions with moving into internal is that it’s a step towards HR – its not.

And that it will move you away from all the targets and pressure that are driving you mad – it won’t.

Internal recruitment jobs are very demanding and are very often heavily target orientated, there are a lot of good reasons to look internally, but it’s not an easy ride and the financial rewards are less.

–        How to tackle this monster: Like Buffy some will love it but others will find that it’s not the monster slayer you expected. Think carefully, is Internal Recruitment really what you want, or do you want a move to a less heavily KPI or BD orientated role?

… And the moral of our story is:

Look the beast in the eye before deciding to run for the hills. It may be that you’re staring into the eyes of a misunderstood monster that will carry you to glory on its shoulders.

.. yep, I’ve defiantly lost it now. I’ll stop.

Richard Clarke

Logic Rec2Rec

richard@logicr2r.com

Having helped a good number of teams move businesses during my time in Rec2Rec it strikes me how high the success rate is for these teams.

It can be a tricky conversation to start with your colleagues, but if you work well together and move as a team here are some of the benefits you can gain:

Increased Market Value. The value of the whole outweighs the sum of it’s parts.You are more attractive as a team to a business because you are likely to be far more successful than assembling a team of individuals. It’s the same principal as acquisition over organic growth – its far easier and less risky to buy a unit that already works than acquiring it bit by bit, getting all the team members to work in the same way, getting a good culture fit etc. Therefore it is worth a business paying more to acquire an already operational unit.

Control. You and your team have a proven way of working and a new employer will want to preserve that. Moving as a team will give you far greater control and influence over how you operate on a daily basis. You will also find that you have a greater influence over strategy, activity, targets and recruiting into the team.

Faster Progression. Succeeding as a unit can often mean faster progression through the business. Particularly if you are setting up a new business area.

Risk Reduction. Moving as a team reduces your risk of a move not being the right one. You’re taking a lot of the important parts of working life with you. You know you’ll like the team and you know you’ll work well together.

Support. You’ll all be in it together, you won’t be the ‘newbie’ because you’re not new to the people you work most closely with. Not needing to settle in and get to know all the people you’ll be working with is a great support and will help you be successful faster.

If you’d like to talk about this in more detail, please feel free to contact me in confidence at:

Richard Clarke

Logic Rec2Rec Ltd

richard@logicr2r.com

1. THE RULE OF THUMB
For a ‘360’/ full life-cycle consultant who’s billings aren’t very low (sub £100k) or very high (over £500k) a commission structure that adds up to a gross total package (including basic) of around a third of billings/ GP is a good structure. E.g. a £300k biller could expect to get a P60 showing circa £100k on a good structure. The business logic behind this being; a third of billings to the consultant, a third of billings to cost and a third of billings to profit.
Please note that this does not mean that a good commission structure is a structure with no threshold and 33% on all billings (that would be an exceptionally generous structure). A consultant would receive a Gross total of a third of billings including basic. The make-up of a good structure could vary greatly to render this result. It could have a threshold or not, it could be a single percentage or be tiered, trigger structure or margin based. All we are doing here is giving a rough rule of thumb.

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2. WHEN A COMMISSION STRUCTURE SHOULD BE LESS THAN ABOVE
Let’s deal with the instances where we would expect a structure to be lower than our rule of thumb.

• If you are not a 360/ Full Life Cycle Recruiter. This would include Business Development Managers, Account Managers, Resourcers and Delivery Consultants. The reasoning behind this is that if you are not responsible for the full recruitment cycle then you shouldn’t be rewarded on all of its value.

– Recruiters focussed purely on developing new business (a ‘180 degree’ role) without filling roles tend to have a different structure to ‘360 degree’ or full life cycle recruiters. Typically this structure will be a set percentage against the business done with any new client developed. Giving a general guide to what percentage is a good return in this scenario is difficult, it needs to be judged against the target market, usage levels and margins. Typically these percentages are between 2% and 15%. Often the commission on new business has a life span e.g. after 12 months the client is no longer new and therefore the BD Managers’ commission either reduces or expires. Again judging this against typical accounts in the target market is important to gauge what return can be made on a new client during the commission window.
– Account Managers and Delivery Consultants typically either receive a reduced commission structure against GP or the same commission structure as consultants with only a percentage (usually 50%) of the GP generated by a placement being applied to their billings, and therefore reducing their commission against each placement.
– Resourcers are sometimes rewarded in the same way as Account Managers and Delivery Consultants (above) or by a ‘Per-Placement structure detailed later in this document.

• If you are a trainee. Some businesses operate different structures for consultants new to recruitment. The business case for this is that you will be heavily mentored through adding value to begin with and therefore part of that reward should be attributed to the business cost of training you. I don’t necessarily agree with this structure, but if you move onto a full commission structure within a reasonable amount of time I think it’s an acceptable model.

• If you are inheriting a large account. You may be a 360 recruiter but moving onto a desk with a large legacy account. In some instances, particularly with contract recruitment, it may be that you’re offered a ring-fenced structure to account manage the existing business.

• If you are not working in a professional/ technical space. As a general rule businesses operating in the High-street, Generalist and Industrial recruitment space work on tighter margins and higher overheads (shop-front offices etc.) than those in the professional and technical sectors and as a result commission schemes are commensurately lower.

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3. WHEN A STRUCTURE SHOULD BE HIGHER
Some businesses are more generous than our rule of thumb, this will be to attract and retain top talent, or to motivate their consultants. There are very few instances where you should expect a more rewarding structure. But these may include:
• A situation where you are taking a lower base in lieu of a highly generous commission structure.
• A start-up opportunity. You may mitigate your risk in this scenario either with equity or an increased commission structure.
• If you are a ‘super’ biller. If you are one of the industry’s top billers you can drive a hard bargain.

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4. TEAM MANAGEMENT REWARDS
Along with an increase in responsibilities almost all businesses will offer a reward structure against having team responsibilities.
The weighting of these rewards tends to be connected to the amount of emphasis on your team management and your seniority. Here are a few examples:

• At a Billing Level. Most Team Leader/ Managing Consultant’s will be managing a team along-side producing their own billings. Therefore there are two typical ways to reward at this job level.
– The first is to provide two structures, one is the businesses standard consultants commission structure, applied to the MC’s own billings, alongside an ‘override’ on the team’s billings – typically between 2% and 10%.
– The second structure is to have a single percentage of the total team billings including the MC’s contribution, typically between 5%-15%.

• At an Operational Level. There are several options here. These include:
– A team override on GP in the same fashion as an MC above.
– A percentage of the NP produced by the team. I would suggest for this to be a sensible structure the recipient should have full P&L/ Cost control.
– A percentage of Year-on-Year GP/NP or Growth.
– Quarterly or Yearly bonuses based on GP/NP or Growth.

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5. THRESHOLDS / STANDARD REQUIREMENTS / DESK CHARGES
Some commission structures start from the first pound you bill, but many businesses operate a commission threshold (also referred to as a standard requirement or Desk Charge). This is where a consultant must bill a standard amount each month before commission is applied. i.e. 0-£3k = Threshold, £3k+ = 20%.

A structure without a threshold is generally more attractive, but as a rule a commission structure without a threshold is not necessarily yield a greater commission than one with a threshold. You must look at the structure as a whole against your predicted billings. Although a structure with no threshold will guarantee you commission as soon as you’ve billed anything, it may not be as generous as one with a threshold and a higher percentage pay out.

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6. WHEN COMMISSION IS PAID
As with most things the Devil can be in the detail with how commission structures pay out.

The first thing to check is what figure your commission structure is calculated against. The industry standard is that your commission is calculated against the total figure invoice (billed) to the client in a month. This is a good structure.
However some structures are calculated against the monies received against your invoices (please note that this is very different to pay when paid). For example if you bill £20k in a month and only £10k is paid to your employer by your clients the following month and £10k is still outstanding, in this structure your commission would only be applied against the £10k received, not the £20k billed. This is not a good structure, it penalises consultants for the businesses poor debtor days and should be avoided.

The next detail that should be considered is when your commission is paid to you. Here are some of the most common structures.
• Paid in arrears against billing. This is the most commonly used structure and the one favoured by most consultants. You are paid your commission against your billings in the following months’ pay run regardless of whether or not the invoice has been paid.

• Pay when Paid. This is quite common for smaller businesses. Your commission is paid in the next pay run after the invoice has been paid by the client. This is commonly used by small businesses to preserve cash flow. Whilst this is not as preferable as paid in arrears it’s a perfectly acceptable structure – just check the businesses average debtor days (average time to get an invoice paid) to make sure you won’t be waiting for your commission for an excessively long period.

• Paid Quarterly. Commission is paid to you 4 times a year – this can be worked with a ‘in arrears’ or ‘pay when paid’ policy. This can be employed by businesses for a number of reasons, cash flow, staff retention, for commission structures that are calculated quarterly. This can be an acceptable structure, but it does require consultants to manage their personal finances with a longer term view than on an in arrears structure and can make it difficult to change jobs mid-quarter because you may forgo your commission.

• Held Structures. Some structures hold a portion of your commission for a period of time before paying it out. For instance your commission is 20% but you receive 15% monthly and 5% is held for a half yearly pay out. Once again this can be employed by businesses for a number of reasons, such as cash flow or staff retention.

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7. DIFFERENT TYPES OF STRUCTURE
How a commission structure is applied to billings can be just as important as the percentage that is applied.
Assessing this alongside the percentages involved is crucial. Some commission structures have a high banding at the top tier. This is all well and good if that top tier is accessible and therefore applicable to you.
I often hear consultants say ‘my commission structure goes up to 40% or 50% and therefore it is better than one that goes up to 25%’. That may be the case, but not always. If the ‘super banding’ starts once you hit £40k in a month and you are a £200k biller it is irrelevant to you unless your billings more than double. It is important therefore to assess each structure against your predicted or previous performance.
Below are some explanations of the most common formats:

• Tiered. A Tiered structure is the most common form of commission. Percentages rise as GP increases and each percentage is applied to a tier of your GP.
e.g.
Total monthly billings/ GP of £18.5k
£0-£3k @ Threshold
£3k-10k @ 15% (applied to £7k billings in this tier) = £1,050.00
£10k-£15k @ 20% (applied to £5k billings in this tier) = £1,000.00
£15k-20k @ 25% (applied to £3.5k billings in this tier) = £875.00
Total commission = £2,925.00

• Flat Rate. A flat rate commission structure gives a single percentage against all billings/ GP. This can work with or without an SR or Threshold.
e.g.
Total monthly billings/ GP of £18.5k
Flat rate percentage 15% (£18.5k x 15%) = £2,775.00
Total commission £2,775.00

• Per-Placement. A Per-Placement structure is usually used for Resourcers and Trainee consultants and gives a commission value to each placement as opposed to a percentage against GP. For each candidate successfully placed into role the consultant/ resourcer will receive a commission of £X. These structures tend to be less rewarding than others, but are perfectly acceptable with a trainee or resourcing role – depending upon the value to placement remuneration.
e.g.
Total monthly billings/GP of £18.5k from 3 placements
£300 paid per placement = £900.00
Total commission £900.00

Trigger. Triggers structures are rare but usually very rewarding structures. They can often look on paper like a classic tiered structure, but the key here is that once your billings cross into a new tier that percentage is paid against all of your billings – making this structure far more rewarding than a classic tiered structure.
e.g.
• Total monthly billings/ GP of £18.5k
£0-£3k @ Threshold
£3k-10k @ 15%
£10k-£15k @ 20%
£15k-20k @ 25% (applied to all billings having reached this tier) = £4,625.00
Total commission = £4,625.00

• As Percentage Charged. These structures are generally set up to encourage consultants to be robust in negotiating fees or margins with clients. The percentage charged to the client is the percentage of the GP paid to the consultant on that deal.
e.g.
Total monthly billings/ GP of £18.5k from 3 placements
Placement 1 = £7k derived from a placement charged at 18% = £1,260.00
Placement 2 – £7k derived from a placement charged at 15% = 1,050.00
Placement 3 = £4.5k derived from a placement charged at 10% = £450.00
Total commission = £2,760.00

• Capped. A capped structure can be any of the above with a limit on how much a consultant can earn over a given time period. This one is easy. If your commission structure is capped (and I can’t think of the last time I came across one that was) it is no good. Not only is it not good for a consultant, I would argue that it does not make sense for your employer. If you hit your cap inside the given time frame you are left with no further incentive to achieve more.

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8. CANDIDATE CONSIDERATIONS
Considering all elements that make up your commission structure (not just the highest percentage) is essential when weighing up your career options. Make sure you consider the details of how the structure is applied to your billings, when you are paid and most importantly take into account an honest appraisal of your predicted Billings/GP and apply that figure to a structure to estimate a structures value to you.
To assess how fair your structure is you must fairly appraise your job role and performance. Structures tend to be weighted towards recruitment professionals bringing the most value to the recruitment process, and towards those working in the ‘right’ sectors.

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9. RECRUITMENT BUSINESS CONSIDERATIONS
Pitching your commission structure at the right level can be tricky. Too generous and you risk the growth or stability of your business – not attractive enough and you risk not attracting the right talent or losing the good talent you have.
I would suggest the key here is to be informed and to know your market proposition. Know not just what your close competitors are paying, but have a good sense of the market as a whole. Then you can understand where your structure sits within the market allowing you to adjust either your commission structure or your expectations against talent attraction and retention accordingly.

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Richard Clarke
Logic Rec2Rec Ltd

“Engineering was what I always wanted to do with my career. It had always fascinated me.” Richard Clarke discovered his passion for engineering at an early age, studying it at the then named Buckinghamshire Chilterns University College and securing a job with a Hall Stage , a design and manufacturing business, upon graduation in 2001. Having interviewed for a design role he was offered a position as a sales/project manager for the independently owned business supplying specialist engineering equipment to the theatre, film and entertainment industries. Richard incorporated his engineering experience into the role to offer a knowledgeable and consultative service to clients, working his way up to a project management role.
Due to the small size of the business and its niche nature Richard made the decision to seek to progress his career elsewhere and approached Hays for a job in engineering construction. After a discussion with the senior manager at the Luton branch where he explained he did enjoy the sales element and ability to be involved in all processes in the company in his old job but was keen to be in a job that paid on a meritocratic basis, he was told why not think about a career in recruitment. Richard says, “I knew a little bit about recruitment, but hadn’t considered as a career option until I they said how about this. I still didn’t see myself as a sales person, I saw myself as an engineer that managed projects and it was a 24-hour turnaround.” He explains the meeting turned into an interview and he returned the next morning to meet the regional director, after which Hays offered him a permanent position recruiting for construction project management permanent appointments. He adds,” I was ambitious and I wanted to make sure my career was moving forwards and the idea of recruitment where there is no timescale block for progressing was very appealing.”
Although the lure of a lucrative career was one of the deciding factors in accepting his new job, Richard had to “take a leap of faith” and start off on half the basic salary of his old job. That leap of faith paid off when he billed £100,000 in his first six months earning him a promotion as a result. Looking back on those early days Richard says, “My first six months were strange because it was like that unconscious incompetent so I went out and had what I thought were conversations with people and was genuinely interested and this is how it was successful.” Speaking of his subsequent promotion and selection to be fasttracked he says. “It wasn’t because I had any particular sales technique it was because when I was picking up the phone to project managers I was interested in their projects and how they approached it and I was swapping stories with them and (naturally having conversations about past) and you form those relationships and gain credibility with clients as well which was great. I didn’t know what I was doing was forging a relationship to make a sale and I didn’t recognise at the time that that was and probably has remained my biggest differentiator against my competitiors.”
In February 2007 he was promoted to manager of the Milton Keynes branch of Hay construction and property and grew its staff from three to 14 alongside achieving 40% year on year growth in the space of three years. Making the move to Interaction Recruitment as the Milton Keynes branch manager, nine months later he was swiftly promoted to division manager to start a construction division. He succeeded in rolling out Interaction Construction as a division, but then something happened to change the course of his career.
A year after joining Interaction Recruitment it’s owner brought half of Kelly Services and overnight the business went big, competing with high street businesses. He discussed the idea of setting up his own construction and IT recruitment company in construction and IT with the owner of rec to rec agency Midas, at the time a two man business who had supplied staff to Richard when he was growing his Milton Keynes team at Interaction.
Thrown the idea of moving into Rec to Rec, Richard then took on the ambitious role of growing the company using a grassroots business plan. He helped to transform the Hertfordshire-based, two-man finance and technology Rec2Rec business by growing it to 16 staff at its peak and adding many technical and professional specialisms in the process.
A business partner, Sean, who Richard brought into Midas, was actually an old friend from his time working at the Milton Keynes branch of Hays. Sharing both an entrepreneurial vision and a similar career path, like Richard Sean was a professional, specialising in procurement, who joined Hays to set up the Milton Keynes procurement and supply chain brand. Their ambitions to one day own a business dated back to idea sharing during some long evenings spent working in the Hays office and more than five years later they decided to realise their plans.
In November 2012 Logic Rec2Rec was born, serving the London markets of IT, construction and engineering, procurement and finance executive search and oil and gas. By firmly sticking to areas they know, Richard believes they can be confident in delivering expertise to clients. He says, “We recognise that from a two man business that’s the value that we add. Because what we don’t have is a huge advertising budget and the ability to contact everybody in the world, what we need to be able to do, both internally and externally, is know exactly what we’re doing, approach the right people, have the right conversations and use our time effectively and all of that is based on the knowledge that we’ve built up throughout our careers.”

I think a big factor is that most of the techniques above look in the wrong places. An aptitude might tell you a person’s IQ, a psychometric test might tell you how trainable someone is, a personality profile might tell you about their social intelligence and a competency based interview might tell you how they’ve approached work up until this point.
So, is the profile of a future highly successfully recruiter: the most intelligent, compliant, amenable person who has the model approach to work? This might be true of Accountants or Engineers or Project Managers, but not of recruiters.

So what should we be looking for?
In my opinion, Grit. Grit is having stamina of passion and perseverance for long term goals. Talent doesn’t make you ‘gritty’, so many talented recruiters fall by the wayside because they do not follow through on their commitments. Likewise many successful recruiters would never be considered the best or the brightest by any traditional measurement, and yet they have risen to the top as a result of grit.

So how do we asses grit? It’s difficult, but one factor that seems to be a good indicator is how a recruiter reacts to failure. A gritty recruiter does not view failure as a permanent state.
We can all easily bring to mind a good number of famous multi-millionaire businessmen and women that regularly appear on the television who have gone bust once, or several times whilst building business empires. They have succeeded through perseverance and grit.
So why not look for this in recruiters? Perhaps looking for the recruiter who is perfect on paper is not the always the right way, maybe recruiters who have failed at some point can give you a better demonstration of grit than those who have never experienced failure. Maybe that ‘CV with a story’ might be worth a second glance.

Richard Clarke
richard@logicr2r.com

When trying to estimate the odds of success of flipping a coin or pulling a card out of a deck, the way most people appraise the odds of success is simple, you know the set number of possible outcomes and divide this by your chance of success.

However, when it comes to a situation where the odds of success are less visible, most people abandon the above system in place of memory. When asked to predict the chances of success in a job, most people will think back and remember how many people they know or have heard of being successful in that job.  

This abandonment of looking at the odds in favour of memory can be seen in people’s fears. Most people will worry about being killed by terrorism, swine flu or an aeroplane crashing more than they worry about being killed by a swimming pool. But the swimming pool is far more likely to kill you than the combination of the other three.

It works the other way too. The odds of winning the lottery are infinitesimally small, but people still play because we see a lot of winners in the media. If everybody who lost last weekend’s lottery were to be interviewed for 30 seconds it would take your undivided attention for the next 9.5 years to watch it. If at the end of that you were to be asked if you wanted a lottery ticket, you’d be likely to say ‘no thank you’.

The point is this; things that come more slowly to the mind aren’t necessarily less probable. Recruiters who have worked in an environment that is heavily KPI orientated, unsuccessful or unrewarded will often believe that this is the likely outcome of working as a recruitment consultant for any other business, because they are estimating the odds of success based on a comparison to memory and not to the likelihood of success in the industry or in other businesses.  

Richard Clarke – Logic Rec2Rec

In my Hay(s) day(s) I remember being amazed that there were people out there who billed over £1 Million pound GP every year. I was further amazed recently speaking to a top exec search consultant who had recently completed a £3.5M GP Fee for a single deal – that’s right a single deal! So why do some recruiters reach the pinnacle of the industry and others never quite find the right gear?

The first thing I thought when I heard of these super men and women billing £1M+ was that they were genetically superior somehow, possibly the result of hideous experimentation, an Alien-Human hybrids or maybe they had mastered the art of the Jedi mind trick. Indeed the first time I met a recruiter that billed over a £million pounds per annum I was expecting him to levitate through the door, accompanied by angelic music and be dressed head to toe in spandex.

But No – it’s just not the case, they are not that different from you and I.

Sure ‘Super-billers’ bring a sound understanding of recruitment process and there market, and they work damn hard. But, what they always have found is what most recruiters miss – The Right Desk in The Right Business at the Right Time.

Now I’m not saying that everybody can be a £1M biller, but it is a good illustration of why it’s so important to get the combination right to get the best from your Recruitment career.

I talk to so many recruiters that having put their CV on a job board get a good deal of calls and handle their job search on a ‘first come first served’ basis.

This seems crazy to me – what if the very best opportunity for you (Right Desk, Right Business, Right Time) isn’t in the first few calls you get? Surely it’s better to take a bit of time to research, consider all the options and make some pointed career decisions rather than hop on the first buss that comes along no matter where it’s going?

It’s like being chucked into a coal mine and being asked to pick up a lump of coal. There’s an abundance of choice, but finding the one with the diamond inside is much more tricky.

So if you find yourself actively on the job market don’t lose your head in the flurry of activity. If you are a Recruiter you WILL get a job, just make sure it’s the right one.

Richard@logicr2r.com

But now as we head into 2014 the outlook couldn’t be more different. 2013 was much stronger than expected with no double dip and the ONS having to revise its numbers. Employment is up and the overall economic picture is regularly outstripping predictions with the FTSE 100 staying above 6,000 for most of the year and house prices on the rise.

Even across the pond the US economy is gathering steam with the Dow Jones hitting 16,000 for the first time ever and the European market is steadily improving which is helping our local economy.

2014 looks set to bring more good things and could be the year that will mark the end of the austerity that came with the longest squeeze in more than a century. Businesses are reinvesting and the UK economy is widely expected surpass its 2008 high in the latter part of the year.

This is all good news for UK based recruiters. As businesses reinvest, consumers spend more, house process rise and the global economy strengthens staffing will be high on the agenda.  

Many are predicting that 2014 will be the best year that for recruitment professionals in a very long time.