Success for recruiters is based on fruitful relationships

To deal with this seismic shift, we must accept, indeed embrace, the fact that recruitment is merging with marketing.

Greg Savage, idibu masterclass, 6th of April 2017

The recruiter of the future needs to be a full stack employee; well versed in marketing, comfortable making decisions based on data, obsessed with testing and experimenting and assisted by personalized and automated systems.

idibu white paper “The changing face of recruitment: how technology and good marketing practice are key to future success”

Greg Savage and I are in complete agreement that the successful recruiter in our digital world will need to understand and utilise marketing principles and techniques.

By marketing principles I mean Segmenting & Targeting the relevant audience and Positioning themselves and their agency in an distinct and attractive fashion. By techniques I am referring especially to digital and social marketing such as blogging, engagement, email marketing but also traditional marketing skills such as brand building. Recruiters will find the time as technology like idibu will eradicate any repetitive tasks and give the recruiter the space to learn and to deploy these new skills.

As Greg puts it: “The future of profitable agency recruiting is where technology meets skilled human interaction.” The same holds true for in-house teams: The future of successful in-house recruiting is where technology meets skilled human interaction.

The part that fascinates me most is “skilled human interaction”. Following Greg’s line of thought, a different breed of recruiter is needed: Out with the old school sales animal, in with the talent magnet and the skills hunter. Greg’s most important point is to “hire values, attitude, connections and ethic over qualifications and experience”. After all, you can train people, but you can’t change their DNA – they are born with it and it won’t change, ever. So choose the people that will be successful in your environment.

idibu as a company is built on healthy, mutual relationships, based on respect, trust, honesty, support, good communication and good humour. Our product is built to help recruiters develop these relationships with candidates and clients a like, because if there isn’t any meaningful relationship and if not every party is making the other’s life better, the relationship isn’t needed.

That’s why we book our flights online. That’s why we choose our cars online. That’s why lot of recruitment will be automated and only the recruiters that have meaningful relationship with candidates will thrive.

Below, you’ll find what makes a recruitment agency stand out in the eyes of candidates:

In conclusion, it is time for a rethink. The old ways are not working anymore, but you know that already. Now, it is time to identify the traits of recruitment marketers that thrive in your company and identify the technology that enables them to focus on the most important item of them all: Building healthy relationships that are built on mutual respect and for mutual benefits.

Martin Bramall is the Managing Director & a co-founder of idibu.