recruitment report 2006

8/8/2019 Recruitment Report 2006

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1View the latest global opportunities in consulting at www.Top-Consultant.com

The Top-Consultant.com 2006 Recruitment Channel Survey
http://www.top-consultant.com/http://www.top-consultant.com/http://www.top-consultant.com/


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Table of Contents

Executive Summary

1. A profile of the respondents

2. Recruitment channels size, effectiveness &

candidate preferences

Which channels are most effective in 2006?

3. Recruitment firms assessed:

Market reach vs. Candidate ratings

4. Internet job sites assessed:


5. UK newspapers assessed:


6. Active vs. Passive candidate engagement

Appendix: Feedback & contact details


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Executive Summary

Key Trends and Action Points for Recruiters

Over the last 12 months the management consultancy

recruitment market has undergone a fundamental

transformation. Recruiters no longer enjoy their pick of

candidates; greater demand for new recruits means it is

increasingly costly to generate applications from quality

candidates; and most strong candidates are now likely to

receive multiple offers of employment - and a counter-

offer from their existing employer.

Making a successful hire has therefore become much more

challenging.

In compiling this report, 650 recruiters were asked if they

thought they would make more placements / hires in 2006

than they had done in 2005. Only 1% believed they will

make fewer placements / hires in 2006, whilst 90%

believed they will make more or significantly more

placements / hires in 2006. Clearly then the market for

experienced consulting hires is set to become tighter still.

This report will give you the insights you need to enhance

the effectiveness of your recruitment campaigns in 2006/7.

Each chapter consists of two parts:

Firstly an overview of the major trends identified by this

years survey results.

Secondly a series of ideas boxes that capture many of

the key action points from the report.


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Executive Summary

Key Trends and Action Points for Recruiters, continued

This Executive Summary provides an overview of the key

trends taking place in the management consultancy

recruitment space. The findings are UK-oriented, but many

of the report conclusions are relevant for a global audience

of recruiters regardless of location or profession.

---------------------------------

In addition to our usual rankings of the best newspapers,

recruitment agencies and internet job boards, this yearsreport contains four key findings to be aware of and to act

upon:

1. Candidates will in future be less willing to apply to

companies via their corporate websites. Most have been

created to minimise the workload of processing

applications so are tailored to a recessionaryenvironment. Very few have been optimised to sell the

firm to candidates and to maximise the likelihood of a

candidate applying yet this is exactly what is needed in a

War for Talent environment.

2. Newspapers have experienced a collapse in

management consultancy candidate applications asmore and more candidate activity moves online and

headhunter activity picks up again.

Ideas that can be quickly implemented are

highlighted like this throughout the report


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5View the latest global opportunities in consultingat www.Top-Consultant.com


Executive Summary


3. Active jobseekers are just that very active! With this

years survey, we wanted to answer the question is it

possible to reach active candidates who will not already be

in discussions with several of our competitors? since

most recruiters are reporting to us that they are now losing

a significant proportion of candidates that they have made

offers to.

The data presented in this report shows that even those

candidates who are less actively looking for a new role are

likely to have submitted 7 applications. So regardless of

whether recruiters have sourced a candidate from a

recruitment agency, corporate website, internet job board

or newspaper they are likely to be competing directly

with several other firms to secure that candidates

signature. It is therefore critical that recruiters improve

their sales message and the whole recruitment process so

that every interaction with the candidate is a positive

experience that makes them want to join you rather than

the competition.

4. Engaging with more passive candidates is a key

success factor. The best way to win over strong candidates

is to have engaged with them before they have started a

new job search in earnest. By engaging with consultants

early on, you may be able to bring candidates into your

recruitment pipeline before they have started any

discussions with your competitors. This report providessuggestions for achieving this.


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Executive Summary


In terms of overall channel performance, more candidates

submitted an application via a personal referral / bounty

scheme than via any other channel. But most candidates only

submitted 1-2 applications this way and so the channel

remained relatively small in terms of the total volume of

applications generated.

Job sites and recruitment agencies were used by almost as

many candidates but crucially candidates submitted the

majority of their applications via these channels, making

them the channels that generate the lions share of

applications. Newspapers had the lowest share of applications

amongst the five channels we assessed, a finding

strengthened by recent recruiter feedback about the

diminishing effectiveness of this channel.

Looking to future trends, candidate enthusiasm for both the

corporate website and newspaper channels has plummeted,

meaning that both are likely to generate a lower share of

future applications unless remedial actions are taken.

Personal referral / bounty schemes remain candidates

preferred means for finding their next role.

HR Managers needing to generate a shortlist

quickly will do best using either internet job sites or

recruitment agencies, with newspapers now less

effective than they were during the last recruitmentboom


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Executive Summary

Optimising Recruitment Strategies In The Modern E-World

The rest of this report details the full survey findings and

the conclusions that have been reached with respect to

optimising recruitment campaigns in 2006/ 7. Some of the

key recommendations are outlined below as an action list

for recruiters wanting to assess their current practices

Use a mix of recruitment channels since no single channel

used in isolation has sufficient candidate penetration to

guarantee success

Expect all candidates in your pipeline to be in discussions

with your competitors and fine-tune your processes

accordingly

Focus on improving your internal referral programme and

specifically making it easier (less embarrassing) for your

existing employees to bring people into the referral

programme.

Review the rates you have negotiated with your preferred

recruitment agency suppliers to ensure that you remain one

of their A-list customers and receive priority attention

when strong candidates come onto their books.

Use a mix of jobs boards and experiment with their

premium services, especially any that allow you to engage

with passive candidates more effectively. A small premium

can often achieve a multiplication of the results you enjoy.


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1. A profile of the respondents

In the 5 years we have produced this report over 5,000

management consultants have submitted data. For the 2006

survey we generated responses from over 1,300 candidates

employed at over 400 companies. Candidates from all the

major consulting firms participated in the survey, including

the likes of Accenture, BearingPoint, Capgemini, IBM

Business Consulting, PA Consulting Group, Deloitte andMcKinsey. There were also many responses from

candidates employed at niche consulting firms or in

industry.

Our survey data is collected online, by consulting

candidates reading one of the following websites:

Top-Consultant, Consultant-News or the Institute ofManagement Consultancy. Many of these respondents will

have found the survey whilst searching for consulting news

stories on Google, Yahoo or MSN.

By definition all those candidates that participated in the

survey do actively use the internet - all results should

therefore be viewed in this light. But the responses come

from a far wider audience than just the Top-Consultant

readership, making them a highly representative sample of

the total management consultancy candidate pool.

The findings should therefore prove the definitive guide

for both candidates and recruiters of recent trends in the

management consultancy recruitment market.


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2.1 Share of applications

Our 1,300+ respondents were asked to estimate how many

applications they had made through the five major

recruitment channels. This produces one measure of the

importance of each recruitment channel within a

recruitment strategy the share of CVs produced per

channel.

In last years report we predicted corporate websites would

continue to gain share and the latest data shows this has

indeed happened, though the rate of growth has slowed.

By contrast, candidates seem to have learnt that firing off

applications en-masse via the internet is not nearly as

effective as being more selective in their approaches and

internet job boards seem to be stabilising their share at

around 1/3 of all candidate applications.

0% 20% 40% 60%

Internet

Agencies

Newspapers

Personal Referrals

Corporate Sites

2001/02

2002/03

2003/04

2004/05

2005/06

% of applications

CandidateRecruitment

Channel

Source: 2006 Recruitment Channel Survey


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2.1 Share of applications, continued

It should also be stressed that the Recruitment Agency

share of candidate applications is understated by this chart.

Such agencies have a much larger share of total

applications as many newspaper adverts and internet

adverts are placed by them.

What is clear is that internet job boards and recruitment

agencies between them generate the majority of all

candidate applications so having good relationships with

suppliers of each is absolutely key.

The low share of newspapers has been driven by

advertisers aggressive switching to online alternatives and a lower penetration of the consultancy candidate

market than was previously enjoyed by the newspaper

sector. This has also forced some publications to close

down, resulting in a permanent shift to online alternatives.

Recruiters must consider both market penetration

and share of applications generated when deciding

on the right balance of channels to use. The internet

generates lots of CV applications but does not reach

all candidates


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2.2 Channel Penetration - % of candidates using each channel

The channel penetration figures are revealing for they show that

recruiters cannot rely on one channel alone to fulfil their

recruitment needs. If only 40% of candidates are using a

corporate site to apply for jobs, it would clearly be wrong to

expect to reach the whole market by relying on a corporate

website, no matter how well it is marketed. The same can be said

for each of the channels.

Personal Referrals remain the preferred route to securing a new

job, with 72% of candidates having applied in this way.

The poor performance of corporate sites is particularly

pronounced in this chart. There are hundreds of corporate sites for

candidates to apply via and yet only 40% of candidates are

applying via any of these corporate sites. Some of the reasons for

this are provided later in this chapter.

0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%

Agencies

Personal

Referrals

Internet Job

Boards

Newspapers

Corporate

Sites

2001/02

2002/03

2003/04

2004/05

2005/6

% of respondents who had used channel

Candidate

Recruitment

Channel



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3.7

3.3

3.1

2.5

2

3.6

3.3

3.3

3

2.6

1 2 3 4 5

Personal Referrals

Internet

Agencies

Corporate Sites

Newspapers2001/02

2002/03

2003/04

2004/05

2005/06

Score (5 = highest)

Candidate

Recruitment

Channel

Lastly, candidates were asked to assess how likely they would be

to use each of the 5 main recruitment channels when they next

look for a new role. We wanted to differentiate between what

candidates had done in the past and what they are likely to do in

the future.

2.3 Channel Preference Candidate votes for the channels

they are most likely to use IN THE FUTURE


These results indicate a number of key points. Firstly, the

internet and recruitment agencies are likely to be firms two

most effective mass-market recruitment techniques. The

favourable view of recruitment agencies reinforces our belief

Personal referrals are candidates most-favoured

means of finding a new consulting role.

Consultancies that are able to mobilise an effective

internal referrals scheme will be at a distinct

advantage over competitors.


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2.3 Channel Preference, continued

that they will become an increasingly important recruitment

channel as the market becomes tighter and tighter. Indeed,

headhunting techniques are a great way to reach more passive

candidates, so in our view their time has come again.

Alarming for HR teams that have invested heavily in their

corporate careers pages is the candidate backlash against usingthis channel in the future. Data on what is causing this backlash

is provided later in this chapter, but one key shortcoming has

been a lack of focus on maximising the conversion of visitors to

applicants. Amazon.com has perfected the art of ensuring

visitors to its site are taken seamlessly from a product page to a

successfully completed order. They have minimised the number

of hoops that the customer has to jump through to complete theorder and made the process as convenient as possible.

In a tight candidate market, corporate careers pages need to

adopt the same approach. Benchmarking studies we have

conducted with leading consulting firms show that over 90% of

applications can be lost from a corporate site if the application

procedure is too onerous. Candidates will simply leave the siterather than jump through all the hoops. Is your site guilty of this?

If you do not already have such tracking in place,

ask your IT team to provide you with regular

updates on the % of visitors to your careers pages

that actually go on to apply to a job on your

corporate site. Make changes to the careers pages tosee how high you can drive this application %


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2.4 Getting better results from Corporate websites and from

online job board postings, continued

The results from the previous page are staggering! Half of all

candidates do not believe that career openings on a corporate

website are current and up to date, yet simply adding an

application deadline to each role on the site would instantly

show that the posting is current.

In a similar vein, do you really want to lose 42% and 45% of

candidates respectively because you do not accept email

applications and because there is no opportunity to speak with

someone at your firm? Resource constraints make these things

impossible to offer during a downturn but in a booming

market, can you afford to put HR efficiency ahead of

maximising your appeal to candidates?


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2.4 Getting better results from Corporate websites and from

online job board postings, continued

For online job postings, there were also some changes that

recruiters can quickly implement to improve response (and note

how unknown brands can still perform strongly on the internet)

Question: When looking at advertisements on internet job

sites, what factors most often discourage you from applying to

a job? (high number = strongly discourages from applying)

Below market salary package being offered 4.48

Insufficient information given about the role 4.09

Do not believe I meet the skills / experience 4.01

criteria for the role

Poor grammar and wording of advert 4.01

Not knowing who the employer is (name of 3.99

employer not stated)

Being forced to complete an online application 3.73

form (rather than emailing a CV)

Do not believe advert is for a genuine job opening 3.71

Bad experiences with the recruiter in the past 3.47

Bad reputation of the recruiter in the marketplace 3.4

Lack of key selling points in advert - why should 3.18

I want to join the firm?

Unknown brand name of advertiser 2.76


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3. Recruitment firms assessed

3.1 Market reach

The graph below shows the share of all recruitment agencyapplications that were generated by the top management

consultancy recruitment firms.

0% 2% 4% 6% 8% 10% 12% 14% 16%

Michael Page

BLTPrism

Hudson

Hays

Korn Ferry

Woodhurst

Spencer Stuart

Harvey Nash

Selecture

Huxley

EM Consulting

Goodman Masson

Odgers

Russell Reynolds

Robert Walters

Robert Half

Mineral

Bullet Search

Heidrick & Struggles

Whitehead Mann

Shilston Partnership

Purchasing + Supply Chain

% of all Agency Applications



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3.1 Market reach, continued

As one would expect, the recruitment consultancy industry is

quite fragmented within the management consultancy arena.

Whats more, the market share of the top firms has strengthened

considerably since 2003 with their share of applications having

almost doubled. This is a very vivid illustration of how much the

recruitment consultancy industry has consolidated during the

consulting downturn.

However, share of applications is only one measure of

performance. The other measure we track is how well each

recruitment agency is regarded since a firm that impresses a

good candidate is likely to form a strong bond with that candidate.

This means they will not only be well placed to work with that

candidate again in the future but are also likely to receive lots ofcandidate recommendations and referrals as a result of their high

service levels. The results of this measure are presented on the

next page.

In addition, a recent phenomenon that HR managers must be alert

to is the potential for recruitment agencies to now cherry-pick

their assignments. We are aware of numerous situations whereconsultancies who are clinging on to low success fee rates

(negotiated during the downturn) are now considered a low

priority by their recruitment suppliers; the latter have a spread of

clients prepared to pay much higher fees in the current market

climate so no prizes for guessing which firms are enjoying a

better candidate flow from the recruitment supplier as a result.

Beware therefore of making your company a C-list client and

losing out to that agencys A-list client base!


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3.2 Candidate Ratings, continued

Best Management Consultancy Recruitment Agency 2006

Heres just a small sample of the positive comments made about

the recruitment team of this years winners, Prism Executive

Recruitment (http://www.prismrec.co.uk/):

Prism - sensible heads, respond to communication and followthrough on promises

Prism - offer sound and objective advice

Prism - very pleasant and responsive, try to do their best to satisfy

your requirements

Prism - for their detailed client understanding and ability to

articulate what exactly clients are trying to achieve as outcomes

from a particular recruitment campaign.

Prism - All round understanding of the market place and

professionalism throughout my dealings with them

Prism - effective long term relationship management and personal

service
http://www.top-consultant.com/http://www.top-consultant.com/http://www.prismrec.co.uk/http://www.top-consultant.com/http://www.prismrec.co.uk/


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Candidate Feedback what recruiters should do

Candidates voting for an agency as their preferred agency usually

gave one of the following reasons for why they valued their

relationship with that firm. Candidates liked firms that:

Were consistently professional and dealt with the candidate in atimely and efficient manner

Gain a strong understanding of candidates aspirations /

requirements and only discuss with the candidate roles that fulfil

these aspirations

Keep the candidate informed regarding the status of theirapplication and assist them in making it through to the next stage

of the recruitment process

Only employ management consultancy experts

Provide input and feedback before and after interviews

Ensure candidates feel a personal touch, investing time in the

candidate relationship, making them feel valued

Partner with the candidate rather than viewing them as a

commodity or a body to be placed


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Candidate Feedback what recruiters should avoid doing

Many recruitment agency practices were disliked by candidates.

Recruitment consultants are advised to avoid:

Failing to respond in a timely manner to candidate applications

or enquiries. Never leave the candidate in a position where theydo not know if you have received their CV or whether it is being

progressed

Sending CVs to potential employers without the candidates

prior consent

Selling candidates roles that do not match their aspirations candidates compared recruitment consultants to estate agents in

this respect

Failing to understand the consulting sector and therefore

imparting little confidence to the candidate

Not displaying the same level of professionalism thatmanagement consultants have to display in their day-to-day work


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4. Internet Job Sites assessed

4.1 Market reach

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80%

Top-Consultant

Monster

Jobsite

Exec-Appointments

Totaljobs

FT

Executivesontheweb

eFinancialCareers

Management Consultancy

/ Accountancy Age

Consultantsboard

% of respondents who regularly reviewed a Job Site

for job opportunities


This chart confirms the suspicions of many recruiters who have

used the internet as a recruitment channel: job boards reach totally

different audiences and a site that is good for one specialism is

likely to be quite weak for another. The leading website, reaching

70% of respondents, is more than twice as well read as the bestnewspaper which also reinforces the relative demise of the print

industry as a recruitment channel.


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4. Internet Job Sites assessed


Taking into account that this survey polled readers of 3 consulting

websites including Top-Consultant there is the possibility that

the results here are skewed in Top-Consultants favour.

Nonetheless, the gap is quite striking and suggests either that there

is no overlap in readership between different job boards (an

argument for advertising on multiple sites) or that there is no otherjobs board out there being regularly referred to by the consulting

population.

The conclusion for recruiters is clear: be sure to run test campaigns

with any job board before committing to any long-term contracts.

Some sites out there may have a consulting jobs category but in

reality be reaching very few consultants at all.


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5. UK newspapers assessed

5.1 Market reach

0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35%

Times

FT

The Economist

Telegraph

Guardian

Sunday Business

Evening Standard

% of respondents who regularly review a papersconsultancy opportunities


The results of the newspaper poll are very revealing as they

highlight that consultants are more than twice as likely to see an

advert appearing on Top-Consultant.com as they are to see anadvert in the leading newspaper. With newspaper advertising rates

still 10-20 times higher than their online counterparts, this

represents a staggering performance gap.

The continued presence of consulting recruitment campaigns in

these media would appear to be a mix of necessity (hard-to-fill roles

require the widest possible coverage if success is to be achieved)and undoubtedly brand-building on the part of consulting partners.


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5. UK newspapers assessed

5.2 Candidate Ratings

0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35% 40% 45%

Times

FT

The Economist

Telegraph

Guardian

Sunday Business

Evening Standard

% of respondents who voted for a newspaper as

best paper for consultancy opportunities


After a wobble last year, the Times returns to the top of the pile as

consultants preferred newspaper for finding consultancy

opportunities. However, as the earlier penetration figures

demonstrated, consulting candidates are less likely to see jobs in

such newspapers than they were five years ago, reducing their

effectiveness as a recruitment channel.


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6. Active vs. Passive Candidate Engagement

Application trends of less active candidates

Question: Are candidates that use internet job boards more likely to

have applied to lots of firms than candidates you might have

sourced through other channels?

To answer this question, we looked at candidates that had been less

active in their applications. Thats to say, only those candidates

who had submitted just 1 or 2 applications via a channel. What we

found is that candidates coming through a bounty scheme are likely

to have submitted almost as many applications in total as a

candidate thats been applying via an internet jobs board and they

are highly likely to have a recruitment agency already representing

them.

Similarly, a candidate youve had apply through a newspaper advertis likely to have submitted just as many applications in total as a

candidate youve received through an internet jobs board.

Strikingly, of all the channels corporate websites are likely to

produce candidates that have distributed their CVs most widely to

competitor firms with such candidates having submitted an

average of 8.7 applications each.



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Application trends of less active candidates, continued

The implications of these findings are that all candidates are likely

to be in the recruitment pipeline of several firms, once theyve

reached the stage of actively job-seeking. The simple act of having

created an up to date CV removes the main barrier to applying for

jobs so once a candidate applies to one job they are likely to apply

to many, regardless of which channel they used initially.

This points to two ways of competing for candidates:

1. Option one is to be better at selling your firm than the

competition, so that when a candidate sees your advert and goes

through your recruitment processes they are more likely to join you

than they are to join the competition. Achieving this meansimproving your ad copy, making yourselves available to talk to

candidates throughout the application process, generally making

them feel highly valued and ensuring you always have your best

foot forward. Clearly with this option you always need to be one

step ahead of the competition

2. Option two is to try to engage with potential candidateswhilst they are still passive candidates ie. before they have even

started thinking about changing jobs. Inviting consultants to attend

sporting events, join you at careers evenings, engage with you on a

careers teleconference or indeed approaching them through a

headhunter these are all approaches that could portray your firm

to the potential candidate in a positive light, before theyve even

reached the stage of thinking about a new job. These candidatescould be brought into your recruitment pipeline and be made an

offer without any competitors having the chance to counter.


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Application trends of less active candidates, continued

Our own experiences of promoting careers events for consulting

firms (both big and small) is that they invariably attract a pool of

consultants and executives that are much less active in the jobs

market. Winning them over at such events can prove very powerful

if the conversion to successful hires is much greater than would

have been achieved through a job advertising campaign.

So the key to Option 2 is to figure out what your firm could do that

would engage consultants before they have actively started job-

hunting. This, we believe, will be a key success factor for firms

looking to hit their headcount targets in 2006/7.

We wish you every success in hitting yours!


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Appendix: Feedback & Contact details

We hope you have found this years report a valuable insightinto the trends and factors that are shaping the evolution of the

Management Consultancy recruitment market.

If you are currently looking to recruit Management

Consultants, do visit our trial advertising page at:

http://www.top-consultant.com/UK/clients/trials.asp

For sales assistance please call +44 (0)207 667 6880 and ask to

speak with:

Tony Restell, Founding Director

([email protected])

Bryan Hickson, Sales Director([email protected])

Dawn Fowler, Senior Account Manager

([email protected])

Please feel free to contact us with comments or questions at the

address below.

Editorial Team,

Top-Consultant.com,

18b Charles Street,

Mayfair,

London W1J 5DU,

United Kingdom
http://www.top-consultant.com/UK/clients/trials.aspmailto:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]://www.top-consultant.com/UK/clients/trials.asp

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