Specialist recruitment more likely to deliver on ‘soft skills’
This will be a series of short posts about the value of using a specialist recruiter.
Whilst many general recruiters are trying to maximise talent pools and increase productivity and return on investment on sourcing and recruitment, a gap will always exist for those kinds of roles that require some ‘special’ understanding.
Often, these are the all important ‘soft skills’. Increasingly, employers are coming to recognise and value that outside of the right education and skillset lies the ‘X’ factor. And this is where specialist recruiters bring that extra value – in unearthing that unique candidate that delivers both the hard and the soft skills.
Most HR professionals have interviewed that client that you knew, within a brief 10 minutes, that they just weren’t the right fit. Whether it was body language or an inability to tell their professional story, you just knew.
You probably wondered how they got past HR to interview stage. But truth be told, in the times of recruitment ‘churn and burn’, many of the candidates actually may not have met anyone face to face before a client interview. They might have been out of practice and nervous. Or perhaps they came across great over the phone in a 30 minute qualifying call but didn’t deliver in the flesh. Or maybe they really weren’t the right cultural fit but just had a CV that ticked all the other requirements.
The value in using a specialist recruiter is that the technical details are easier to judge – they know what to ask and can ascertain quickly whether a candidate has the actual skillset to do the job. What a specialist recruiter does for the rest of an initial interview is read body language, ask open ended questions, and encourage candidates to articulate what the love or dislike about their job. Ideally, they are separating the chaff from the wheat – identifying candidates who are clear thinkers, have good communication and (gasp!) – have spent time reading the job description and preparing to meet a recruiter.
This is often where the recruiter can assess a diamond in the rough – they may possess an amazing skillset but lack the ability to really sell themselves. To those candidates we can offer advice and give them constructive feedback. From a client perspective, we can advocate for them and outline our understanding of how they can add value and why it’s not a waste of your valuable time to meet them.
At Jacinta Fish Legal, we really do believe in the power of the relationships we build with candidates and clients alike. We pride ourselves on really understanding how the mix of soft and ‘hard’ skills can produce a valuable commercial outcome for business and build a career to be proud of for legal professionals.