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- Jo Faragher
The Government’s Spending Review this week offered little in the way of positive (or thankfully, negative) news for recruiters. But for agencies supplying specialist staff to the energy and transport sectors, though, news that these areas will get a share of £100bn that has been earmarked to spend on infrastructure projects, should be grounds for optimism.
Another encouraging piece of news this week came out of Europe, where a European Court of Justice ruling has clarified where legislation that protects fixed-term workers does not apply to temporary agency workers.
The case concerned a worker supplied by an agency on a series of fixed term assignments to the Italian postal service. He claimed that the EU Fixed-term Work Directive applied to him, and he had been discriminated against by the hirer’s refusal to renew the fixed term hire.
Agencies that supply temps had feared that this directive might automatically mean that rights granted to fixed-term workers would also apply to temps, who already have certain rights under the Agency Workers Directive.
Industry bodies APSCo and the Association of Recruitment Consultancies welcomed the clarification, although ARC’s Adrian Marlowe said the legislation was still open to interpretation: “This ECJ case shows that agency worker rights and employment rights are mutually exclusive, but currently the AWR does not deal with this, leaving the argument open,” he said.
Meanwhile, as recruiters continue to talk up the value of social media for hiring staff, candidates seem to disagree. A survey by recruitment process outsourcing company hyphen found that only 1 in 20 make regular applications via social media channels, and many fear that it makes them look ‘unprofessional’, favouring more traditional application channels such as job boards.
This will not stem the tide of social media – it’s simply an indication that candidates (and frequently, HR managers) don’t feel confident enough yet to use these channels exclusively.
The potential to reach hard-to-find candidates, get your search out to a wider pool and ‘talk’ to people via Twitter or LinkedIn while they’re on the move cannot be underestimated. Use them well (rather than a glorified job-board, where you’re simply posting links to roles), and you can build worthwhile relationships with candidates and boost your clients’ brands at the same time.
Thomas Cook CEO Harriet Green referred to using ‘modern technology’ in her job search this week, when she described how she had directly approached the chairman of the company claiming ‘You need me’, rather than through the traditional headhunter route.
While her attack on executive search consultants will have angered many senior-level recruiters, there were some valid points in her argument. She claimed that, too often, recruiters would rigidly focus on specific criteria for the top role (such as experience in that industry), when expanding their view could have drawn up a far more diverse shortlist. We all want to keep the client happy, but the cliché ‘thinking outside the box’ is popular for a reason – different can be good.
Let us know what you think on editorial@recruitmentagencynow.com
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