A recent survey published by Linkedin questioned recruitment firms about how they have changed their approaches to recruitment over the past 3 years. Some interesting trends have emerged. Perhaps surprisingly, growing client base has declined in importance, although it remained a significant objective, and the biggest growth trend was the need for recruiters to source more passive candidates. In line with this trend, recruiters stated that more quality placements came about from passive candidate sources. This is no surprise to us at Gail Kenny Executive Recruitment, where we have always made the extra effort to seek out talented candidates who may not actively looking. The secret to success with this is your ability to read a passive candidates potential next career moves, and only approach them with the killer role. Being successful at placing passive candidates is something that takes nurturing. You have to take a long terms approach, and nurture your relationship with a passive candidate a long time before when you have an appropriate role for them. By showing them that you understand where they are in their career, and showing them respect by only presenting the right job roles to them, is the way to develop a long term relationship. Being a specialist in a certain vertical, which we are in travel recruitment helps as you are able to build long term associations with candidates, who may have been clients in the past and vice versa. A candidate will also respect you if you advise them not to go for a certain role that you are recruiting for, if you rightly believe that its not the best career move for them. This again build loyalty, and builds your recruitment brand’s reputation.
Ian Brooks, Director