False economy

I am all for efficiency, after all we service a market that is all about gaining the best return from your marketing spend, but it never ceases to amaze me how even successful & profitable business get blinded by the mantra of cost saving when times are tough.  We recently had a client announce that rather than exploit Jobsworth's  in depth understanding of their sector, our direct line into their decision makers and a network of suitable candidates they would manage all recruitment from a distant head office, but only if we dropped our pants on rates for the privilege of working for them (they forget to mention that they were recruiting an in-house team to source candidates direct). What followed wouldn't have looked out of place at a Chuckle Brother convention: TO ME, TO YOU, TO ME, TO YOU....as emails bounced back and forth through multiple internal sources to try and find their elusive experienced candidates with the necessary skills.

1 month later the call came through that they wanted to see our candidates after all and were they still around. Funny enough they weren't. Good people are still in demand and don't stick around for companies that don't know how many hands they have let alone what they are doing. 

It will be fascinating to take the call in a few months time (big R) permitting when this client still needs good people who aren't on the job boards and are unknown to the internal recruiters. Watch this space!

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