The Tide Has Turned.

So the tide has turned and we have moved from a candidate driven market to a client market. Times are tough, and last year at this time, you might have felt like you had the pick of the litter. Our clients were far more confident in handing job orders to us and the Thursday afternoon rush with requests for Flash Developers for the next week were coming in strong. Perm seemed to be picking up at the agency I was at as well; and clients would generally get back to us within days to give us feedback (well, the good ones at least). Our candidates got interviews! Some of them even got offers fairly quickly!

Then, when the usual summer slowdown happened, things didn’t just slow down; they crept. We had to start giving those gentle “reminder” calls and emails. We would resend portfolios of that hot Interactive Art Director that the client wanted to get so bad in March, but they were booked solid through June to no response. Occasionally, they’d throw us a bone and give us an order for a developer who was at “expert” level with a technology that was so new that only 5 people in the country knew it, and oh yeah, this MUST be done onsite, with no negotiation. Good luck!

The thing is that our competition has changed. Our main competition is no longer the big creative staffing firms, other boutique agencies, or consultants. It is the internal talent acquisition team! These folks operate just like a staffing agency, and they have lots of interns that source candidates on the same places that we do. LinkedIn, check! Creative Hotlist, Coroflot, Design:Related, CarbonMade? Check, check, check, check! Major job boards? Are you kidding me?

With fewer job postings that the internal recruiters are working on, they are not passing the overflow to us right now. While working with the large top agencies can be lucrative, we need to step away from our bread and butter or else we’ll be on the bread line. We need to really reexamine where our next orders are going to come from, and I’ll give you a hint: they are the ones that do not have all those fancy talent acquisition specialists.

Doing all we can

This always happens right as a holiday weekend approaches. Things creep to a screeching halt and then about 24 hours before the universe closes till Monday, your client has an epiphany: OMG – WE NEED SOMEONE ON MONDAY!!! Better yet, they want someone super specific who has already checked out for the weekend. So, we put emails and voicemails out, pretty much whatever we can aside from shouting on rooftops. Really, we made the effort. Sure, I understand your needs, but sometimes fate lies in the hands of our candidate – which we trust will get back to us when they have a moment. I know firsthand that the beach DOES NOT have reception, which is exactly where I’d be if I wasn’t working today. I also know that you’d like a backup….but please understand that while we do have messages out, it may take a little time for our vacation-minded freelancers to get back to us. Don’t hold it against us. Thanks!

Environment matters!

When we get job descriptions from clients, we usually get this laundry list of needs, wants, desirables, specifications, etc. Sometimes we don’t get enough, sometimes a bit too much. One thing that is sometimes absent is what kind of environment your office is. Yeah, we know what a “hip, Soho loft” is – but not being able to see and feel and experience what a client’s space is like can be like shooting in the dark. One firm I used to work at made it mandatory to do site visits. For a while, pitching it to clients was a bit of a challenge – they are busy, they blow you off, yadda yadda. This really helped when I was working with clients on both the sales and the service side.

So, yeah – securing a visit can be a little nerve-wracking. The best thing to do is ask for just 15 minutes to scope out the place. Explain that being in their environment is really essential to ensure a good fit. It’s one thing to say that you allow pets in the office, but if you have a whole doggie day care thing going, that’s a bit different. Also, bring a digital camera and ask the client if you can take a couple of snapshots – tell them that you are only sharing the images with the rest of your team. If they balk, explain that your recruiters (if you have separate sales and recruiting teams) should be able to describe the environment – this definitely increases the wow factor (especially if you have a cheapo client).

When I was advising students, I had to go on site visits to clear internship locations. I hardly ever had any resistance to a quick visit – then again, I was offering FREE work, but I always stressed that it would be quick and easy. Plus, it really establishes rapport and builds your relationship, which is definitely a GOOD thing!

Out for themselves

Candidates are quite a species. As we know, it’s feast or famine – and right now, as a creative recruiter we are definitely in famine mode – it’s summer, candidates are a rare breed, and job orders are not as plentiful as we’d like them to be.

So, you find a candidate that has a good book – not amazing, but marketable. You call the candidate, give a few tips on how to make their book better. You hit it off, you see where they’ve been before, then clear them for your clients not before you state the caveat that you can’t present if they’ve been there in the past, and further that once clear, we are repping them for those places.

So, imagine my surprise when I find out that someone I have been working with for a full month has gone behind my back and was presented through other recruiters (yes, that is PLURAL) to an agency we work with. AND that another client who expressed interest in this candidate told us that she had applied there on her own – AFTER saying that she has NEVER even HEARD of these places.

Maybe I was Punk’d – but I spoke with a couple of my freelance friends who pretty much said when they are looking for work, they will DO ANYTHING to secure an assignment. One friend said they know that the recruiter is only after their next dollar, so why shouldn’t she. Further, she mentioned that no one ever told them how to work with their recruiters. What she did was obviously unethical, but she doesn’t think so one bit. She is working, our clients (at the time) passed on her. Somehow she squeezed in. While this is very slimy, she is still young and very impressionnable. Hopefully this was just an “oops!” moment that she never makes again.

Don’t Be a Hater….

In a normal day, I am looking at quite a number of portfolio sites. Some are good, some are….well, questionnable, and others aren’t even worth mentioning. Going to websites is my job – I search, assess a candidate’s aptitude, and decide whether I should contact the candidate. Recently, I’ve noticed a bunch of sites that say in the contact info area in big, bold letters – PLEASE NO RECRUITERS. How many times has a Flash designer or Art Director been burned? Enough to not want to work with us, which can be a problem.

I feel that the heart of the issue is not just money (they know they can get more on their own), but the fact that they really do not know how we operate. We need to educate future designers and creative pros that signing up with a recruiter is not equivalent to selling one’s soul. The way to do this? Get into the classrooms, go to the art schools, make a promo packet, EDUCATE students that this is another avenue to find work. Talk about the hidden job market and how we have established relationships with our clients. Tell them how we operate and why we sometimes call with very little notice. Give them the tools they need to be a successful contractor. Maybe have one person on your staff be a talent relationship manager – dedicated solely to managing the relationship, answering questions. Keep ‘em close and you will reap the rewards.

This will take time, and I know that when a client calls on a Friday for a Monday morning need, we need to focus on the immediate, but establishing a strategy to deepen your pool will be worth it in the long run. Not only will candidates be more trusting of us and utilize our services, but good service = more referrals.

Why All The Infighting???

I’ve been a recruiter for a number of years…some places have been great, but others have been, well….I plead the fifth. Anyway, what I’ve noticed is this whole “us versus them” mentality, which while I am all in the spirit of competition (it’s never fun if you’re the only one…and besides, it’s awfully lonely at the top), I feel that as recruiters with this niche in the industry, we really can better service our candidates by building an awesome referral network.

Okay, I may be crazy…but since I work primarily with interactive accounts, I come across so many print designers who are awesome. Unfortunately, that is not my specialty – and although something may come across my desk, it isn’t so often. If I know Lisa, who works at another agency that has more corporate communications accounts and needs good print people that fit candidate X’s expertise, I’d rather help her out and say…hey let’s share the wealth. Also, I am better servicing my candidate and they will be grateful that I tried to help them as opposed to keeping them in the black hole. Infighting is horrible and unnecessary – what comes around goes around, and by sharing the wealth, you really create more opportunities for everyone!

without further adieu…

I love creative people – I love design, have an appreciation for technology, and love the advertising and branding universe. What I do for a living is identify, source, and connect creative talent to opportunities at ad agencies, in-house design studios, publishers, and interactive agencies. There are quite a number of staffing agencies with creative divisions, stand-alone creative staffing agencies, and independent recruiters who specialize in this niche. I’ve been working with creatives my entire career and as a recruiter for about 4 years.

What I have noticed about this niche of the staffing world is that not many of us network among each other. Being in it for a while, I’ve noticed at most of the agencies that I’ve been with there is this “us vs. them” mentality. While I think that competition is a good thing, I think there are ways that we can work together – to build our referral network and to come up with best practices in our neck of the woods. I hear the term “Recruiting 2.0″ pop up quite often, and that gets me very excited, because who we recruit for welcomes this with open arms.