This was the reaction I got recently when I attended the National Recruitment Federation's (NRF) conference. A very good recruiter in Dublin, who is now a good business contact, Charlie, introduced me to one of his colleagues in an agency he used to work in. She was typical recruiter profile (no comment), and when Charlie explained to her that we are completely changing the way that people think about the recruitment sector she naturally asked how?
When my response was that we don't pay any commission out or incentivise the recruitment team to place candidates she nearly hit the floor! She looked me up and down, rolled her eyes and said "Well I hope you're paying them a very high wage!". It happened that one of my fantastic team was with me at the time so I said "no actually I don't, but why don't you ask one of them". To which Julia replied with an answer which was gushing about how she loved our company, the team and working for me and Expect Talent, despite the fact that we don't pay any commission.
It was a very strange situation to be in having to defend our decision to operate under this non-commission structure, but the fact is that our clients and candidates love this about our business. It is the one USP that hardly any other recruitment companies can say that they have and it means that we are placing people for the right reason. It is all about the customer at the end of the day, and to be passionate about WOWing customers you cannot be focused on the money and the commission.
In my opinion, it is one of the reason's why the recruitment industry has such a bad reputation, it is full of aggressive, commission-hungry sales people, who actually when it comes down to it, don't care about who or how they place. All most seem to worry about is where their next pay-cheque is coming from and it means internal competition for candidates, a selfish approach and a non-client or candidate friendly process. This of course, does not apply to every recruiter out there, but in many cases this is reason for people having a bad experience of recruitment companies. Something I intend to change in our industry.
Every time I meet other recruiters I come up against this disbelief that we could have an entire recruitment team, delivering results, working together for no commission. It is not about getting, it is about giving, and that is my take on the industry. Flipping the whole recruitment model on its head for the benefit of our candidates and clients. I would love to hear your views on the industry and leave a comment if you feel that the recruitment industry would benefit from being much more commission free than in currently is. Commission free recruitment, is this the future of our industry...
