The State of Recruitment

Following my previous article on Partnership for Success - which explored the treatment of candidates by potential employers and agencies, I spoke with Peter Harrington , a seasoned interim HR Director on his thoughts regarding on recruitment challenges, his experience of agencies and his opinion on the best approach to recruiting.

He has worked across numerous institutions, including the University of Suffolk, the University of Sussex and currently the University of Essex. His experience over the past 25 years ranges in other sectors such as the NHS, Transport and Regulation. He has a keen interest in delivering workforce planning and talent acquisition, organisational design and functional and process transformation, change leadership, and employee relations.

Recruitment in Higher Education is thriving due to many reasons from, growth and natural attrition through to restructures; I wanted to explore where recruitment stands today.

To begin with a simple question, when recruiting, what is the biggest challenge you face?

I would say candidate availability. Finding the right level of talent is difficult with one of the barriers being a lack of people willing to consider Higher Education as an option in their career.

Also, keeping people engaged in a recruitment process, even with a tightly run process, you find candidates drop out of various stages.

What do you do to mitigate this?

I think employers need to consider the brand they’re going to market with – a strong employer brand sets out why Higher Education is an interesting sector to be involved with. I’m not sure if people understand the breadth of professional services at a university; often, there is an assumption it’s just teaching and academia. As a sector, I don’t think we sell Higher Education effectively. Universities need to set out why it’s great to work at that specific institution – what differentiates them?

Do you feel universities are open to candidates from other sectors?

I do, but it is a complex sector, and the scale of a university is sometimes underestimated. If you’ve worked at a similar sized organisation, such as a local authority, then the transition is easier. ?It’s also important for candidates from other sectors to be open to taking a step down to gain experience of a Higher Education institution, which is perhaps more complex.

You work with lots of agencies - what's been your experience of recruitment agencies?

Generally, it’s been very positive. The relationships agencies build up and the networks they have means they can reach different audiences that an advert can’t. Also, the value add to sell an organisation and an agency’s ability to understand a brief is very important. It’s essential they understand the organisation I’m working for and give me a small number of appointable candidates who have been qualified. From a candidate perspective, as a seasoned interim, I work with a small number of agencies (like AQ) as they understand what motivates me and what my values are and call me about appropriate roles. There are some agencies which contact me with utterly inappropriate roles, sometimes too junior or in an area which doesn’t interest me. This highlights how they don’t understand me and are driven by sales. I like being able to pick up the phone and speak to agencies I trust to gain advice – to tell me what the market is like and manage my expectations, rather than mislead me on thousands of roles that are just around the corner! I don’t need to be flattered; an honest approach will lead to my respect increasing for that agency. There is a saying in the industry which is very true - a candidate today is a client tomorrow!

As a recruiter, I'm always looking for a thorough brief which clearly outlines what the key objectives are for the role and highlights the characteristics of the candidate who will be a good cultural fit and the background to the organisation. Clients, I'm sure, have their own needs. What do you feel that agencies could do differently to meet those needs?

I think maintaining regular contact - which applies to both sides is key. From a client perspective, I think it's important that we are honest and open when are giving the brief in terms of what we are looking for and for agencies to give feedback of what is available in the marketplace and to manage my expectations. It’s helpful for agencies to position candidates as to why they are on a shortlist as you’ve spoken to the candidate and summarise their skills - then I can make an informed decision. This type of consultancy is the value add for me where candidates are put forward who I perhaps might not have considered.

As a candidate, it is quite frustrating when there is a lack of feedback from interviews. You invest a lot of time; sometimes, going through a multi stage process and not receiving any feedback is poor, there is no opportunity to learn where you went wrong. From an employer point of view, this is your employer brand and reflects badly on the organisation on a broader level.

Recruitment can feel quite transactional, and I do feel to achieve the best outcomes where a client’s expectations are met - partnership working is the key. Clients and agencies work closely together toward the same goal achieved through detailed briefs from clients and clear and consistent communication from agencies, which might outline challenges in a recruitment process, ensuring the client’s expectations are managed throughout. What is your idea of a good relationship with an agency?

At high-volume, low-level recruitment, by its very nature, can be quite transactional due to the number of candidates. At Executive Search, you require a bespoke service for both the client and the candidate. You’re working with senior people who might be time poor, so keeping them engaged through the process is incredibly important. A consultant’s ability to offer career coaching is useful for those who haven’t applied for a role for a significant period of time. I’ve seen senior people submit some incredibly poor applications. It’s always surprising that they don’t give the same level of emphasis as they would expect from applications. ?I think that's where partnership working and that bespoke service is essential as it allows you to feedback to candidates on CV’s and to highlight areas which are vital to the role which they should emphasis.

Part of partnership working is for clients to take responsibility and spend more time on job descriptions. There's no point in me coming to you with 20 essential requirements – it is far more important to highlight what is absolutely key to the role determining what is going to be the difference between someone being a fantastic or marginal candidate.

As an interim HRD who has experience of working in several universities where you've had an overview of a variety of roles, which ones do you find are most difficult to recruit to? What is the reason for this?

IT roles are the toughest because we have a structured pay scale, and it's not always reflective of market rates, with universities often needing to pay market supplements to attract candidates.

More broadly, Higher Education isn’t a lucrative area; you enter it for other reasons. If you are interested in making a difference in people’s lives, then it’s a great sector.

At AQ, we often come across mid level roles which clients are struggling to appoint to. Do you feel there is a gap in the market which agencies perhaps aren't targeting?

I think good organisations like AQ recognise their strengths and focus on specific areas. When we’ve spoken in the past, you've mentioned your focus is to develop that middle management area, and I think that's really important and grown up to recognise that you can’t simply use your senior level candidates to fill these roles - you need to build new networks which are appropriate.

What, in your opinion, is the future of recruitment? What needs to change to ensure HE institutions successfully appoint candidates? Is there anything you see on the horizon?

Some of the continuing challenges are around the availability of international candidates and rules on migration, which are constantly changing and affect both professional and academic staff. ?The question around new technology is do we leverage technology across the board? Or recognise that recruitment is built around relationships and speaking to a bot is not the way to attract, or more importantly, keep people in the process. Face to face conversations are still key for attracting and keeping the very best candidates engaged.

If we trust technology too much, such as in CV scanning and killer questions, then we run the risk of filtering out candidates who haven’t said the necessary keywords. This has a big impact on diversity and favours candidates who know how to game the system. There is a risk, as you mentioned earlier, of recruitment becoming purely transactional.

Equally, technology can help us, for example, using AI as a data gatherer – rather than a decision maker. There have been examples recently where AI has removed candidates based on gender, so it is important to use technology carefully.

The conversation with Peter highlighted a number of themes which include candidates availability in the current market is a significant concern; employers need to focus on establishing a strong brand to take to market; and candidates conversely need to consider beyond remuneration what else Higher Education can offer them.

From the perspective of agencies the ‘value add’ a top tier consultancy is to demonstrate their ability to present a client to candidates authentically and professionally, rather than on a transactional basis. This genuine and honest approach should be carried forward to candidates by being transparent on the current market - with no false promises of roles. ?Finally, strong relationships between candidates and agencies can be fruitful long term as ‘a candidate today is a client tomorrow’?

I would like to thank Peter for an enjoyable discussion– you can follow him at https://www.dhirubhai.net/in/ppharrington/ . I would be interested to hear your thoughts on our conversation. As a final question to readers - how do you see partnership working in the future of recruitment?”

Az Ahmed is a Senior Consultant with over eight years supporting the public sector in local and central government as well as higher education. He is guided by his desire to help individuals join the interim sector and to support the higher education institutions in appointing credible, transformational leaders who drive forward change. You can contact me at [email protected] or follow me at https://www.dhirubhai.net/in/ahmedazfar/