My guest on Spheres of Influence was Natalie Singer. She has been involved in recruitment for over 15 years and she spent 8 years running the South African professional board and she was also the African representative on World Employment Board. Today she runs her own talent and recruitment consulting business and also speaks on the topic. She is deeply knowledgeable of the industry.
There are two ends to recruitment: An employer looking for talent and at the other end talent looking for an employer. In between those two are recruiters. Good recruiters match up the two. The process off how this all happens has shifted enormously since the turn of the century.
In the 90s and even into the 2000s recruiters were valued by the information they held: How many candidates they had on their database. Of course with the democratisation of information this is no longer an indicator of value – pretty much everyone has access to the same information.
Technology has brought about that democratisation and in the early days of “new technology” there was either a resistance to it or a rush to try and take advantage of it. With the advent of LinkedIn, Job Boards and other social media there was a frenzy of movement to focusing on the tech and trying to be first access clients and candidates. But somewhere along the line recruiters forgot about the people.
Natalie makes the point that the one thing in recruitment that will never change is relationships. Those that succeeded in the past are those that built excellent relationships. It is the same today. However the way we build relationships today has evolved because of tech but the technology must be understood in the context of how do we build real relationships with real people.
Another factor Natalie mentions is because there are such low barriers to entry to the recruitment industry today there has been a proliferation of new recruitment businesses. There is a perception that recruitment is easy due to the low barriers and tech available. Only once they start do they realise how much hard work has to accompany building a successful recruitment business. You cannot technology your way into relationships. This is evident in the number of businesses that don’t make it.
The take away from Natalie really is to build relationships. This is at the heart of succeeding in the industry. From there, other factors of success are doing what you promise to do and practicing what you preach.
You can’t resist technology but you must understand how to use to build relationships and trust.
Natalie can be contacted through her website www.talent3sixty.co.za.
Listen to the full interview below or download it for later enjoyment.
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