What is a specialist recruiter?

There are very few, as it takes a lot to become a specialist recruiter. For example:

• Industry – Do you know where the biggest projects are located, the timeframes of the projects, who is the Microsoft partner involved, etc.
• Product – Tools involved, methodologies, the lifecycle of an implementation, the skill sets needed in each position, how a consultancy works, the process of a consultancy winning a project, etc.
• Referrals for a new candidate – Are you getting referred to contractors/permanent professionals for your previous work?
• Case studies – Will your client or candidate confidentially give you a case study on their experience with you?
• Financial market knowledge – Knowing the costing for both permanent and freelance/interim professionals in each country and region.
• As a specialist you should be able to identify suitable profiles for certain needs against any of your competition.
• Your candidate knowledge should be strong (in retrospect knowing it off by heart) – What is their rate, preferred location, technical expertise?
• Knowing when candidates are finishing up on current contracts.
• Job roles – Who does what, etc.

Reasons why I became the market leading specialist in this industry.

Case study 1:

Geographical specialism

When I first started out in recruitment, I was told to purely focus on 1 country, otherwise, I would have been too stretched with multiple focuses.

However, when I moved on to my second business, I decided to take it upon myself and branch out to focus on projects globally. Now, in January 2019, I can proudly say that I have placed Microsoft Dynamics professionals in every continent around the world.

How? I managed to do this because I am a specialist recruiter.

• I was recommended very quickly to some of the best candidates within each region based on my relationships, failing that I identified who the best candidates were from my network.
• Simplifying the job & having a large and focussed network resulted in me beating my competition that focused specifically within that country with completely different time zones

Case study 2:

PSL’s

Last year, I had targeted global clients. Each of these had a preferred supplier list (PSL) with some of them including my biggest competitors working exclusively with them.

Most clients base their PSL on old relationships or mis-sold recruitment pitches.

The typical problems I heard were:

• Charging fixed fees up front to do business, RESPONSE: We charge on success only, this is because we are confident of our abilities
• Headhunting our own employees, RESPONSE: We have a clause in our contracts stating “do not headhunt out from our own clients”
• Multiple recruiters contacting us from the same business, RESPONSE: Interex will provide a dedicated account manager
• Irrelevant CV’s, RESPONSE: Interex do not send out spec CV’s, if we are given roles then we have a target time frame to deliver and a thorough vetting process prior to sending the CV’s

I knew mine and Interex’s capabilities and with the proven success within the Microsoft industry, my knowledge and understanding of my clients’ staffing strategy, roadmap and budgets, I managed to work exclusively with most of these businesses.

By adding real value to each of their individual staffing strategies, this shows that I am a market specialist, and we can confidently say that every client that has partnered with Interex, we have a successful relationship with. Regardless of the margin we earn, our client and candidate management effort will always be 100%.