Background: a profitable and growing market

Britain has the second most valuable recruitment market in the world and permanent placements, accounting for £3.3 billion a year, are the most profitable part. Volumes of permanent placements grew by 8% to £3.3 billion in 2005/6, continuing a long running growth trend.

Forecasters agree that the number of skilled and management positions will continue to increase over both the medium and long term as the UK continues the transition to a knowledge-based economy.

But who will fill these new vacancies?

The Chartered Institute of Personnel & Development (CIPD) found that 85% of companies are already struggling to fill senior positions. This presents management recruiters with unparalleled opportunity.

Recruiting reality: poor service standards

The UK recruitment supply market is highly fragmented with head-hunters, advertisements, agencies and internet sites, representing just some of the options used by companies seeking to recruit managers.

At the top end of the market, head-hunters are the preferred choice for filling board- level appointments. Their standards of professionalism are relatively high, but fees are costly and their recruitment processes are usually very slow.

Middle and senior managers are usually recruited through advertisements or recruitment agencies. Compared with head-hunters, agency service levels are relatively poor. The client is left to manage most of the recruitment process, and candidate quality can only be as good as those actively looking for a job.

The most common HR Department approach to filling a management vacancy is one of 'hit or miss' in which the cheapest options are used in succession until an appointment is eventually made. This means that management recruiting is usually slow, inefficient and costly in lost time and productivity.

Not surprisingly, managers and directors are frequently forced to accept second best candidates in order to fill their vacancies. According to a 2005 CIPD survey, 68% of companies are now appointing people who have the potential to grow but don't have all that is required.

Overall benefits of my recruitment format

Summary

My format underpins a recruitment service that provides:

• Significantly higher quality candidates
• Much higher assignment completion rates

It does this by targeting and approaching the best candidates, irrespective of whether they are looking for another job or not.

Moreover, compared with executive search:

• My format provides a service that is twice as fast
• It enables candidates to be placed profitably at salaries as low as £40,000: territory that traditional head-hunters won't touch.

This means that unlike the companies in the CIPD survey, my clients got exactly the candidates they wanted without compromise.

The 4 main benefits my format gives clients are:

Faster Turnaround

By specialising in a single industry sector, you can find your way around the candidate market much faster than a generalist recruiter. This knowledge, combined with much tighter recruitment processes, means that clients get a 2 or 3 week turnaround versus the industry average of 6 weeks.

Industry knowledge

Industry specialisation also means that, because you are talking the client's and the candidate's language, you are better placed to uncover information and candidates that generalist recruiters will miss. Clients will also value the market and competitor knowledge you provide.

Better candidate quality

My format relies heavily on telephone interviewing which is more effective than traditional face to face meetings. The efficiency of telephone interviewing means that a typical search covers literally hundreds of candidates, rather than the 50 or 60 contacted from traditional head-hunters.

Consequently, with more people to choose from, the overall quality of candidates is much higher than that from traditional head-hunters or agencies.

Market leading assignment completion rates

The combination of greater candidate choice, plus tighter process controls, meant that 97% of my assignments were completed from an initial short list compared with the industry average of 67%. This saved clients substantial rework costs and lost productivity.

Client satisfaction rates

During 7 years of operating the format I never lost a client. My overall customer satisfaction scores were:

My placement fees

My charges for a full search assignment varied between 28% and 33% of the placement's first year salary: thus on a £60,000 role I charged on average £18,000. My clients found that time and productivity savings made my fee worth paying for.

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Paul's specialist market knowledge is invaluable . the thoroughness of his format and the speed of his approach means that by consistently getting the brief right first time, he has saved me substantial time and effort". Chris Tarry, Sales & Marketing Director, Hitachi Capital Solutions

How I made my first £million

Paul Eyton-Jones, MD, Beechbrook Consulting

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