Are recruitment agencies going to die out in Recruitment 4.0?

I was reading an interesting opinion piece by Matthew Jeffery, who is Head of EMEA talent acquisition & global talent brand for Autodesk. The article is a long, but interesting one about Jeffery’s vision for recruitment in the not too distant future. He covers some excellent and innovative points but the standout for me, was Jeffery’s reference to “the Death of Recruitment Agencies”. Really?

There is no doubt that recruitment has evolved from 1.0 to the current 3.0, as clearly described in the article. I have no doubt that recruitment will continue to evolve in ways that we probably haven’t even heard of at this stage.

A great example of this was beautifully described by Firebrand’s Global CEO, Greg Savage presenting to a full Melbourne boardroom on the topic of “Talent Attraction and Retention in the Digital Age”. Savage said that currently across the Firebrand network 50% of the roles we are recruiting didn’t even exist 3-5 years ago! Recruitment is evolving and it’s so exciting to be part of an industry whose business model is shifting.

The use of technology and social media is playing a significant part in this shift. However, in my opinion, relevant talent pool development and crowd sourcing is not the answer. It is part of the answer and should be an important part of a talent attraction strategy. I have worked for 7 years in Digital, IT and recruitment and what I have learnt time and time again is that recruitment is a people business that relies on personal relationships and interactions. I just cannot see how recruitment 4.0 is going to be the death of recruitment agencies.

The reason why I asked myself is because if hiring managers can manage a community of talent, then why are they not doing this now? In addition to the daily responsibilities of the hiring manager, why are they not focusing on talent attraction? What about talent retention and the time and effort it takes to invest in retaining a new hire in the business?

Now I am not saying that all recruitment agencies will survive in recruitment 4.0. In fact, I am positive that those that do not adapt their recruitment process and do not specialise are in severe risk of “death”. I am even more certain that internal recruiters and hiring managers may act on talent community development strategies to acquire the right talent at the right time. But I believe that innovative and specialist recruitment agencies are actually going to pave the way for new and better ways to connect with the right talent in this digital and social age.

What do you think?

Is hiring confidence returning to the digital talent economy?

Is technology getting in the way of your work?

(10) Readers Comments

Steph Kelly
16 February, 2012 at 12:17 pm

Interesting thoughts, Kyle. I would have to agree more with your line of thinking, especially your sentiment regarding hiring managers:”then why are they not doing this now?”

At the risk of dating myself, I recall the predictions that (first) job boards and (then) LinkedIn would also be the end of external search.

For those interested in embracing it, Recruiting 4.0 is really an opportunity for firms that are willing to think outside of the box to offer novel, problem-solving services in the framework of our rapidly changing landscape.

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- @Blackers3047
  16 February, 2012 at 3:24 pm
  
  Hi Steph,
  
  Thank you for your comment. You are right, external search is not about job boards and then Linkedin. They do form part of the recruitment process but are not the basis of a full recruitment process. Here is a link to one of my earlier blog posts where I attempt to educate all about what is underneath the tip of the recruitment process iceberg: http://blog.firebrandtalent.com/2011/03/recruitment-%E2%80%93-most-people-just-see-the-tip-of-the-iceberg/
  
  Recruitment 4.0 is an opportunity. As you have described, my opinion is that with changing landscapes comes new services from new firms/companies and new services from innovative specialist firms.
  
  Reply
Nick Brooks
16 February, 2012 at 3:16 pm

You were at Greg’s presentation and thought it was good?!?
I am sorry, but this was a load of cliches summed up by an ageing ex-recruiter that considers himself a Guru.

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- Greg Savage
  16 February, 2012 at 3:36 pm
  
  Thanks Nick!
  You might be right on all the things you say here…but you are definitely right about one thing.
  I AM ageing !
  Thanks very much for reading and engaging with the Firebrand blog and very best wishes
  Greg
  
  Reply
Danz Holandez
16 February, 2012 at 3:52 pm

“Why are they not focusing on talent attraction?”

Good question.

On a somewhat related note: I’ve discussed exciting roles with other recruiters before and the part that leaves a bad taste in the mouth is when they say they’ll contact you on a specific date. But they never do.

Maybe that can be the updated topic for the next blog post?

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- Shane
  17 February, 2012 at 2:19 pm
  
  One of the reasons that hiring managers haven’t been focussing on talent attraction is that the process has traditionally been very time intensive. The point that people like Mathew Jeffery are making is that the technology now available makes these activities easier and in theory should be ale to be transferred internally.
  
  That said, I do think that there will still remain a place for agencies, but in my opinion the focus will shift from perm to contract, as I think this is the area where good agencies will be able to add value. And of course, small to mid size firms will not have the budgets and capability to bring all activities in house, so the market he will remain.
  
  Reply
  - @Blackers3047
    20 February, 2012 at 3:31 pm
    
    Hi Shane,
    
    Great points and thanks for your comments. You are right technology in theory should make these activites easier. But unfortunately, they are exacerbating the issue of time intensive screening process. Social Media / Community Managers are incredibly busy people and I find it very difficult to believe that an internal function would be able to dedicate time and effort to these said communities referred to by Jeffery. But I would love to be proven wrong.
    
    However, I disagree with you on the shift from perm to contract. Companies want to retain competitive advantage from their competitors. Why would a business want to share a skill set to the greater market. It commercial suicide in my opinion. Talent retention is vital in today’s market.
    
    Thanks Shane
    
    Reply
- @Blackers3047
  17 February, 2012 at 5:05 pm
  
  Hi Danz,
  
  Thanks for your comment. I guess from your experience with said recruiter that you will probably not be engaging them when the time is right for you to explore career opportunities. I am sure that I will have a blog post in the future that relates to Recruitment and Personalised Customer Service.
  
  But on the other hand, Why do you think that hiring managers are NOT focusing on talent attraction?
  
  Reply
steve hyde
21 February, 2012 at 7:13 pm

The main sectors my business covers are media and communications so the clients and candidates are pretty sophisticated in connections both social and professional. (They may also offer an insight of things to come in other sectors) We have seen a surge in the bigger clients staffing in house recruitment teams and expanding psl’s 4 fold to maximise cv response. Cv’s are owned by the first recruiter to send each and then owned by the client after 6 months from receipt. I have two issues with this: first, what kind of a business model does that present for any recruitment company manager? Second the deterioration in professional recruitment skills including personal assessment, profiled fit, understanding the brief etc are so very obvious when the emphasis is on speed of cv turnaround. This may work for clients in the short term but it will be problematic down the line. Our response has been to withdraw from contingency briefs below £60k and focus on the professional application of our experience where the roles are of greater importance to the client company.

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Wan Azhareezal Wan Aziz
29 February, 2012 at 6:13 pm

Yes indeed. Talent attraction is definitely something that we can evaluate on paper. But this is what diffrentiate those people that think out of the box rather than people whom work within the system and are comfortable with what they have currently.

I truly understand the current working environment is based on personal touch, contacts and your reputation with the hiring managers, but this perception should be reviewed again as companies rely on people that have more talent rather than good education background as this is now a challenging and competitive market to be in thus we need capable employees to lead the team in securinng new business opportunities for the company.

Looking forward for a opportunity to be given based not only in my education and experiences background but also through my talent and personal development background. Hope firebrand will look into it and give me the opportunitiy to prove myself in the job market.

Thank you.

Wan Azhareezal Wan Aziz

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