I’m proud to have connections with some of the brightest minds in the Recruitment industry. The LinkedIn post below by Jeremy Snell, Founder of Rookie2Recruit, is spot on (I have reposted it here with his permission). LinkedIn is awash with people complaining about the cost of job boards, and how LinkedIn isn’t what it was. Is now not the perfect time to find your differentiator as a Recruiter?
Was Recruitment really ever about posting jobs on job boards and sifting CVs??
The best Recruitment teams and individuals are typically the first – and often the bravest – to adapt.
Dare I say, back to basics? – Paul Thompson
3 Cold Observations About Recruiter Reactions to Job Board Price Increases ☹️
1. It is their business (the job boards), their pricing strategy and their decision. No doubt it has been underwritten with data modeling and predictions of potential attrition. They have not lost their mind. Perhaps they have decided they no longer want high volume, low margin, high maintenance clients. Would you?
What do you think their research from job seekers tells them about the candidate experience? Too many jobs, overwhelm and multiple occurrences of formulaic adverts from multiple recruiters. Maybe the job boards are electing to create a better candidate experience?
2. If you are overly reliant on the services of another business for the success of your own you (and your business) are in a vulnerable position. The same with LinkedIn. If you’ve become reliant on LinkedIn to the point it has become your candidate CRM you are now a slave to their business model, their decisions on pricing and the services they add or remove to the platform. If you work in a specialist niche and you’ve not built your own job board then you have a VERY short window of time to get it done. Stop reading this post now and buy the URLs that will give you the edge over those who are still BMW’ing (Bitching, Moaning and Whining) on LinkedIn about how unfair it is a company they buy from has put their prices up by 300%. It’s called commerce. Pay it or leave.
3. If you’re moaning about the price and then underwriting it with “and the candidates are crap and the results poor”. Why were you willing to pay anything for it in the first place?? Go through your own LinkedIn updates. If in the last 6 -12 months you’ve shared a post questioning why clients expect to be able to dictate your prices at 10% and how shortsighted of them it is to not see the value of 30%, smell the coffee.
The swell of emotion I understand.
Rather than bleating about it, do something, now. Change your operating model. Be less reliant on businesses. Do a risk assessment of all your suppliers – what if they ceased to operate or changed their pricing model in the same way? What then?
Put your prices up. Almost everything in the world is increasing in price.
However, I know there are a lot of recruiters who sell in the same way they buy.
Based on price.
Charge your clients for your recruiting skills – the quality of your advert copy (you might need to upskill here looking at the typical agency advert), the proofing process when building a client’s brand (how you consult with your client to help them stand out in a competitive market) through all your communication, and the management of the engagement process gives you the opportunity to charge for advertising for your client. Pass the price increase on.
Build your own job board. In niche spaces and specialist markets there are significant gaps.
This is a HUGE opportunity for good recruiters to shine.
For more information on Jeremy Snell and Rookie2Recruit, please click here.
Voyager Infinity and Voyager Mid-Office are software solutions that make Recruiters’ lives easier. Voyager Infinity is a CRM used by thousands of recruiters globally to source, nurture and maintain the relationships with their clients and candidates, and Mid-Office manages the entire Pay and Bill process (IR35 ready).
