Braindrain to begin again?

I remember all the discussions about an exodus of talent from the UK to Eastern Europe in the early 1990's and wonder if we're at the start of another. Not to Europe this time, probably farther afield to China and the Middle East.

Figures out this week in the UK show two important trends emerging, largely linked to a slowdown in the economy and the financial turmoil:

1. Number of UK graduates applying to each position doubles
2. Figure joining unemployment in September at highest monthly level for 17 years

There is an article on the first point at www.onrec.com and the second point was released by the Govt this week.

I've also spoken to a lot of people recently, both recruiters themselves and candidates, who are moving abroad at ever higher rates. There really is no reversing this, other than fresh job creation but I think we'll see companies waking up to the fact that many of them still don't know who their best people are - so they don't have the chance to try and retain top performers outside of a sales environment.

£3,500 a day Job

I found this pretty interesting. There was a job advertised on exec-appointments.com this week for a search engine optimisation specialist. There were very specific targets in the job ad aswell (get us to number 4 in Google listings for example).

Not bad pay either - £2,500 - £3,500 a day. Open ended contract, and negotiable on the pay; you just had to be exceptionally good at SEO. I’m sure this is one of those times when the school geek drop out who enjoys Nintendo and has been playing with websites from the age of 8 has just got his rewards!

RSS for Jobseekers

I wrote a blog article about recruiters using RSS before so thought I'd look at from the other side here. Jobseekers.

RSS is a great way to not have to revisit a web page to check if there's any new content (jobs in this case). For a jobseeker who is considering maybe 15 employers where he'd like to work next, you can see how it could quickly become tedious.

Here's an example of a leading regional employer, DP World, putting this to good use.

http://careers.dpworld.ae/careers/dw/Page.aspx?PageID=3054&BusinessUnitID=495

If you're interested in subscribing to their RSS job feed to try this out then use the following link:

http://careers.dpworld.ae/careers/dw/rss.aspx?ID=495

Bill Gates and McKinsey on recruitment in the Gulf in 2008

The title says it all really. When McKinsey and Company are running a conference on 'Building People Ready Businesses', as they just did in Dubai - and where Bill Gates gives the keynote address - you kind of get the impression that people are starting to sit up and realise that recruitment, people, performance, customers, cash; are all interrelated and are all potentially very big headaches!

Quite cleverly, if a little corny, it was put into context by explaining that 'the region needs to upgrade its software (read: people and people strategies) from Gulf 1.0 to Gulf 2.0. Gulf 1.0 being defined as companies importing labourers from Asia, and Gulf 2.0 being defined as Nationals working not only for the Govt sector, and general industry moving from labour intensive work to capital and knowledge intensive fields.

If this shift doesn't continue apace, then unemployment is going to be a huge problem pretty quickly in the region. 42% of the local population are under the age of 15. Bringing in foreign workers puts pressure on those guys. The region needs to create 4M jobs to keep unemployment under control, but only 82,000 jobs per year are being produced for locals (Gulf nationals) - so which way is this trend going to go.

The other nice little cliche I picked up from the McKinsey conference is that Dubai in the UAE is seen as being the innovator for HR strategies (they said the private sector was 'beta-testing' Gulf 2.0 in Dubai), but I think that is more by luck than design, and also at risk of changing.

Dubai in terms of HR strategy isn't really pushing the boat out, it is just able to attract more than its fair share of top quality people in HR. Those that don't join a backward or overly traditional firm, are often allowed to act as change agents and are seen as the guys and girls trialing Gulf 2.0

The risk is that with rising costs of living in Dubai many such people are being attracted to Abu Dhabi, Qatar, Turkey and so on. The GM of Dow Jones in the region was interviewed on the radio this week and said how his firm had stopped trying to recruit international candidates into Dubai completely as it cost more than hiring people in London. Good news for the local and/or National working population perhaps, if they can prove they have the right skills to do the job.

These issues aren't new, and I don't see enough HR leaders out there acting as change agents. Corporate Governance (check out some of the scandals brewing in the regions banking and real estate sector) could be forced in soon from a governmental level, forcing CEO's to act better and to encourage more thought leadership. If this happens then I think the pace of adoption of Gulf 2.0 could pick up another gear.

I hope the next conference has Steve Jobs talking about Gulf 'Virus protection', and how to weed out people in your companies that slow down or resist change agents..

MEA HR Consultancy Web listings Anyone?

There's lots of rubbish HR work going on out there of course, but there's also a lot of good people & good work being delivered.

What strikes me is that for all the networking that goes on in the emerging markets of the GCC and surrounding areas; is that there aren't that many good referrals going on for projects in the HR space.

The amount of times I get asked for "2 or 3 good HRIS companies" is shocking really. Clearly there aren't enough good providers on the ground in the HR technology space just yet, but those people/firms that are out there just aren't easy enough to find.

I got asked today who could help implement a Peer-to-Peer review system in a company, yesterday I was asked for an Ad agency and branding specialist who focus on career branding. Truth is I don't know where to point clients all the time. There's loads of recruitment firms, too many, and the difficulty is finding the one to work with who best understands or is committed to deliver for you. For HR projects or consultancy it's the other way round.

What I'm getting at here I guess is the need for a website or blog etc where consultants and firms can list what their area of expertise is and which countries or sectors they cover. If you know of one then please let me know, and if you read this and want to start one then I'd be glad to hear about it.

What can you achieve within 100 days of implementing eRecruitment

I don't use this blog for advertorials usually, but I've worked on a project recently which does act as a bit of a benchmark for what a large retailer spread over the mid east region can achieve very quickly by putting good eRecruitment systems into place.

They've configured and implemented a system, certified users after training, installed walk-in kiosks to handle offline applications, integrated to numerous job boards and received tons of quality applications. They actually posted a job 'for fun' in Turkey where they had no office but needed to hire senior staff to start ops. Never thought for a minute they'd get top competitors to apply, but had carried out 2 interviews within 3 days and had an offer accepted inside 5 days.

Anyhow if you like to read what their Chief Human Resources Officer had to say in a recent press interview then here's the link: http://www.albawaba.com/en/countries/UAE/222664

Recruiter Magazine: Recruitment Industry & Global Economy

I participated in a piece of research carried out for an article written for Recruiter magazine, so thought I'd comment on the subject here; and the original article can be found online at http://www.recruiter.co.uk/Articles/336422/Selling+out+or+staying+put.html

The article was to discuss the impact of a possible slowdown on the recruitment industry, and what will happen for those trying to sell a recruitment business. My comment which you can kind of see in the article was that recruitment business owners are seldom brilliant at creating value in their own businesses. Too fee own patents, markets, IP, methodology - and too much is dependant on either business coming in or reputation.

What's interesting from the article is that amongst the 4 or 5 of us who were interviewed, whilst there are a couple of related points, we mostly had different views. Some felt a downturn represents an excellent time to sell a business because the fewer buyers on the market are generally seasoned buyers in the recruitment industry. True possibly, but I doubt they'd be buying in a down market unless they thought they could get higher ROI on a reduced purchase price - which basically means; bad time to sell if you're the seller. Certainly credit availability is drying up, and that will impact M&A activity. Whilst my view is that firms should spend more effort on creating barriers to entry, differentiation, focus on specialist sectors or emerging market high growth countries - another participant felt the best way to ride out a downturn was to be a generalist and make sure you have service offerings in temp recruitment, contract, perm and search. Eggs in many baskets.

Personally I think there is worse news to come out of the financial industry than the sub-prime concerns; however I think Europe & Asia will largely do unscathed, and most pain is gpoing to be felt in North America. The Middle East, with a barrel of oil hitting $106 yesterday, has huge excess in liquidity and I cannot see a slow down anytime before 2010.

Top 10 to maximise online success

I was recently asked how to create a decent online candidate experience, and a great career portal. There's a good article on change work now's website where they talk about their top 10 factors for online success when encouraging online applications. The list is beautifully simple and if you do all of them then you won't go far wrong, so here they are:

1. Design the online process as a transaction
2. Career website content must be relevant
3. Do not be overly concerned with how long the online application process is
4. Provide immediate feedback online
5. Don't force candidates to register upfront
6. Provide specific feedback about why a candidate is unsuitable
7. Remember online recruitment is still a human activity
8. Ensure candidates are kept informed at all times
9. Speed and functionality matter to the candidate
10. Go through the process as a candidate

In a UK recruitment conference, Google also set out their top 10 hints for online advertising success. Naturally it gets slightly more technical and Google specific so I've added in a few words of description where appropriate:

1. Campaigns always on - nature of the Internet, and jobseekers. Great advantage over print media - although to be fair most print offerings now counter this by replicating their content online.
2. 100% product coverage SEM - search engine marketing can/should be used across all your products, and cross-selling opportunities arise. So basically if I'm looking for flights on BA out of Heathrow to JFK, I might also be served BA jobs in Heathrow airport.
3. Dynamic keyword variations
4. High traffic CPC campaigns -yield should be measured and focussed, but essentially you can get a lot of traffic from segmented audience if yo udesign your campaigns correctly.
5. Landing page quality - the better design and relevance of the entry page (where somebody lands having seen an online ad or sponsored link), the higher number of candidates you'll convert. It really is like your shop window. You have to think of jobseekers as literally running through the job high street, glancing in your office window. If they don't like the look of the decor, or the blinds are shut altogether - well they'll go in the shop next door which has comfy chairs and a smiley shop assistant.
6. Fresh creative - ad content and creative should be aligned with your job/s message and employer brand. I imagine Heineken would run a recruitment campaign along the lines of "Probably the best place to work in the world".
7. Local Seasonality - if your target demographic are all offline celebrating Chinese New Year or sat on the sofa watching the FA Cup final - then probably best not to run the ad campaign. If you're hiring teachers, or Graduates for that matter; then there are specifc times to run recruiting efforts, and that is very much supported through internet advertising and CPM campaigns.
8. Leveraging brand - what are your audiences interests - maybe they are checking up on the sports news, or searching for science DVD's online - again this can be used to target people very well and to communicate to them when they are not necessarily looking for a job ad.
9. Google Tools - Google Maps, Youtube - even registering your sitemap for your careers site with Google is very worthwhile.
10. Regional focus - the internet offers great support for local campaigns, and you'll get better click-through rates and relevancy if you localise. There's little point in having 400 candidates come through to your, if you can only interview the 3 people who own a car and live within 20 minutes of the office.

With more and more tools and options coming out with regards to candidate attraction, I can see more roles being created within HR for marketeers with very special skill sets. Thankfully the so-called web 2.0 tools are easy to use, but with the abundance of them, and the speciality, I don't think an active recruiter can handle secondlife, blogs, search engine optimsation, AdSense, etc.

Ben Fawcett.

What happened in Recruiting in 2007, and what's in store for 2008?

Back from my Fishing Trip!! Had I realised I wasn't going to be blogging for a while I'd have put up a sign! Happy New Year to you.

So, what happened in 2007. I guess in the MEA markets it was a case of a fuel economy driving everything, and recruitment trying to keep up the pace.

- Growth
- High oil price
- Weakening economies worldwide, seized on by Sovereign Wealth Funds of UAE, KSA, Qatar
- International growth by regional firms (Q: "How do we recruit in Algeria + Sudan?" A: "Good question!")

Attractiveness of working in the local economy is stronger than ever, however people are leaving at the same rate due to ripping inflation on the ground in the region itself.

Firms are still struggling to find executive talent, and retention of mid-managers below them is increasingly hard. The available talent pool is only going to shrink in 2008 I think; as what had promised to be the next great hunting grounds (India, Vietnam, Eastern Europe, Russia, South America, China for example) are all growing and recruiting heavily themselves.

Expect to see India and China aggressively repatriating its senior executive talent for the next few years. Personally I can even see the junior professional workforce (check out any hotel lobby in Abu Dhabi or hospital in Jeddah) moving back to the Asian growth markets before 2010.

I'm not sure how much the Middle East can stop itself being a worker merry-go-round. National talent development and expatriates buying houses can only provide so much stability, but is crucial. I think what's sadly missing and has to be put in place pronto is wide-scale introduction of Long-Term Incentive plans, so I really hope to see leading firms doing so in 2008.

M&A Activity hotting up
Consolidation in the recruitment market - should lead to more professional levels of service and many mid-market generalist recruitment firms will struggle as clients turn to established brands or niche firms offering high quality in a specialist sector.

Andrew Banks of Morgan & Banks fame recently invested in InterSearch, and Manpower have of course just announced they've acquired Clarendon Parker Middle East. Expect more M&A, and more new entrants.

What is eRecruitment anyway?
On the recruiting technology side of things, the biggest change has been the end-user awareness and level of comfort. Recruiters and Managers across the MEA market finally showed in 2007 that they expect to see their firms leveraging technology, so it's still baby steps for the masses, but I expect to see larger firms really try to get to grips with recruitment technology and how it can make a difference to recruiting across the entire enterprise.

Receiving a CV over the company website is no longer understood to mean eRecruitment, as honestly that is what most leading employers felt online recruitment meant here until 2007 in my opinion. The bar has been raised now and more sophisticated and comprehensive solutions that make life easier for all concerned in recruitment are now firmly on the corporate wish list.

I don't feel video-CV's will feature in MEA during 2008, however SMS messaging to candidates, candidate care, interactive communication tools on career portals, more psych testing online and a more personalised candidate experience will be the recruiting technology landscape in 2008.