Attracting quality candidates remains biggest challenge for recruitment firms

Three quarters of recruitment agencies believe attracting the right candidates is the biggest challenge they face over the next 12 months, with more than 50% concurring that supplying quality candidates is the ëmost importantí factor in keeping clients happy, according to new research by specialist Recruitment Finance provider, Bibby Financial Services.*

However, despite acknowledging the importance of finding skilled employees for their clients, more than half (51%) spent less than 10% of their annual expenditure on candidate advertising, perhaps due to nearly two thirds (63%) believing there is a lack of quality employees available in the marketplace to respond to their efforts in the first place.

IT was thought to be the hardest sector to recruit quality candidates for, followed closely by professional and financial services.

And when it comes to the candidates that are available, 60% of agencies said the biggest factor putting them off was people arriving late for interview, while over half (55%) were fed up with people lying about their experience and over a third (39%) were not impressed by poor personal appearance.

In relation to clients, more than 70% agreed that the top skills required to make it in the recruitment industry were determination, strong sales skills and resilience. While more than a quarter of agencies (28%) believed the client behaviour causing them the most difficulty in carrying out their job effectively was being given a poor brief, changing the goal posts halfway through a project (31%) and not responding in a timely manner with interview feedback (17%).

Edward Rimmer, UK chief executive for Bibby Financial Services, comments: ìThe outlook for the recruitment industry over the next 12 months remains tough as it struggles to meet clientís needs due to the limited number of quality candidates available in the workforce. However, with this in mind, recruitment agencies need to scale up their marketing activities to widen the candidate pool available to them, not hold back on vital expenditure. If finance is the issue, there are specialist funding solutions available to the recruitment sector, such as recruitment finance, which can help free up cash flow across the business and enable investment in marketing and advertising strategies to help recruitment firms stay one step ahead of the competition.î

* Survey based on interviews with 100 senior managers of UK recruitment agencies, May 2007. Research conducted by Bibby Financial Services