Chances are that you’ve seen the Hobson logo on our website, social channels, or the email signatures of our recruiters and researchers. If you work in our fields of practice, chances are also high that you’ve received voicemails from someone at our firm, or are one of the thousands of people we’ve placed.
So how did our company get its name? WHO IS ‘Hobson’, exactly!? It’s actually a really great American Business story ...
It seems like wherever you go these days someone is selling those wooden signs with inspirational quotes painted on them:
What do all these signs have in common? They make us smile. Or at least feel like we’re smiling even if it’s not showing.
I decided I needed one for my desk at the office. I happened to come across one while out buying lunch at a café that said “I drink coffee for your protection.” Perfect! (Or, should I say, Purrfect!). I would have preferred “Stay the F*&% away from me until I’ve had my coffee”, but the message is the same.
I still felt like I was missing that one sign that REALLY made me smile... And I’ve needed one more than ever since I’ve been in a bit of a slump this quarter.
The poet William Blake wrote, “Without contraries, there is no progression.” This quote rings very true to my day-to-day work-life, as the job market shifts from the last decade’s client driven position, to a candidate-centric environment.
The job market is a very different place than it was 10 years ago, when the bottom fell out of the housing market and Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers disintegrated; ushering in the highest unemployment rates seen in a couple of generations. That era was a very dark time in the world of recruiting, when only the best and the strongest recruiters survived.
When the eventual recovery set in a few years later, finding a workable “hot” job was still very difficult. As the laws of supply and demand would dictate, this allowed companies to be extremely choosy in the candidates they chose to interview, the recruiters they chose to work with, and with their contractual terms for agencies.
The situation is very different in 2017. The job market is roaring at, or close to, full structural employment. The BLS reported in April that the unemployment rate for candidates with professional degrees is 1.6%. The pendulum has swung to the other side, and I find that companies are struggling with some of the realities of this shift.
Statistics tell that 64% of executive positions are sourced and filled through executive recruiters. This is because networks are the lifeblood of recruiters. If you enlist the help of a few, talented recruiters in your area (geography and/or industry), you will have virtually connected with most every company you would be interested in!
Here are some benefits of linking up with a well-connected recruiter:
The biggest reason companies decide to work with recruiting firms is to get access to top talent to hire-people they cannot find on their own. As much as we (recruiters) may like a particular candidate, if our client can get the same quality person on their own, they would not need us. Therefore, our goal is to look for very specific professionals-people with direct industry experience and solid success, doing the same functions the clients need.
As my boss Danny Cahill famously says at his training seminars,“salespeople enjoy the world’s only job security.” This is indeed a fact, yet I’ve never understood why some candidates (particularly in the sales world) say that they are looking for a more “stable” opportunity, by gearing their search towards bigger companies.
1) We Know Our Candidates Intimately!
Any good niched Recruiter brings added value in that they know much more about their candidates than what’s on their resume. Being aware of vital information like compensation details, special family arrangements, details behind past career changes.
As a recruiter who doesn’t sugar coat, I can honestly say that we go dark for a lot of the same reasons that candidates and clients go dark on us…
1. Low Interest (less than 50%) – Unfortunately, not every candidate’s background is a perfect fit and most are far from it.