If you had to elect one key area in which to train your consultants during 2006 what would it be and why?

The core focus of our training for 2006 is on how to build trust with clients. The key issue in building trust is that the fees paid to recruiters need to be better aligned with the goals of their clients. The old saying applies: “What gets rewarded gets done”. So, rewards that focus on transactions, on selling a body, leads to an ‘us and them’ culture, which works against trust. Many good recruiters work hard within this flawed system, and succeed in building great client relationships. However, the huge turnover of consultants and the difficulty of the task mean that such recruiters are a tiny minority.

Fees need to be structured to reward what matters to our clients, the employers – retention. If the recruiter is paid a large part of her fee (all her profit and more) at three or six months after the new employee starts, it seems self evident that the goals of the client and the recruiter will be better aligned.

Without better goal alignment, any training on how to build trust is unfortunately doomed to fail. At Abacus Recruitment Solutions we coach other recruitment firms on this issue so we have needed to give it a lot of thought. The core challenge is how to present the difference to clients. To explain how the superficially appealing ‘Race to the Line’ recruiting where you use ‘multiple agencies’ is self defeating.

With over 95% of the industry working this way, educating clients on a new model is hard. But well worth it, if trust is your goal.

Toby is the Director of Abacus Recruitment Solutions, one of Australia’s few recruitment agencies utilising a Fee for Service Recruitment Model. Toby is recognised as one of Australia’s leading recruitment specialists spearheading a new era in candidate search and placement. Toby is the author of the books ‘Get Great People’ and ‘Get A Better Job’, in which he challenges the current orthodoxy surrounding the Australian recruitment process.