It's time for a change at the top in Recruitment

I believe this is possibly my most important statement about the industry and one that could change the fortunes of many within it. Please read on.

For years, and especially whilst at the helm of the REC, I tried to get Clients to believe that Recruiters are professionals. I also tried to convince Recruiters themselves by introducing better structured qualifications and even a Recruitment Degree and opened the door for the organisation to become Chartered – still, sadly, a long way off.

However I missed the key point, you can’t create a Profession overnight, but you can watch what Professionals do and learn from their experience and successes.

I want all readers to stop and think for a moment and answer the following question; What is the fundamental difference between a Lawyer and a Recruiter?

I will avoid the obvious one-liners but most will eventually agree that a Lawyers charges far more per hour for his/her time than does a Recruiter. It’s true and if you follow that logic through to its final conclusion you will also find that Senior Lawyers charge more than Junior Lawyers and Practice Principals charge heaps more than the rest.

In short; "Your Top People should be your Top Billers!" I’ll say it again; "Your Top People should be your Top Billers!" Definitely not true in most recruitment firms.

I have had the rare privilege of visiting over 2,000 recruitment agencies during my time and since leaving REC have worked with some of the best and most entrepreneurial of them (now about 40 in total) and one thing has become glaringly obvious to me; the owners are, or were, the businesses best Recruiters and they have all ‘promoted’ themselves away from recruiting to a wholly spurious role (usually titled Managing Director) which they don’t understand, have no talent or empathy for and from where they look down on lesser mortals struggling to achieve targets they themselves once realised without breaking into a sweat (and wanting more and more money for doing it)..

So why, I ask myself, don’t Recruiters learn from Lawyers and Accountants and Architects et al and create a career progression where Junior Consultants become Senior Consultants become Principals; all still doing what they are good at and all staying as fee earners.

OK, I accept that Top Lawyers don’t do the grunt work, they have juniors to do that for them, but they work with the Client (and more particularly with the Client’s CEO) and establish the relationship and lead on the important cases. And so should we.

But what about the management of the business I hear you shout, who’s going to do that? Well hire a business manager, a general manager or even an MBA. They are ten-a-penny and they can do what most recruiters can’t; they can plan, they can budget, they can administer and they can market the business and use the businesses greatest assets, its Recruiters, to maximum effect and profit.

I call this the ‘Osborne Model', or the Professionals Approach, and as the holder of a Doctorate in Entrepreneurship and Business Innovation I am told that I have the right to postulate the odd theory, so please allow or excuse me my Newtonic moment. I believe this could work for many in the industry and add significant value to their business as it grows.

Think about it. And trust me, I’m a Doctor!

Gareth