Interesting that 35% of the participants on the BRW Fast 100 this year say that the biggest issue facing them in 2007 is ‘Hiring quality staff’.

Of the 100 in the list there are 14 recruiters with a combined turnover of $352 million. The shortage of people must be positively impacting the recruitment industry.

We have tended to do everything ourselves, using our site to list positions available. eg RedBalloon job listings

Being a fast growing business (#29 in the BRW list) we are constantly looking for people..and this takes alot of the team leaders time. A few months ago I thought I’ll give an external recruiter a try.

I interviewed several. The first one I interviewed, I met with the business owner and with the consultant. I stressed the importance of our values…if the first contact with our business was going to be via a recruiter I had to make sure that the recruiter knows who we are and what we stand for. A supplier representing us must also live our values.

Imagine my surprise when I saw this email – even before the proposal came in. It was sent to one of my team who I had come to the meeting with me from the consultant.

“Hey,

3 new employees? Wow, seems like Red Balloon is really taking off! (no pun intended LOL)

Hey it’s kinda weird asking this but I’ll ask anyway…

Who was the girl that was sitting at the back of the room wearing jeans and a light blue jumper? She was really cute and we were looking at each other.

I’m kinda embarrassed asking but hey…

Let’s keep this on the down low…

Thanks!

 

What would you make of this email – do you think he was on the pick up of one of the team? This was not what I expected with my first interaction with a recruiter. Did they not understand what I meant by values?

I had been referred by a friend to this recruiter not knowing what to do I went back to him. The owner of the recruitment firm contacted me and said he had not seen the email could I send him a copy because I must have misunderstood given that the consultant was married!

Recruitment is a very personal activity, we are dealing with peoples lives. To me it is all about relationships. Clearly the 14 in the Fast 100 must be doing lot’s right when it comes to their values – or they would not be where they are.