The Role of ATSCo
July 6, 2007 11:41 AM
I'm delighted to introduce you to Ann Swain, the CEO of ATSCo, who over the next couple of week is going to write a couple of blogs discussing the recruitment industry.
Hello and welcome to my first blog - not just for Jobsite, but for anybody. I last kept a diary when I was about 10. That was mainly about girlie stuff. This blog should deal with some weightier issues - but be no less interesting for that, I hope!
First of all, I ought to explain who I am and tell you a little bit about the organisation I run. I've worked in recruitment for over 25 years, and I am currently CEO of the Association of Technology Staffing Companies (ATSCo), which is a body that represents the technology recruitment industry.
ATSCo has many functions, but an aspect of its remit which is likely to be of most interest to you, the candidate, is that it expects recruitment companies who are members should treat candidates to a high standard.
Similar to Jobsite's own RecruitRank which launches its 2007 awards this week, ATSCo is also committed to creating a great job seeker experience, encouraging greater communication and feedback.
Whilst RecruitRank is doing this through its own Trip Advisor approach, identifying the top recruiters every day in the UK based on confidential feedback, ATSCo has its own clear code of conduct which sets out the following rules in relation to how recruitment agencies should treat candidates. Our key principles are:
- Candidates should be informed when references are taken up. Only referees provided by the candidate may be contacted
- ATSCo members shall make reasonable efforts to ensure work seekers are kept informed of progress in finding them work
- ATSCo members shall return work seekers' call, emails and other correspondence as soon as is reasonably practicable
- ATSCo members shall not misrepresent pay rates, contract terms etc
- ATSCo Members shall pay all temporary/contract workers promptly in accordance with their contract
- ATSCo members shall not unfairly prevent a candidate from pursuing other opportunities
- ATSCo members will not impose a restriction on any temporary/contract worker they have previously engaged from obtaining work by withholding or refusing to provide any information, whether in a reference or otherwise, that is reasonably requested by another employment agency/business or hirer in respect of that temporary/contract worker unless they can objectively and lawfully justify their decision for refusing to give such information in any particular case.
Of course, its goes without saying that jobseekers should expect all recruitment companies, regardless of whether they are ATSCo members, to act with professionalism and integrity.
I would be really interested in hearing you thoughts on what you believe sets a good recruiter apart from a great recruiter
Comments
Good recruiter? That's an interesting debate, Ann - and something Computing has addressed this week in a special report.
The general consensus seems to be that recruiters are a necessary evil that most IT managers need to use for a certain percentage of their vacancies. Good recruiters can really help the business. And with the average UK job seeker spending £154.62 on a job interview...
http://knowledge.computing.co.uk/2007/07/what-a-waste-of.html
....then good consultancies can only help the user and the employee.
Ta,
Mark
Mark Samuels,
Editor, Computing Business
Mark Samuels - July 19, 2007 12:00 PM
It does seem a shame that the recruitment agency is often considered as a "necessary evil" by some of the candidates they strive to serve. This mentality also seems to transpire in the estate agency world where sellers are renowned for their loathing of paying commission to agencies. This all confuses me. I work with recruitment agencies every single day and have also bought and sold many homes in my time and have never questioned the value on offer by either services.
There was a time during the late 90's when online matching technology such as Jobsite became a real threat in the mind of the traditional recruiter, as some people thought it was a possible threat to the whole recruitment agency model. Major recruitment agencies started to buy equity in Job boards as a way of protecting the long term future of their business but guess what happened? Well...the agencies sold their equity stakes in Job boards and went back into traditional recruitment. Why? Because the candidates and companies who used them recognsied the very real value add that agencies offer which they were not prepared to undertake themselves.
As an ex-IT contractor myself, I certainly wasn't going to start marketing myself by showering my CV around employers in the hope for work and not many employers were about to beef up their HR department to take on the massive job of sifting CV's, calling potential candidates and having the job of convincing them that they are the right employer for their needs.
A necessary evil? I don't think so somehow. Try telling a recruiter that during a recession and you might get a rather frosty reaction.
As for marketing my own house, well, stuff that.
Keith
Keith - July 20, 2007 10:22 AM
Recruiters are viewed by some as costly middlemen - as Mark Samuels from Computing pointed out in his response to last month's blog, in which I talked about what makes a good recruiter. But are they are just a necessary evil, as he contended?
Well, even if they are, that puts them in the same category as dentists. Few people relish seeing the dentist, but even fewer would argue that they don't provide a significant benefit to society. So yes, recruiters, like dentists, are necessary, though given a choice, I suspect people would rather see their recruiter than their dentist...
The simple fact is that if recruiters didn't make the candidate search and selection process more efficient and effective, employers wouldn't use them. Employers understand the expertise and time involved in finding the right candidates, and as people are frequently companies' largest overhead, it pays to get it right.
During the dotcom boom, it was predicted that job boards would make recruiters redundant. In actual fact the opposite happened. Where employers received a couple of hundred CVs in the post, online job ads often generate 500 responses. That's a lot of frogs to kiss before finding prince or princess charming!
Employers are also at the mercy of an ever-increasing compliance burden. Discrimination has recently been widened from race and sex to include age. Recruitment is the first stage of the employment process where discrimination claims can arise. Dealing with candidates is an increasingly complex and risky task. Professional expertise is required as getting it wrong can be costly.
As for candidates, the best investment they could make in preparing for an interview would be a one-to-one with a recruiter. A good recruiter will provide a CV make-over and conduct a mock interview - all free of charge, and potentially far more useful than a new outfit or a trip to a beauty salon! That's added value for you.
Ann Swain - August 15, 2007 5:41 PM