Apropos of nothing, some free tips for recruitment agencies ;-)

Recruitment agancies must be having a shit time of it right now – people are firing way more than they’re hiring. No doubt they’re under awful amounts of pressure from candidates themselves, as well as getting endless cold shoulders from people who have jobs to offer but prefer not to deal with agencies. Despite that, and with absolutely *no* reason to do so (cough cough) I have a few tips for recruitment companies to chew on.

• If a candidate leaves his CV on a (purely hypothetical) website with the “I’d prefer to be contacted by email” option checked, don’t make initial contact with him by phone during working hours. He’s at work. That’s why he said “contact me by email”.
• An email consisting of a subject line of “Got an SEO job going” and a body of “Interested?” isn’t really likely to get much of a response
• Don’t text the candidate within minutes of sending an email to check if they’ve got the email. It’s annoying.
• Take earlier or later lunches so that when the candidate is actually available to speak through the day they actually have a chance of speaking to you.
• Work earlier or later than the normal working day so the candidate can speak to you outside working hours when it just might be slightly more convenient.

That might make it sound like I hate recruitment agencies: I honestly don’t, and I’ve had good experience of them in the past. However, there’s a massive gap in the market for the first agency who will do simple things like work 10-7 and lunch at 2.

Just a thought.