Panic, Panic, Panic - you have a job vacancy in Further Education or Work Based Learning. What's more this job vacancy is your responsibility to be filled, filled quickly with an experienced and qualified industry professional. The pressure is on.... What do you do next?
Well you have plenty of options, although time seems to be working against you - time is your friend and panic is your enemy. Panic at your peril. Your worst mistake at this point is to panic and knee jerk into an instant decision.
The list of options are:
Network.
Engaged a Recruitment Agency.
Place a print based advertisement.
Place a web advert on an online job site.
...or integrate a couple of the above methods to hedge your bets. Every method has its pro's and it's con's. Lets investigate.
Networking
Networking is a very important recruitment tool. If you have a NVQ Assessor job vacancy for example - you will normally have a team of NVQ Assessor's in your organisation. Do they know of anyone who they may have worked with before? Personal recommendation cuts through the CV sifting... but you will have to head hunt them... if you have ever been head hunted you will know that your ego suddenly inflates like a balloon and many people decide that they are now worth £10,000 per year more than they are being paid now... every method has its pro's and con's!
Recruitment Agencies
Engaging a Recruitment Agency, lets the expert manage the recruitment process for you. I would recommend using a specialist FE or Work Based Learning NVQ Recruitment Agency - they will know your market, understand what you are looking for and be able to scratch under the surface of the candidates CV. Specialist Recruiters normally have developed a database of candidates in your market, they will also be able to explain the candidates achievements, rather than just send you CV's of candidates that have completed NVQ's! ... but before you action a recruitment agency always agree on the introductory fee. I would recommend asking if they have completed an assignment like this before, how many candidates they have on their database and what methods they use to fill the role.
It can be healthy to talk to a few agencies, but not 100,000. Would you put in as much effort to completing a task if you knew that 100,000 other people are also trying to complete it? Most recruitment consultants are paid commission on their placements and are more likely to put their 100% committed effort into filling a role when they know that they can eat the whole cake, rather than turn up late to the party and only see a few crumbs being shoved in the bin! I would recommend actioning one or two recruitment agencies per campaign, this way you have their commitment and you are also hedging your bets (comparing the best CV's from two recruitment industry experts). For junior roles always agree a no placement, no fee arrangement.
If you want to action an Executive Search or Head Hunting campaign - only use one provider is my advice. You normally have to pay a retained fee for an Executive Search firm to fill the role - there is no point paying for this twice! Executive Search fees can be 30% of the basic salary, if you pay the third of the fee up front, you will only want to use one Executive Search firm!
Recruitment Agencies, pro's they are your industry experts - they manage the whole process, pre-screen candidates for you (some of the better agencies complete competency based interviews and provide interview notes for you to view). They also arrange the interviews and negotiate the salary and start date. All very handy stuff. The con's - if you speak to the wrong agency - they can bug you forever with irrelevant CV's from their database... choose wisely - that is my advice!
Print Based Advertisements
A lot of FE Colleges love to print based advertise. Many in the TES or the Guardian or local papers. The TES and Guardian, depending on the role have a large readership, but you must make your ad stand out against a see of black and white. Your target must buy the print media, turn to the jobs page, be able to find your ad against a sea of other advertisers and then the all important.... respond. Print based advertising is also pretty expensive, just think if you advertise in a local paper you have a 1 day window. It may look like you are doing everything to fill the role but several thousand pounds in one day is a lot of money to anyone! Print advertising is also pretty slow, you must have your advertisement copy in a couple of days before the publication. If you think of a change to the copy once it is submitted, then tough luck! You have one chance on this.
I would recommend not going for too small an advert (you have to be seen) or too large - you just don't want to be skipped over! Black and White is cheaper, but colour (even two colour ad's - such as Red and Black) really stand out against the sea of black and white. So it could well be worth spending the little extra to make the advert more effective. In for penny, in for a pound and all that!
Pro's with print based, is that you are definitely seen to be pro-actively looking for someone to the powers that be. Everyone else is doing it, and has done it for decades - so no one can fault you for this... but it is very expensive. Very expensive with just a one day window. How do you know your target is going to pick up the publication? You are also very re-stricted on editing the ad, and you have a really small circulation window. Just look in the bin at rush hour! What is it mainly filled with! (If you don't know, look next time - and see if this is where you want your ad to end up!) I would check before you place the ad that other people have placed similar roles to you (and most importantly of all - had success!). You are talking about a several thousand pound investment for a quarter or half page ad - make sure it is worth it! Pro's if you get the media, the timing and the ad copy right you can have amazing results. Con's get any of this wrong and your ad and your several thousand pounds will end up with the commuters newspapers in the nearest train station bin! we are all working with tax payers money - so it is your duty to get it right!
Advertise online
Well you can always advertise online... but even in this you have so much choice. This is a decision making process similar to the recruitment agency predicament. Do you work with a generalist or a specialist? I am not going to try to sway your decision here. I am writing this piece to offer advice and alternatives... but I also work for FE Careers.co.uk the specialist FE and NVQ Assessor job advertising service... so my opinion is going to be going along the specialist route... so to continue with the neutral approach. I will just give you the pro's and con's to web job board advertising.
Firstly enter your job vacancy title into Google or Yahoo. Who advertises these roles and whose has an audience interested in your job. Online advertise can produce fantastic results, I have heard of recruitment agencies placing job ad's online and filling the position within 24 hours! This is pretty phenomenal results, especially as the recruiter had to write the ad, post it, the job seeker see the ad and respond, be interviewed by the agency, the recruiter writing up the candidate interview notes, sending this to the client, arranging the interview etc. Online advertising is quick!
Online advertising is cheaper and much more flexible than print based advertising. With some job boards you could have unlimited job advertising for a year compared to a single 1 day advert with a broad sheet or local paper! Online you can normally re-edit the job so you can see which job advert titles and text produce the best results.
With online job board advertising the choice can be sometimes overwhelming. Do you go with a really large generalist, that has a multi million pound marketing spend (but where does this money come from!) or a generalist in your market. Only you can make this decision, if they are a smaller generalist - I would recommend searching the site as if you were a job seeker - do they have jobs similar to your vacancy. If they do this is great, if they don't it could be even better!.. how I hear you ask - If you have a Sports NVQ Assessor job vacancy, you have searched a specialist NVQ Assessor job advertising site... you can see hundreds of NVQ Assessor jobs, but none in your occupational competency area... you could have absolutely no response, or you could have an absolutely great response with Assessor's or job seekers in your area just waiting for your job to appear on the scene. This will only usually be the case with specialist job advertising boards... but go with your gut feel.
Buy now, you have received a huge raft of info.... is the panic setting in again yet as you feel time is ticking on and you haven't put any wheels in motion? ... don't forget this is a very important decision, what you do now dictates success or failure. Time and Google are your friend.
Good Luck with your recruitment campaign. I hope the information helps you find not just the right person for this role, but all of your future roles.
Gavin, CEO www.FEcareers.co.uk
