Published in Recruiter Daily, Friday 1st June 2007
Starting your own recruitment business is like deciding to have a child - "once you have it you can't give it back", says Marker Consulting managing director, Diane Marker. Here she shares advice and insights from her time in the industry.
Marker began her recruitment career more than 20 years ago in Scotland, when she saw a job ad and immediately recognised in herself the traits the company was looking for.
She was so convinced she was right for the position that she waited outside the office for the best part of a Saturday hoping that it would open. She got the job and loved it.
After moving to Australia, Marker worked for Drake International when it was considered a "global leader and at the cutting edge of new technology". She notes that the recruitment industry here is currently "spear-headed by a lot of people who started their career at Drake".
She took a hiatus from the industry to work in hotel management, and after moving overseas for a short period returned to Australia, where she started up the Northern Territory operations of Dunhill Management Services (now Robert Walters). She was then approached by Morgan and Banks, where she worked until it was acquired by TMP.
Marker says: "[Working at Morgan & Banks] really fine-tuned and honed my executive search and consultative solutions-based skills.
"When they were acquired, I decided I really wanted a vehicle to download all this experience and use it in a more consultative, solution-based manner in an industry that I'm passionate about."
She started up her rec-to-rec firm, Marker Consulting, just over four years ago and it now operates in four Australian states as well as the UK and Asia, employing 30 staff.
When it comes to starting up your own business, Marker says fear of growth is a big challenge to overcome.
"The thing is... if you don't grow, you'll be run over. In order to really deliver the service you promise you're going to deliver, you've got to have the tools, you've go to have the cash flow, and you've got to have the right people.
"If by delivering a great service it increases demand for your service, you either walk away from that demand, or if you accept it, you'd better be able to deliver. It can be a fear of growth - the unknown - 'can I afford it, what's going to happen?'
"When you look back at successful people, the highest percentage of them inevitably put their biggest asset on the line, which is usually their family home. That's a big decision to make - it's like deciding to have a child - once you have it you can't give it back, you've got to continue to feed it and nurture and develop it.
"Also, if you're going to start in the recruitment industry, and fortunately and in some cases unfortunately, there's no barrier to entry... make sure you know your market. Make sure you have a point of difference. Make sure the passion is there and make sure you have the energy, because it's 24/7. Even when you go on holidays, (if you get holidays), it's 24/7; you're still thinking about your business. Your business becomes your child, and you just can't switch it off. So you'd better have that 150 per cent commitment if you're going into your own business."
Marker says that what makes a successful recruiter "comes down to pretty basic stuff".
She says intelligence - both intellect and emotional intelligence - is "very, very important", but beyond that, drive, desire, determination, discipline and dedication are necessary.
"You've got to have the whole suite of those traits, because we're dealing with the human element and you never know what's going to happen.
"Honestly ask yourself, 'have I got those traits?', because if you don't have them all, don't enter into [recruitment]."
Marker's advice to recruiters is: "Be honest with your clients and your candidates. The only thing you should be guaranteeing both is that you'll do your utmost to assist them. Do not guarantee that you'll find them the right job; do not guarantee that 'of course I'll be able to find you the right person', because there's no one who can guarantee that.
"The only thing you can guarantee, and you should guarantee, is that you'll give it a hundred per cent. You will deliver service in the true meaning of the word. You do want to partner with that client or that candidate, and you do understand when someone comes to you asking to help their career; that's a privilege. Consider how they will feel if they don't get the call back, or if they don't get any feedback from you, or if they don't even get acknowledgment of the fact they've applied to you."
Marker says one of the most challenging parts of being a recruiter is managing the industry's "intangible product".
"You're dealing with human emotions, which you can control and guide and lead to a certain degree, but people change their minds, often at the last minute and for the most unbelievable reasons. And that's the most frustrating thing about our job and the job that recruiters have.
"The only thing you can do (I call it the grunt work) - and this is also where the science of recruitment comes in - is to make sure that wherever you possibly can, you cover all bases, from a competency-based point of view, from a behavioural-based point of view, and then get in behind the scene and understand what is their emotional and family point of view as far as making the next move is concerned.
"There's little things, like, if an individual is transferring, and there are children involved, for example, you've got to ask about the children's hobbies and consider whether the new area will meet their needs, because if the family life isn't happy and stable, it will definitely affect your professional life. So you can try and drill down and get behind the scenes as much as you possibly can, but because of the human aspect, there might sometimes be things that you miss, or things that people withhold from you."
Marker says the introduction of technology and recruitment databases has been "a massive aid and tool to our industry".
However, "it's also been something that can, and has diluted the consultative aspect of the recruitment consultant's job, because instead of relying on memory, and applying your instinct to match the right person, they go into the database and it's throwing out 40 or 50 resumes and they say, 'ok, top five I'll send them to the client', as opposed to [deciding] from an emotional view, 'are they the right person for the client?'.
She adds: "People can get lost in the database as well, they can be entered in and then lost, because search criteria is based on what is put in... So it is a huge advantage as a tool, as long as it's not used as a solution to our clients' needs, because the manner in which we apply this tool can also be a disadvantage."
Marker says the high consultant turnover in the recruitment industry has emerged over the last 10 years, coinciding with
She says, "I would question if everyone, hand on heart, could say that they've really got a training plan for their people, and I think that the industry is losing people we shouldn't be losing, because they're possibly not performing quickly enough.
"Not everyone performs at the same rate, so we could be losing some diamonds out of this industry because we're not putting the time into train, coach, develop and understand the difference between training and coaching an individual.
"Coaching is recognising how people learn and delivering to them in a manner that meets their needs. Training is certainly something that you can do with a team of people or an individual, but coaching is really demonstrating your knowledge and sharing your experiences in a manner that those individuals can say, 'yes I understand, I get it'."
Marker says recruiters should "really focus on promoting our industry as a profession worthy of consideration as a career - get into the universities, get into the colleges and say 'have you thought of this?'.
"I don't think that we do that well - I think that an awful lot of people fall into recruitment. I don't think we promote this wonderful industry and profession as well as we should."