How to choose between two offers, maybe toss a coin?

Last week I received 2 great offers for a fantastic, highly experienced Recruiter, and he had to make the extremely difficult decision of picking one.

I told him to ‘toss a coin’.

He thought I was joking and laughed.

I insisted ‘toss a coin!’

‘The feeling and reaction you get to how the coin falls will tell you which offer to accept!’

Maybe you should try this technique next time you have a decision to make!

Restrictive Covenants/Non Compete clauses when leaving a Recruitment position

Are your non-compete contractual agreements/restrictive covenants holding you back from making a career move in recruitment?

Yes, they are a pain, no bones about it, however, there are benefits to having to work to these restrictions:

✔They make you remember old contacts who you haven’t spoken to for a while.

✔Push you into refreshing skills you may not have been using of late.

✔Encourage you into building new relationships.

✔If you could deal with all your clients from day 1 you might not be able to service them as effectively as you might like. Restrictions force you to get all your ducks in a row before smashing it again!

6 months soon flies by when you are having fun in recruitment, your new employer will have invested in you for the long term and will appreciate you can’t do all you would like in those initial months.

It might be like my last 2 placements that you fancy a change in sector, then these need not apply!

If it is time for you to move companies, don’t let contractual concerns hold you back!

Handing in your notice in recruitment

For a whole host of reasons, you’ve decided to have an early night and not go to the pub.

You’re a bit nervous to tell your mates, so you do it in a ‘wishy washy’ way.

They spot signs of weakness and lay everything on you to persuade you otherwise, all the emotional cards come out, ‘come on, don’t let us down’ etc!

You end up going to the pub then regretting it the next day for all the important reasons you had decided not to go out that night!

This analogy is what it can be like when a Recruitment Consultant hands in their notice.

Moral of the story, if you’ve decided to leave your recruitment job, hand your notice in firmly!

If you’ve made a decision that you believe is best for you and your family, then you are not letting anyone down.

If you didn’t make the right decision for you, you are only letting yourself down.

Leaving a recruitment position does not make you disloyal.

It does not have to be negative when the journey of an employer and employee comes to an end.

This reminds me of the great quote:

‘What if we invest in them and they leave, what if we don’t invest in them and they stay’.

The Trick to Enjoying Recruitment!

The trick to enjoying recruitment is to focus on what you can control and letting go of what you can’t.

You can control:
-Your attitude, words, actions and effort

You can’t control:
-Other people’s attitude, words, actions and effort!

Trust that if you consistently keep doing the right daily habits, success is inevitable and learn to let go of what doesn’t go your way.

Recruitment doesn’t necessarily get easier, we just become stronger and better at riding the waves!!

Kindness in Recruitment

This week I have a further meeting with a fantastic Recruiter who may come and work at ‘Isabelle Williams – Recruiting Recruiters’.

This has led me to firming up the culture and values I want Isabelle Williams to embody.

I will be incorporating the T.R.I.C.K principles by Esther Wojcicki.

Esther believes that to create self-motivated, successful teams you should show people TRUST, treat them with RESPECT, give them INDEPENDENCE, COLLABORATE rather than dictate, and finally treat them with KINDNESS.

The ‘Kindness’ value resonated with me as I recently received a testimonial from a top biller who described my approach as ‘showing Kindness’.

I have never known a recruitment business to have a value of ‘kindness’.

10 – 20 years ago this would have been laughed out of the room. Maybe it still would….?

What do you think to ‘kindness’ as a recruitment businesses value, would it be interpreted as weakness….?

Would you partner with a ‘Rec 2 Rec’ that branded themselves as kind – or would this be perceived as soft, weak, unable to have difficult conversations or negotiate hard?

‘Never underestimate the power of a kind person, kindness is a choice that comes from incredible strength.’ unknown

I would really love your thoughts!

#recruitment

Happy Business Birthday ‘Isabelle Williams - Recruiting Recruiters’. The ups and downs of the journey so far!

*1 year in at ‘Isabelle Williams – Recruiting Recruiters!’*

And what a year!

I started my business at the back end of 2019, initially sorting all the basics of setting up a business ready to hit the ground running in January.

And hit the ground running I did!

The local economy seemed to be booming.

The positive reactions to my business development calls surprised me.

I was impressed by the quality and offerings of our regional recruitment agencies.

I became addicted to recruitment again, working day and night.

It felt almost a bit too good to be true!

Then Covid hit!!

I had pretty much made 3 placements to that point, but all 3 processes stalled.

A Director from an extremely successful business called me to say that his other ‘Rec to Rec’ was on furlough, can I help him continue his growth plans?

I carried on working with a select few clients while the kids were off school, combining work and home educating for 6 months!! I will forever be grateful for their support.

Having worked in the industry for 20 years, I understood this was the time I needed to focus on my relationships with passive potential candidates.

At this point, Recruitment agencies no longer needed me for Consultants with less than 2 years’ experience. Sadly, too many at this level had been forced into the marketplace.

I was on hand to offer advice to people facing redundancy, but frustratingly it was difficult for me to ‘open up’ opportunities for them.

So, I spent my time mapping the market, identifying talent, understanding Consultants and Managers motivations, offering advice, and nurturing these relationships.

Thank you September and the schools/clubs reopening!

September came and I had childcare for the kids again, along with there being more positivity in the marketplace, this is when things started moving properly.

I arranged interviews held ‘at the park bench!’

I had an awakening as to how difficult ‘Rec to Rec’ is and what a risk I had taken! I had to learn new skills and work in a hugely different way to the Office Support sector I had been recruiting in most recently.

However, I managed to uncover some fantastic talent and facilitated some incredible moves.

I am humbled that these highly successful Directors and Senior Consultants chose to work with me exclusively for their next move.

I am proud to have placed someone who may hold the title for billing the most revenue in a year in their city, ever!!

I’ve enjoyed helping people earlier in their recruitment career to embark on a path I am so passionate about.

Thank you!

I am hugely grateful to everyone who has supported me this last year, I cannot express my gratitude enough.

A particular thanks to everyone who has ever liked, commented, or shared one of my posts.

This simple act is such a boost to a new business owner, or someone setting up a new desk.

With no colleagues as yet, I can’t email my team asking for their support in this way!

To all my amazing clients and wonderful candidates, I can honestly say that you have inspired me.

I have thoroughly enjoyed working with you all this year and am looking forward to developing our relationships in the coming years.

Moving forward….

I am hoping to be able to answer the question someone asked me once.

‘If you as a ‘Recruitment to Recruitment’ business, recruit Recruitment Consultants for Recruitment agencies, who recruits the Recruitment Consultants for the ‘Recruitment to Recruitment’ company?!! 😊

Thank you for reading,

Victoria Shirley

Is now the right time to make a career move in recruitment?

Is now the right time to make a career move in recruitment?

It could actually be the perfect time.

If you are relatively new to recruitment, then arguably it may be safer to stay put.

If you are an established biller, then there are benefits to progressing your career now.

It could be a great time to work through restrictive covenants in a market quieter than usual.

Time to get all your ducks in a row, get to grips with new processes, systems, build relationships with the team.

So that you can ‘make hay’ when the market returns.

Most importantly when you have made that decision to move on in recruitment, it’s hard to keep your head in the game.

When your frustrations keep creeping up every day, it’s not an enjoyable place to be.

Savvy business owners seek opportunities in times of crisis.

They are aware there are good billers who are not happy with their current employers right now, they want to capitalise on this and are providing fantastic opportunities

Will you seize them?

Expectations will need to be set correctly and be adaptable in an unprecedented time

A move now would certainly not be a rushed process

Everything would need to feel right

But let’s stop putting our lives on hold

Personal Development and Recruitment

If you are or have worked in recruitment

Whether you have noticed it or not

You are likely to have developed massively on a personal level

(I’m sure there are many other professions that do this as well, admittedly I am a bit biased to recruitment!)

It is likely that your desk will have grown as you will have grown

Your resilience will have been pushed to the max

Your interpersonal and organisational skills will have had to be ‘on point’

To be successful, your mindset will have needed to be strong and positive

But no matter how good you are, we are all still work in progress

To supplement your ‘on the job’ personal development, I would highly recommend taking the time to read personal development books

You are likely to have times in your career when you are ‘on fire’

Other times recruitment will feel harder

If you are feeling a bit stale

Finding yourself losing confidence

Or simply needing a boost in this tough market

Then I would highly recommend buying yourself a personal development book!

Here are a some of my favourites that I would like to recommend to you, please comment if you can recommend any other good reads 😊

If you haven’t got time for reading full books or want to find out more about a book before buying, then download the app ‘blinkist’ which summarises the key areas of books in audio form

Take a look at the summary of each book online and see which resonate most with you.

The Chimp Paradox, Prof Steve Peters

The Success Principles, Jack Canning

The Slight Edge, Jeff Olson

How to win friends and influence people, Dale Carnegie

Feel the fear and do it anyway, Susan Jeffers

Goals, Brian Tracy

Eat that frog, Brian Tracy

The Secret, Rhonda Byrne

The Miracle Morning, Hal Elrod

Never split the difference, Chris Voss

Think and grow rich, Napoleon Hill and Ross Cornwell

The real reason why Recruitment Consultants procrastinate, how to stop yourself and what to do if you manage a team of procrastinators!

The real reason why Recruitment Consultants procrastinate, how to stop yourself and what to do if you manage a team of procrastinators!!

The definition of Procrastinate: ‘Postpone or delay action, put off something’

I don’t know about you, but I rarely heard the word ‘procrastinate’ until a few years ago, it’s definitely a word that seems to be used more frequently, maybe it’s just that we are living in a world full of procrastinators or maybe there’s another reason….

The myths!

Many people believe the main reasons behind procrastination are:

-Laziness

-People not wanting it enough

-Not having had enough training

-They just don’t like speaking on the phone

-People have short attention spans these days due to how we consume media

There may well be some truth in the reasons above, however, one theory growing in popularity is that procrastinators are simply perfectionists. We are living in online worlds through social media where all we see is perfectionism. This perfectionism is paralysing us, we don’t take action because we are frightened, we will get it wrong.

And who can blame us when too often our mistakes are highlighted on-line.  You have most likely seen posts where people shared a poorly written inbox message they have received.  Maybe colleagues you work with enjoy shaming other people’s mistakes. People are quick to write negative reviews online if they do not perceive their experience to be good enough. Our friends on social media seem to experience so much success and have it all together. 

If you procrastinate?

-Many of you will know the best way to deal with procrastination is to just do that job now! Do it now! Just do it! A great book to help with this is ‘Eat that frog’ by Brian Tracy

-Also, there’s a fantastic technique for preparing yourself for dealing with a difficult task by counting down ‘5-4-3-2-1’, then when you get to 1 you just have to go for it and make that call!

-Plan to do the jobs you are most likely to procrastinate on first, and ‘just do them!’ 

-If you feel that you are easily distracted by social media or that the perfection online negatively impacts you or makes you feel inferior, then give it a break for a while, or switch it off weekdays. Maybe set yourself a challenge to give it up for a week and see how much more productive you are and whether you feel happier in yourself.

So, what to do if you manage a team of procrastinators?

-With this theory in mind, allow your team to see your mistakes.

-Advise your team you expect them to make a mistake/forget to ask a question, it is part of human nature and the most important thing is making that call.

-Be aware of how you give constructive criticism

-But ultimately ‘you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink’, you can give them the tools and support, but you cannot do their job for them!

If you work in recruitment and tend to procrastinate then it is more important than ever to address this now!  Question yourself as to the real reasons you are putting off tasks. Identify what you allow yourself to be distracted by and remove these where possible. We are moving into a new world of recruitment, where I am afraid to say we are going to need to do more activity than ever to succeed. It is time to get rid of any demons in your mind that do not serve you and ‘just do it!’

By Victoria Shirley, Founder of Isabelle Williams – Recruiting Recruiters

5 ways to become more successful in recruitment (and life in general for that matter!)

1.   Practice personal development

Training in recruitment tends to focus around the practicalities of recruitment and techniques which of course, are important, however, we must never underestimate the importance of working on yourself. I recommend trying to read a little a day of a personal development book or listening to inspiring podcasts, audio books or youtube videos. Absorbing this positive content daily will help give you the right mindset that successful recruiters have, and if you’re already successful then doing this will make you even better! If you do not have the attention span for reading, I highly recommend a fantastic app called ‘blinkist’ that summarises books. Drop me a message me if you would like some specific book recommendations.

2.   Make clear goals, write them down and review regularly

Granted setting goals in the aftermath of Corona virus is difficult to do, however, still do it and write them down! Dr. Gail Matthews, a psychology professor at the Dominican University in California, recently studied the art and science of goal setting. She found that you become 42% more likely to achieve your goals and dreams, simply by writing them down on a regular basis.

In recruitment I advise setting a monetary goal for the month and year that is challenging but achievable, then I advise setting an aspirational goal, that may be a little more challenging but still achievable, and with this one dream big!

Look out for a follow up article on goal setting and achieving your goals as this is an article in itself!

3.   Be clear on your ‘Why?’

Let’s face it to be successful in recruitment it takes hard work and a lot of resilience, but on the flip side if you are working in the right business, the rewards can be huge.  Having your ‘why?’ clear in your mind will give you laser focus and motivation to achieve your goals. Maybe you want to pay off your mortgage by the time you are 40 (or sooner), maybe you have holiday goals, you might want your dream car, is it to provide a certain lifestyle for your children…?  If you are unsure what may be achievable for you and if you are questioning whether you are in the right environment, with the best possible commission scheme to achieve your ‘why’, then do reach out to me for career and salary advice.

4.   Plan your life, do not be a drifter

Successful recruiters plan their days and they often do this the night before. This sets intention and gives you direction. Now we all know in recruitment we can have the best laid plans for our pro-active tasks, however, when something happens where we need to be reactive our plans can go out the window! It maybe you need to change your plan for the afternoon. Make sure you do your hardest tasks, or the activities you are most likely to procrastinate on first thing in the morning.

5.   Take responsibility for your own success

Unsuccessful recruiters have a victim mentality, when they don’t do the required activity, they find excuses outside of them, when things go wrong, they blame others. A victim mentality stands in the way of accountability. No recruiter is perfect we all make mistakes and we all have bad days, take ownership when this happens. Successful recruiters consciously or unconsciously analyse themselves, learn from these days and move on. You are in charge of your success, by blaming others you put them in charge.  Take back your power by always taking full responsibility.

I hope you enjoyed reading and take something away from this article, if so please give me a like. Would you have included anything else? Please do comment with your views!

Isabelle Williams is a ‘Rec to Rec’ agency based in Peterborough. I am always looking to grow my network and would love to connect with you.

You may or may not be actively looking for a new role, maybe you would find it useful to have some career and salary advice from a third party like myself, maybe you are just interested in hearing of a certain salary or position.  Please contact me on 07515 944 390 or over linkedin or email victoria@isabellewilliams.org

All conversations treated in the strictest of confidence

How to significantly increase your recruitment billings with this 5 minute technique!

‘Future pacing’ is a technique than can be used in different ways through the sales process, however, this article is going to cover how to use this technique to increase the action you take day to day and improve the quality of your action.

We all know that the more action we take, the more success we will have. Yes, some luck can come into play in our game of recruitment (unless you are of the view that we make our own luck!) and of course it helps if you work smart. But ultimately, you only need to look at the most successful consultants in your business and you will see they are the ones who take the most action. 

Most of us know exactly what activity we should be doing each day to reach our goals but sometimes something prevents us from doing it, or we don’t take the action consistently enough week in week out which is so vital for success in recruitment. This is where this technique can come in.

‘Future Pacing’ is an NLP (neuro linguistic programming) technique to programme the mind. It is believed that by mentally rehearsing a future result, the desired outcome automatically occurs. We must never underestimate the power of the mind, the power it has over our bodies and the power our thoughts have over our reality. I appreciate I may be starting to sound a little ‘voo doo’ for some at this point but stick with me! 

The idea of this technique is that you spend a few minutes each day, maybe before you go to sleep, before you get out of bed in the morning, while in the shower, while cleaning your teeth (you get the idea!) where you plan the day you want to have in your mind. Make it part of your routine and do it every day.

See yourself doing all you need to do. Maybe you are getting your head down doing business development, see yourself reaching the key people you need to speak with and see yourself smiling as the calls are going incredibly well. Maybe you have an important meeting that day, visualise yourself at the meeting, see you and your client laughing together. It maybe you have a great job you’re recruiting for with few suitable applicants, use this technique to visualise the perfect CV coming into your inbox and feel the excitement as you open the CV. See yourself doing a placement dance (if that’s your thing!).

To intensify this technique and for it to become more effective, as you visualise allow yourself to feel the feelings you would be feeling. The excitement as you receive an offer for a candidate, the relief when you receive positive interview feedback from a new client, the happiness when you look at your commission slip.

I appreciate these types of techniques are not for everybody, but even if you don’t believe in the power of the mind, you have nothing to lose in trying this and having fun with it! 

I can promise you from personal experience this works, I could write a whole article with examples where I have used this and similar techniques with amazing results.

The right mindset is a key ingredient for success in recruitment and this is a simple technique to put you in the right frame of mind for a great day. Why not give it a try today and prepare to be amazed!

Brexit and the recruitment industry

Brexit happened on the 31st January, but what will this mean for us recruiters, should we be scared, if so, how scared?! 
Or should we share in the optimism that Brexit will bring exciting new opportunities, that we have previously been unable to embrace whilst part of
the EU?

How well us recruiters do depends on how well our clients (businesses) are doing and on the access we have to candidates.

How will businesses that operate in the UK fair? As a very sweeping generalisation from my experience speaking to businesses, many leaders of SME’s welcome Brexit particularly those struggling with EU regulation, again a sweeping generalisation but the majority of big business liked the EU and were able to cope with the EU’s demands, of course they were not complaining that smaller competitors were being squeezed out of the marketplace!

Some sectors will be impacted more than others, especially those operating in ‘Just in time manufacturing’, those importing and exporting to the EU and those relying on subsidies from the EU. The support our government provides these businesses under ‘a deal’ or ‘no deal’ scenario may be an influential factor on how these sectors fair in the short term. Let’s all hope the UK Government shows competence and uses the money we will no longer be sending to the EU wisely in order to help our businesses with any changes, for example ensuring businesses who currently receive subsidies from the EU continue to receive money from the UK Government if needed.

What about access to applicants with the changes on immigration policy? Most of us recruiters will have experienced receiving a fantastic CV from an applicant outside of the EU and the frustration of being unable to work with them without visa sponsorship which has been so difficult to secure. 

Hopefully a fairer points-based immigration policy will help us recruit the best talent for our businesses from around the world no longer discriminating against applicants outside of the EU. With the UK currently enjoying the lowest unemployment figures in recent history, we have faced a candidate skills shortage for quite some time.  Let’s hope the new immigration system will help the shortage, of course we will still need low skilled workers in volume under the new immigration policy. We need to focus on making our country an attractive place for these migrants and for business to continue investing.

With Boris’s landslide election win, Brexit is now certain, however the horizon is still shrouded in uncertainty. We have a year within a transition period before knowing what a deal will look like or if we will leave with no deal.

One of my biggest hopes with Brexit is that being out of the EU we will be able to trade with some poor countries who are desperate to sell to us, and this may help these countries reduce poverty.

Should the worse happen and our economy take a severe hit, recruitment businesses will need to adapt, it may be a focus on temporary recruitment will take priority, it will be the survival of the fittest and the good recruitment businesses will increase their share and remain profitable with the weak retracting.  It would be advised to ensure your client base is diverse and not reliant on one sector.

I appreciate Brexit is an extremely complex process with many factors at play here. However, personally, I am not one that buys in to the view Brexit equates with a recession, there may be some bumps in the road initially, however I feel in the long term our economy will thrive, even if we
are faced with a no deal.  UK businesses have coped so well with three years of Brexit uncertainty, and with our economy having outperformed Germany and France in recent years, surely this must be a good sign of the strength of our businesses. Local recruitment agencies certainly
seem confident in our economy as nearly everyone I have spoken to since starting my business want to recruit new consultants, many having exciting
growth plans in place. I would love to hear your views…

Do you work in recruitment?  It maybe you are not actively looking for a
new job, however, would be open to hearing details of opportunities for a particular
role or package. We would welcome you making contact to Victoria on 07515 944 390
in complete confidence.

Who do you know in recruitment?  We offer a fantastic referral scheme of £250
should we place your referral. All approaches treated in the strictest of
confidence.

How
will Brexit impact the recruitment industry?



With ever evolving artificial intelligence and increasing in house recruitment teams …..Will recruitment agencies become obsolete?

By Victoria Shirley, Founder of Isabelle Williams, Recruiting Recruiters

Given I have recently opened a Rec to Rec agency you won’t need to wait until the end of this blog to know my answer on this one!

We can’t deny that recruitment has changed significantly in recent years, the emergence of recruitment websites and social media have made it easier for businesses to make direct contact with candidates without the need of an agent.

However, a quick look for recruitment jobs on google shows that agencies are crying out for recruitment consultants so what is going on here?!

Firstly, this is testament to a reasonably good economy, although 2019 has been a tougher year in recruitment than previous years, UK businesses have shown remarkable resilience, considering we’ve had three years of Brexit uncertainty.

In-house Recruitment teams have been growing at such a pace, some becoming exceptionally savvy and, of course, this has reduced the need for recruitment agencies. However most in-house recruiters still use agencies in some way shape or form.  Recruitment businesses have had to identify where the need is and adapt, those that do this successfully are still able to thrive.

Personally, I feel there will always be a need for a third party and the value of this should never be under-estimated, especially when working with a good experienced recruiter. Of course, I have seen first-hand the importance of this role, especially the difference this can make in securing the desired applicant and supporting them through the offer process and their notice period.

There are many reasons why an applicant may not feel comfortable approaching a business directly and want to work with a trusted recruitment consultant who can tentatively test the water anonymously on their behalf before they make a formal application. Our lives are only getting busier and let’s face it, it’s the rare few that have time to make multiple applications when a recruiter can do this for you.

In five years time we are likely to be dealing with a completely different landscape again in terms of the technology that will be available to us, and no-one knows what the future may hold.  Who knows, it may even be that the tide will turn and there may be a move against the use of internal recruiters and back to recruiting via agencies.  These decisions are likely to be driven by cost; internal recruiters demand good salaries, job boards are currently not cheap and given many companies are still spending on recruitment agencies, for some businesses a move back to sole agency use may even be deemed more cost effective, especially as there is no fee until a candidate has been successfully placed.

Do you work in recruitment?  It maybe you are not actively looking for a new job, however, would be open to hearing details of opportunities with a role or package. We would welcome you making contact to Victoria on 07515 944390 in complete confidence. 

Who do you know in recruitment?  We offer a fantastic referral scheme of £250 should we place your referral. All approaches treated in the strictest of confidence.