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T H E F U T U R E O F R E C R U I T M E N T

Thought-provoking and forward-thinking articles from the Recruitment Industry’s biggest experts.

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Anyone who knows me will know that the first thing to come out of my mouth with regard to Recruitment and 2018 is the General Data Protection Regulation.

It’s a bit like the foundation for 2018, or the base layer of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. When I think about all the other trends I think are emerging or developing, I always return to the importance of respecting the right to privacy- are we considering the impact on the individual, are we respecting them.

The Recruitment sector (it isn’t alone) is catching up with over 25 years of data protection legislation in this country. This is why GDPR feels like such a gamechanger. Increased demands around transparency and accountability are putting pressure on all recruitment organisations to up their game in terms of how they conduct themselves in their business activities and also to evidence how data protection is embedded in their businesses. This has to be good, right? We do after all, all day, everyday, deal with people who entrust us with often very sensitive information

2018 will also be the year that we will discover how direct marketing activities – that’s our cold calling, mailshots, speculative CV submittals, could be overhauled by the ePrivacy Regulation. Who will win the debate, the privacy lobbyists or industry, who are fighting tirelessly to soften the legislation particularly for B2B direct marketing. When I think about the consequences of this, it makes me feel like GDPR is a breeze. The good news though is this regulation won’t apply to post, so we’ll all

being going back to the era of “writing” to clients with CV’s enclosed. A win for privacy, a terrible loss for trees?! 2018 please be kind to us.

Having spent a chunk of my career obsessing over “customer experience” I hope 2018 brings continued focus on making the recruitment experience a great one.

Bringing an employer, a recruitment business or a candidate to life through video and media is one of the best and most exciting developments I have seen. This has to continue- people are emotional and need to connect, there is also an honesty about this technique and it just makes sense. Don’t tell me, show me. We’ve worked with one provider recently and it’s been transformational for us.

From a completely different perspective I hope the industry continues to evolve in terms of its inclusivity and open mindedness to new ways of working. Initiatives to tackle gender imbalances and returnships will be critical to the industry’s growth- I don’t know how many times someone has asked me how they can hire more great recruiters. Looking at those who have left the industry, because it let them down, is a good place to start. Also creating environments where working parents can be professionally successful but also are present for their families, life is just too short. Let’s broaden the talent pool, retain super people and be brave enough to evolve the recruitment culture..

Lucy Kendall2018 for Recruitment

About Lucy and Comply GDPRLucy is director and GDPR advisor at Comply GDPR. ComplyGDPR is a business designed to provide a practical solution to the General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) that come into force 25th May 2018, for the Executive Search, Interim Management and In-House search community. ComplyGDPR provides you with a toolkit, support, training and IT Risk Audit.

I N T R O D U C T I O NIn the last 15 years, The Recruitment Network has worked with hundreds of recruitment companies.

So on the run up to Christmas last year (seems like a while ago now!) we ran an advent calendar of blog articles on the future of recruitment, and what industry experts think 2018 has in store for us.

Here we have collected the insights that were shared from those recruitment industry experts and thought leaders to share with you all, in one easy to access place.

So have a read and let us know what you think....

CONTENTS

Lucy Kendall 3Johnny Campbell 4Steve Ward 5Toby Babb 6-7Tracey Barrett 8Wendy McDougall 9Graham Palfery-Smith 10-11Lisa Jones 12Sean Anderson 13Alex Moyle 14-156CATS International 16Paul Lloyd 17Sonovate 18-20Jon Addison 21James Osborne 22-24Conclusion 25Future of Recruitment Survey Results 26-29

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‘What’s going to be big in 2018 for the recruitment industry?’More automation. We’ll finally start to see smart tech replace the early stages of the recruitment process with less people involved. This is already happening with algorithms for sourcing and stack-ranking candidates available in tools like Hiring Solved and Phenom People and digital application processes that provide an immersive screening and employer branding experience all in one. Recruiters will only turn up at the end of the process.

‘What trends do you predict for the future of the industry?’Talent Acquisition functions will merge with Talent Development/ L&D teams as recruiters become more and more business focused and expand their toolkit to solve not “hiring” challenges but “skill” challenges. Hiring isn’t always the answer, sometimes its better to grow talent from within or re-train existing staff.

‘What do we do in 2017, that will be done very differently in 2018’Arranging interviews. We’ll look back in a couple of years and laugh at the fact that we used to manually email interviewers and interviewees to schedule appointment, remind them to turn up and chase them for feedback. Tools like X.ai have been scheduling appointments with AI for a few years now and I’m seeing loads of companies adopt this obvious application of technology in the recruitment process.

‘What are the best brands doing right which will continue in 2018’The best brands are doubling down on innovation to reduce costs whilst ALSO improving candidate experience. Why not have both? We live in an App economy where people expect immediate feedback and experiences that they control from their mobile device. These same technologies save cost, improve speed and drive a better candidate experience. The best brands aren’t letting go their recruiters, they’re up-skilling them and putting them to work as talent advisors and business partners. The future looks bright!

‘What can recruitment companies do right to be ready for the future’Stop thinking MSP vs RPO vs Agency. Customers want talent solutions. That doesn’t mean adding two meaningless words to your website collateral, it means a fundamental shift in the organisational structure of recruitment companies from transactional to advisory.

‘Certain recruitment companies will not survive because’They don’t have a growth mindset and still think up-skilling their consultants is a risk to their business. Not up-skilling their team is a risk to their business! Our corporate customers are leading the pace when it comes to educating their recruiters and providing learning opportunities for them. 3rd parties should always strive to stay ahead of the curve. Those that don’t, won’t survive.”

Steve Ward2018 for Recruitment

2018 will be for me, the most exciting year of my 24 year recruitment industry career.

Technology has reached a new level that genuinely changes the way recruitment agencies identify, engage, nurture and contact candidates and clients – and remove the excess of cold-call wastage. And the enforcement of GDPR, whilst generally considered an obstacle, is doing the industry a massive favour, and it needs embracing to enhance both the perception and the performance of the industry.

Having 50,000 inactive candidate records on your database does no-one any favours, and the new enforcement of a ruling that means we can both clean and then subsequent maintain quality relationships with mutually selected candidate and contact records, to me speaks of an opportunity to reduce waste and irrelevance. One of the greatest obstacles to progress in agency has always been cumbersome data management, and the time-loss of dated, irrelevant data – and hence the ignorance of the vision of data. This is our chance to embrace data as a focused lead generation exercise, and a branding opportunity.

One agency in 2017, in a pilot scheme for talent pipelining software Candidate.ID, revived 28000 ‘dead’ candidates from their CRM into 1,300 active candidates (opt-in), 79 new conversations and 7 placements. Inside a 6 week content programme. A great exercise to validate a stale database pre-GDPR, but also an even greater exercise of fee generation, so long as your recruiters are good enough to maximise the

openings this creates. Content + Tech + Good Recruiters = 7 placements from dead data, inside 6 weeks. Plus now a 1,300 strong validated GDPR compliant database.

And yes, I said Content. It’s a dirty word for most recruiters, and with good cause. Why should a desk recruiter care about written content, branding and knowledge sharing, when their primary goal is to place jobs asap to meet core objectives?

But new technology means content should be a fee generator at most, and a lead generator at least. How exciting is the opportunity that now presents itself, that we can identify who is reading which piece of content, which portion of our website, and which or our leaders’ LinkedIn profiles, precisely when they are doing it. The journey towards personalisation through part-automation, and digital content, is complete. The net result? The recruiter knows who to call, who is secretly warm, and who to leave aside for the more speculative communications – both in candidate engagement, and client acquisition.

The next year appears a little intrepid for many, but I am excited. For years I have strived and promoted efficiency in recruitment agencies, to ensure that every interaction we make, is one of value, rather than unfocused sales patter to anyone who will listen. Tech never supported that, and we were allowed inefficiency repetition. The opportunity for clear air and greater razor-sharp focus that GDPR forces us to embrace, is one to grasp with both hands to gain competitive edge.

Johnny Campbell2018 for Recruitment

About Johnny and Social TalentJohnny is the co-founder and CEO of SocialTalent, who are the largest provider of online recruitment training in the world. Johnny has the lofty ambition to improve the productivity of every professional worker in the world with better knowledge, tools and data to be better at what they do.

About Steve Steve is Head of Staffing Agency Solutions at Candidate.ID. Candidate.ID is the world’s first intelligent talent pipelining and nurturing software. It is the only such technology that enables recruitment teams to understand precisely who show signals of wanting to work with your organisation.

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Toby Babb2018 for Recruitment

Faster, Better, Stronger in 2018

Will we see a seismic change to the recruitment industry in 2018? Will recruiters be disrupted by bots and tech? Is there still space to grow in recruitment?

There is a storm cloud looming over the sector in the form of an increased lean to in-house teams, a significant growth in digital and tech solutions and a challenging political and macro-economic climate. My belief is that, despite all of this, the recruitment industry is set to thrive in 2018 … but not everyone will win.

2018 will be a year where we need to be faster, better and stronger in order to thrive. Man must work with machine to find faster solutions for our customers. Recruiters will have to be better, providing a deeper level of understanding. Finally, we will need stronger relationships adding significantly more value.

Starting with FASTER, the world has shifted to mean that we expect, as consumers, instant gratification. Slicker design, quicker access to information, less waiting. All of these are essential in the new digital era. People need results and they need them fast. This is a huge opportunity for technology and a large reason why the industry comes under threat. That said, it also poses an extraordinary opportunity for recruiters to innovate and run with the machines. The “old school” who don’t like the admin of a CRM will suffer. Those embracing the opportunities that AI, Data, Digital, Video, Social and the like will be giving themselves

a tremendous advantage. This will allow quicker sourcing, better service, more tailored searches and cut interview processes, time to hire, as well as delivering a whole medley of other efficiencies for the savvy recruiter and their customers.

Technology alone, however, is not the answer to success in 2018 and beyond. Whilst it will be important to be faster in the race, we must, as an industry be BETTER. Better in our use of technology certainly, but absolutely better in our execution of the true term “consultant” in the recruitment process. My belief is that those who will thrive in the new era of recruitment will be those who provide genuine value. More information, more insight and a better and more professional quality to the work being done. Those at the centre of their communities will thrive. Those who walk in their customer’s shoes adding genuine value to their clients and candidates. Those who ask more and better questions with a true desire to understand the needs and pain points of their customers. Be that through content, social media, video or the plethora of other means available, the market is crying out for experts. We provide a truly exceptional product as an industry. A company is great because of its people and our job is to ensure our customers receive that excellence in service delivery. Adding value, providing brilliant basics with magic touches, driving best practice and having truly memorable and valuable conversations with our clients will be a must. The spray and pray merchants may suffer. Those who can genuinely consult on the market and help add real quality to teams and careers alike look set to thrive.

The final part of this troika is STRONGER. Recruitment is a game of relationships and whilst technology will provide algorithms to help make better choices, it is the ability to truly match based off detailed understanding and deep relationships with candidate and client alike that will provide the true differentiator. With Brexit putting additional premiums on rare to find skill sets (particularly in the area of technology for example) there will be an increasing skills gap and talent shortage. Those able to truly understand the client based off the strength of their relationship and also share similar strength of candidate partnership, will be able to add true value in the year ahead. We will see recruiters thrive who can consult, manage expectations and help companies shape their EVP really move forward as suppliers of choice.

I have spent the best part of twenty years now being fascinated by the recruitment industry. It is a cyclical beast which has moulded and adapted to a series of innovations and economic turns. From the late 90’s to today, despite a huge number of innovations and developments from the job board to LinkedIn, the one constant that has remained has been that relationships lie at the heart of the industry.

2018 will see a number of trends. We will see more technology, particularly around social media, AI and video. We will see continued ramping up of in house teams and RPO models. Finally, we will see companies adapt. We will see the industry improve. We will see recruiters thrive who can provide faster and more effective solutions. We will see the better consultants add true value to their customers and this will only drive the industry forward again. What will be the biggest innovation of 2018 in recruitment? A return to the fundamental skills that have for so long been at the kernel of the industry – relationships and understanding … with a side order of content and social thrown in for good measure!

About Toby and Harrington StarrToby is the founder & CEO at Harrington Starr. The company works with over 600 of the leading names in Global Finance providing permanent, retained, contract and interim financial technology professionals.

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Tracey Barrett2018 for Recruitment

What are the best brands doing right which will continue into 2018?

From a PR and content perspective, the best brands are talking about what they know – rather than what they do. It’s an age-old problem that too many recruiters still write content about how good they are, what services they provide, and why people should use them. That’s not added value content – that’s just spam. Think about the information that you have in your business right now that could add value to your target audiences. Hint – it isn’t jobs or CVs! You have data – tons of it – that can be sliced and diced to produce reports on a whole range of trends from salaries to gender to regional differences to the top skills in demand….why not write about that!

What do we do in 2017 that will be done differently in 2018

While there is a lot of scaremongering about GDPR – it is coming, and it will be law. Consequently, content marketing will have to be smarter, more targeted and higher quality but in my view, that is no bad thing. It’s a great excuse to really cleanse that CRM and have a relevant and up to date data set to work with. I also see it as a real opportunity to raise the bar in terms of quality marketing – and for marketers within recruitment firms to really be able to demonstrate value and return on investment.

What should we be leaving behind in 2017?

We need to dump the crap candidate experience. There’s still a mentality among recruiters that if they get a prospective candidate lead through marketing – and it’s not something that can be acted on right here and right now, then it isn’t really a lead. And so they just don’t engage. Wrong. There’s one group of your competitors, namely internal talent acquisition teams, who have been very busy using technology to enable to them to build talent pools and pipelines – in other words keeping future potential talent engaged with their brand. If you are not doing the same, then you are missing a trick.

What can recruitment companies be doing right now to be ready for the future?

Recruitment is a process – and so it is really difficult for recruitment firms to demonstrate USPS. I think that recruitment firms should stop talking about USPs and instead start talking about what value they can add to the process. That means looking at different services that you can offer that align with what you are already doing. The RPOs caught onto this a while ago and the smart ones have morphed into talent management consultancies that look at not just the attraction and recruitment elements but also the onboarding, retention, development and even exit. What are you doing to innovate? Put that challenge to your people and ask them all to come up with one thing that they think will add value to their clients – they may just hand you the next big thing!

Wendy McDougall2018 for Recruitment

The General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) will officially begin rolling out in 2018, and this is set to have a major impact on how recruitment businesses currently operate. There are a lot of things we currently do as an industry that simply won’t stand once these new regulations are imposed, and it’s interesting to make some predictions about how the next year will look as a result.So here are a few ways I see GDPR defining the recruitment landscape in 2018…

A genuinely engaged recruitment database will be the norm. Gone are the days of flaunting your ‘15,000-strong candidate database’ when pitching to a new client – in 2018, it’ll be all about database engagement levels. And whilst many of us would like to think our database engagement is high, in reality the current industry average is just 15-25%!

Under GDPR, you’ll need to prove that your data is engaged or risk having to delete it from your records entirely, and this is set to really transform how we talk about data in coming years. In future, you’ll no longer be talking up those 15,000 candidates you have on your database, but rather you’ll be showing off your 85% engaged database instead.

The recruiter-candidate relationship dynamic will change. As a result of GDPR, we’re also going to see a notable change in the recruiter-candidate relationship dynamics. As candidates will be encouraged to have more autonomy and control over their own personal data, the tendency to think of candidates as property – and of data management as a form of stock

control – will be well and truly buried.

Instead, candidates will be responsible for keeping their own information updated via their candidate portal, and the recruiter’s task will be to regularly check in, touch base, and ensure the relationship is kept warm rather than simply keeping data up to date. Next year, strengthening your relationships and networks will matter more than ever before.

Your word will no longer cut itAt its core, GDPR is all about proof and accountability. Therefore, it’ll no longer be sufficient to claim, for example, that you were given verbal consent for storing their personal data. From next year, you’ll need to be able to provide a clear audit of when and how you got this consent. To do this, you’ll need to include the ability for your candidate to agree to your GDPR agreement via all your web journeys online, have a script in place for receiving verbal consent on every phone call, and ideally be using recruitment software that offers voiceover IP with recorded calls, so there’s always easily-accessible proof to back up your actions.

Providing documentation and digital paper trails of your decisions and actions taken will be the standard, and again – it’s likely that most recruitment businesses will rely on software to do this efficiently and to minimise extra workload. I believe this way of working will bleed into other areas of the business, too. Using your updated and accurate data, you’ll be going to clients with much more solid and reliable data, and be able to pitch and present ideas with great confidence in your figures.So whilst the current trend amongst the recruitment sector is to recoil in fear at the mere mention of GDPR, it’s clear that the regulations will be bringing some welcome (and, in my opinion, much needed) changes. In fact, I’ll be bold and even go as far as saying… the future of recruitment looks bright under GDPR!

About Tracey and BlueSky PRTracey is Managing Director of BlueSky and Specialises in PR and communications for the recruitment, HR and talent management sectors. BlueSky is the only international PR and communications firm with truly in-depth experience and understanding of the recruitment and talent management arena.

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‘I never make predictions, especially about the future”- Nils Bohr

When we look forward, to predict what might occur in the future, we have the distinct advantage that nobody can say we are wrong.

People can take issue with ideas and argue that they are based on false assumptions but they cannot be wrong because they only exist in my head.

That said, talking about the future is both scary and exciting. You can let your imagination run wild and imagine both dystopic and utopic eventualities but, almost inevitably, the reality is somewhere between the two, with a sprinkling of ‘I never saw that comings’ thrown in.

“The best way to predict the future is to create it” – Peter Drucker

Drucker’s quote most accurately exemplifies my attitude to business. We cannot change history but, we can change the future. We shouldn’t try to predict what others will do but instead influence them to create the vision we desire. Most importantly we shouldn’t bemoan where we are now, that is a matter of fact and wasting energy on wishing we weren’t is, well……. a waste of energy!

“Those who have knowledge, don’t predict. Those who predict, don’t have knowledge.” – Lao Tzu

So, allow me a few musings to envision a future for our industry, say 20 years from now, and then

all you young and energetic business leaders can go and make a version of it happen.

Recruitment industry 2037

Although our industry remains relatively lightly regulated (excluding those countries like North Korea & Venezuela where it remains illegal) the use of personal data is not, and successive governments have clamped down on data ‘misuse’, or non-compliance, to the extent that this, including the tech infrastructure around it, is the biggest area of expense for recruitment companies after their staff.

Also, the ‘socialist slippage’ of the early 2020’s, across the UK and Europe, meant many tech and social media companies effectively went borderless and many of the smartest recruitment firms followed them.

The anticipated drift towards commoditisation of lower wage work, due to technology, became a landslide as Artificial Intelligence (AI) hit home. The spread of cheap smart phones and worker/work aggregation (web)sites, aggressively utilising AI, saw to this.

This left only highly robust international operators and localised specialists in the frame. The international tax and compliance regime hasn’t gone away and the high-profile jailing, in The Hague, of the entire main board of RanPower in 2022 for consistent tax abuses in 17 major economies still resonates 15 years later. Effective contractor compliance is a massive issue and the recent $15bn flotation of 6CATS in New York & Shanghai (remember that Comrade Corbyn effectively shut the UK capital markets in 2028) demonstrated that more than adequately.

Graham Palfery-Smith2018 for Recruitment

In the free-trade areas of the UK, the boutiques (specialist niche recruitment companies offering bespoke services) are staffed by relatively small numbers of highly skilled recruitment consultants. The role of these consultants is more akin to what, in the early part of the century, we’d like to call ‘Search’ consultants. Far more time spent talking & meeting with clients and utilising highly specific digital personal assistants (DPA’s). Contract work has spread across the world offering opportunities for those boutiques willing to invest in the best tech and compliance infrastructure; here as well the importance of developing and maintaining high-quality client relationships is paramount. So, although the sector employs not many more than it did 20 years ago they operate in a quite different way. Highly specialist, utilising DPA’s extensively and operating ethically and compliantly these consultants are highly regarded and respected in their various communities.

Across the world the US remains the largest single market and the ‘Trump Bump’ of 2016-24 had little appreciable impact. The EU’s inevitable demise has, many feel, been accelerated by their bizarre decision to nationalise, across the bloc, their creative/tech/recruitment industries from 2040. The growth of global business communities based along the free-trade Mediterranean coasts of Spain, Greece and Italy (following Spanxit, Grexit and Exit) seems set to continue.

The really important and successful companies (including Chi-Antal, WaltersPage, S33 and AdHaysEcco) operating in the sector are all based here, primarily on the free-trade islands of Ibiza, Sicily and Crete, as are the up and coming boutiques of the global industry.

The biggest issues the sector faces globally, aside from those mentioned, are the ongoing shortages of suitably qualified candidates and the difficulties of dealing with a market where 80% of the roles (and the skills needed for them) didn’t exist in 2017. The other principal concern is that of geography. Despite transportation becoming so much easier since the perfection of the Hydro-cell in 2025 and fast clean travel now being the norm, the continuing issues with immigration controls make it often difficult to get the right candidates

to the right place. Africa’s continuing boom risks stuttering, as happened in South America, as a result of this flaw.

Across Asia, China continues to dominate with Australia and Japan still in senior supporting roles.

Despite the negatives the industry finds itself in rude health generally with the wave of boutique sales and consolidations through the 2020’s generating many extremely wealthy individuals who have continued to reinvest in young entrepreneurs’ start-ups in the sector and the associated software arena.

Globally the ‘neo-tech’ sector is the fastest growing and literally the most dynamic, although some of the ‘old’ areas of Space & Satellite, Pharma, Engineering and Financial Services still matter.

As education is also an international option, people are far more used to moving to where the opportunities, immigration controls allowing, are best rather than being restricted by borders.

The Recruitment Network Club has morphed into TRNC Global and now has 40,000 members across all inhabited continents; sharing knowledge, experience and enjoyment. Sir James Osborne’s recently announced ennoblement has done nothing to stifle his impish enthusiasm for the sector, despite his advancing years, and we look forward to the first semi-submerged TRNC Global Retreat in the Maldives next year.

About GrahamGraham is Chairman at 6CATS International and a Board Member of The Recruitment Network. He is an accomplished and highly experienced strategic senior manager and has been involved in recruitment for many years.

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Lisa Jones2018 for Recruitment

‘ W h a t ’ s going to be big in 2018 for the recruitment industry?’

T h e r e ’ s a lot of talk about innovation and technology (which should be seen as two different things). AI theoretically will be “big” – but for who? I suggest that it’ll help internal recruiters develop faster screening processes, but this could be to the detriment of the agency recruiter.And when it comes to technology, I often find that recruiters have got too much tech and not enough process… and this is coupled with recruitment leaders yelling “get on the phone”.

So – what’s big in 2018? The recruiter.• Trained recruiters• Using tech to drive process, not replace it• Candidates who want to speak to recruiters, as recruiters have invested time in them – and the same for clients…GDPR will be BIG, but I hope it’ll simply be a catalyst for recruiters to really “get good” at recruitment and capitalising on the relationship economy which is driving business.

‘What should we be leaving behind in the year 2017’We did a lot of work on this with recruitment leaders in 2017 and have our own ebook on this. The consensus was:

“less systems more process”Recruiters suffer from FORMO (Fear Of Recruiters Missing Out) and this is demonstrated through the amount of systems / apps / extensions / job boards that they have, just to deliver their roles. The recruiting process has been so disrupted that the average recruiter cannot pin-point their cost of hire or time to hire and thus they compete on price… and we know that this creates a fight to

the bottom!

Let’s start 2018 with the goal of getting back to the process – speaking to people, generating equity with our 3Cs (candidates, clients and consultants) and demonstrating our worth as way beyond matching candidates to jobs.

“less content more marketing”Content has become a goal in itself, and I’m not sure that this is right. It’s a strategy for generating the 3Cs (clients, candidates, consultants) and should be created with that goal in mind.

‘What can recruitment companies do right to be ready for the future’Simply put:

1. Define your process2. Refine your Systems and data3. Train your staff4. Market your business

The industry is having a crisis of confidence. This is what I hear when I go into a recruitment leader meeting:

“why can’t they just get on the phone?”“what’s the coolest tool for recruiters?”“how can I find more talent?”“why are my staff not using my CRM?”“why am I spending so much on job boards?”“why am I only placing 2 out of every 10 jobs I am given?”“GDPR – I’m scared about the impact and I am hearing too many conflicting messages”

It all comes back to thinking about what you NEED not just WANT.

GDPR is of course a wakeup call. It’s the excuse you have for dealing with all of the above and generating a genuine reason for candidates, clients and consultant to want to work with you. And these 3Cs are the key to your growth.

Sean Anderson

2018 for Recruitment

Every day I’m faced with a new notice about how automation, AI, and technology will replace recruiters and obsolete the industry.

Safe to say, I’m not worried. It’s always been hard to tell recruiters something they know makes absolutely no business sense.

Recruitment is fundamentally about people and relationships… and if you think Deepmind or an algorithm are going to cement your relationships over a few drinks then you can invest in that. Good luck navigating GDPR and dealing with Tay’s outbursts in the process.

The truth is, we work in an industry rooted in relationships and in 2018 my prediction is that we’re going to move further into the human side of that.That’s not to say technology won’t be the vehicle in which we travel there. What does that look like? To me, it’s social media.

That’s nothing new, but as a real avenue for recruitment and in terms of delivering a measurable ROI, it’s still a fairly uncharted territory.

Defining your brand and amplifying it in a crowded market has always been a barrier for agencies. How do you identify your business among the 5,000 or so others setting up in recruitment each year?

It’s why your social voice is so important in establishing this. Instagram and video shouldn’t be afterthoughts in your growth plans because they won’t be in your competitions.

In 2018 social media is a cost-effective way to whittle down your sourcing costs, accelerate the recruitment process, amplify your brand and see a real ROI.

Consider how much it costs for agencies to source a good recruiter? Outside of Rec2Rec’s, referrals and the usual methods, how do agencies define themselves and start that conversation? Imagine how much you would save if you could find your next top biller on social media through an inbound campaign.

For social media to truly fulfil its potential it needs to tie into some avenue of inbound marketing. Every effort has to have a reason, even if that’s the jab jab jab hook approach of Vaynerchuk.

I’ve seen plenty of recruitment figures that govern enviable followers, drive real engagement with posts that absolutely hit the nail on the head within their target market.

Yet, they fail to convert social noise into traffic and traffic into clients, candidates or revenue. 2018 is the year that social media and inbound marketing are married to deliver a measurable impact on an agency’s bottom line.

Social media is here to stay, and the early adopters that can monetise this arm of marketing will capitalise on it in 2018.

Just think, how many agencies have a strategy around Instagram that delivers an ROI? We know it can be done because we do it all the time.

It’s a way to start a conversation with your target market, amplify your brand on a viral scale and drive inbound marketing.

As with all innovations in technology, those that refuse to evolve and adapt will be left behind.

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Alex Moyle2018 for RecruitmentYou need to get organised or you will see your businesses die. Slowly.

U n l i k e l a w y e r s ,

accountants or marketers who gain commitment for payment before committing to work; We only get paid for success.

It is not the no-win no-fee aspect of the industry that is the problem. It is the fact that more and more agencies are working on roles where they have little or no commitment from a client. Searching for days on end, posting endless CV’s on portals, only to receive little or no feedback from clients is a fool’s game. Thousands of recruiters do this every day. To make matters worse many are doing this for low-level fees.

The end result is that thousands of agencies are unable to reach a level of productivity that rewards both consultants and business owners for their efforts. If you are wondering whether this is you, then there are some signs you need to look for.

– Are you struggling to get average per month billings above £7,000?

– Do you find it difficult to get new 360 recruiters to bill over 10k month in month out?

– Are Over 50% of your roles multi-agency and/or through intermediaries such as internal recruiters?

These are just a few signs of many signs that I see in agencies. The problem is that recruiters spend too much time working for clients that do not value their work. The client

isn’t seeking a partnership of equals. The end result is that every month too much hangs on the success of too few deals.

I have more bad news: Things are not going to get any easier. Companies are going to continue to invest in their internal recruiting capabilities. They will become more robust in creating and enforcing PSL’s. Lastly, the sad reality is that there is almost an unlimited supply of recruiters who are willing to work hard with little client commitment and low fees.

It is not all doom and gloom. There are recruiters making a success of the current market conditions.

How are they doing this?They are relentlessly organised and methodical in their approach. They have an unwavering focus on organising in three areas:

#1: Organise Who You Want To Do Business With- The best agencies are organising clients into three groups

Bucket 1: These clients value our service. They want to work in partnership with us. Most importantly – they deliver a financial return on time invested.

Action Taken: More proactive effort is made to add more value to these clients, actively cross sell and where possible lock these clients into a contractual arrangement to supply staff.

Bucket 2: These clients do not value the service they receive. Effort invested does not match fees that are received.

Action Taken: These clients are either fired or managers reduce the time and effort experienced recruiters can spend working roles on these vacancies. (Some give these ‘B’ grade clients to the rookie training academy to practice on)

Bucket 3: Potential clients which are known to value agency partnerships (evidenced by fee levels, line manager contact etc).

Action Taken: These are organised into target lists. Directors lead target account teams that bring a range of consultants together to win new business with these clients.

#2: Organise by Area of Specialism“Are you a wandering generality or a meaningful specific”. – Zig Ziglar

Productivity is significantly increased when recruiters have an active talent pool ready to be leveraged whenever a new vacancy arises.

Agencies whose focus is too broad geographically or technically, end up generating too many candidates that can never be used in other roles they recruit for. Great agencies focus on recruiting for roles where the candidates they generate today will be good for the vacancies they source tomorrow.

Specialisation brings two major advantages:Specialised agencies can work faster than their competitors.Specialised, agencies are more likely to have a talent pool that internal recruiters can’t access through job boards or CV databases.

Agencies manage specialisation by applying a geographic or industry focus to existing technical specialities. The goal is for them to own a talent pool that recruiters cannot access. The broader the technical speciality – the tighter the necessary geographic or industry focus. For example, accounting recruitment is a broad technical speciality, so it needs a tight industry or geographic focus to let you build a talent pool that internal recruiters or competitors cannot access.

Conversely Cybersecurity is a niche technical area with a shortage of candidates, so a wide geographical focus is appropriate. However – as the availability of talent increases in the coming years, recruiters will need to be more focused on specific industries or geographies.

#3: Organise your PipelineMost recruiters think as far ahead as what

they are going to close this month. This leads to inconsistent billings and high levels of emotional turmoil for directors and business owners.

To bill consistently and efficiently, you need to take a holistic view. Placements, Vacancies and Leads.

Placements: Ensure that every offer accepted is nurtured through to start, and that every candidate that starts is nurtured through their probationary period. This typically means companies create checklists of activities to be performed at each stage. Then recruiters are held accountable for executing the checklist. It is not glamorous, but it effective in ensuring that ever offer turns into a fee that sticks.

Vacancies: Managers are becoming more focused in prioritising which vacancies receive the most consultant effort. The key is that companies have a common way of grading the quality of a vacancy. It doesn’t matter if you use A,B,C or 1,2,3. It does matter that effort is prioritised

Leads: Companies typically give recruiters too much independence to manage their leads. The result is that top billers often ignore hot leads that others could chase, or new recruiters do too little to convert leads that could help them reach productivity. When leads are hidden in calendar callbacks or personal spreadsheets managers can’t help, and can’t gain visibility on the future vacancy pipeline.

The challenge here is that CRM’s make it hard to enter data, and harder to get an overview of placements, vacancies and leads. Shared spreadsheets are a common workaround, but these are cumbersome to manage. This is why I have created Nurtureit.io to help both recruiters and managers organise and manage their sales pipeline.

I hope you have enjoyed this festive blog. Over the last few years, I have seen too many good firms struggle to achieve their growth goals because they are not organised enough.

I can’t offer a magic bullet. It takes work and focus to improve your agencies’ approach.

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Paul Lloyd2018 for Recruitment

Here’s what recruitment agencies need to take into account regarding the GDPR changes

It should be relatively easy for recruitment agencies and payroll providers to adapt to the changes if they are already compliant. This is because GDPR is a replacement and enhancement of the existing Data Protection Act and most of the personal protection information remain, fundamentally, as they are now.

When businesses take time to understand the legislation they will realise that they already have many of the necessary processes and policies in place. However, it is still vitally important that customers, suppliers and service providers communicate effectively with each other so that one is not exposed by the failings of another.

The lack of guidance from the ICO on GDPR has resulted in many businesses not understanding the practical implications of failing to comply with the new legislation and therefore not taking any corrective actions or making significant costs engaging with an external advisor.

When working with agencies, I found that a key issue is based around consent and ensuring that they (usually the data controllers) have the consents to move the data through the

supply chain. Most of the other changes can be managed in-house without getting the customers or other service providers involved. Many businesses now will be working out what the changes mean for them, however I think that over the next few months, more guidance and advice will be published by the ICO and therefore more businesses will implement their plans to ensure compliance.

Our Advice when trying to Become Compliant with GDPR

My advice for businesses is to undertake a risk assessment to determine the proportionality of the response. This legislation is of particular importance for recruitment agencies as where data is used simply to perform a contract, businesses need to ensure that the individual, the data subject knows exactly how the data will be used and has consented to that use. This cannot be viewed as a quick fix for May 2018, this is an on-going obligation and agencies need to work towards long-term, robust and manageable policies and processes so as not to get caught out in the future.

Ultimately, this legislation is a positive one as it has been introduced to protect contractor’s data, however they could potentially get irritated when service providers go to them for stronger, more positive, consents.

6CATS International2018 for Recruitment

What’s going to be big in 2018 for the UK recruitment industry?

On the positive side, whilst the UK contractor market is being further squeezed by HMRC, developing the international market will become more and more attractive for recruitment businesses who can create international opportunities.Europe should continue to grow for most of the year but the real opportunities are likely be in the Americas, the Middle & Far East with many economies in Africa also growing rapidly. Growth sectors for recruiters are likely to include Cyber Security, supporting the ‘gig worker’ and AI (artificial intelligence).

Sadly, as we discuss below, there are likely to be corporate casualties resultant from poor risk analysis coupled with lax or ineffective compliance and control.

What trends do you predict for the future of the industry?

We will continue to see a trend towards EU countries trying to enforce tighter compliance legislation and to stop disguised employment. Recruitment businesses are going to have to continue to be aware of law changes affecting how they manage contract workers around Europe. Recruiters moving into international contracting will need to work with a compliant

partner in order to minimise risk. Also, agencies will be looking to add value to their contractor and client relationships. Consequently, they will seek help from their suppliers, for benefits they want to offer like, health insurance, security protection and mobilisation services. This may allow them to differentiate themselves from their competitors.

On a micro level, there are still a lot of recruiters who believe they understand everything about everything. Or if they don’t understand, it can’t be important!In an increasingly complex world the very best rely on a network of partners, both formal and informal to help guide them through the labyrinth of regulations and directives.

What we did in 2017 that should be done very differently in 2018?

GDPR is going to significantly impact the management, processing & control of data.

The Criminal Finances Act will bite at least one major recruitment company (and probably lots of smaller ones), as ignorance of the law is no defence for encouraging international tax evasion, there are far too many recruiters going for the fast buck and global tax authorities are gearing up to hit evaders very hard.

About Paul and Brookson OnePaul is Sales Director at Brookson, who are an accountancy and payroll solutions provider. They do everything on your behalf so you can concentrate on more productive things. What’s more their all-inclusive services ensure all your financial affairs are taken care of in one place and they won’t charge you extra for any of our core services.

About 6CATS International6CATS recognises the importance of providing fully compliant, transparent and streamlined contractor solutions, they provide clients their with the highest levels of service whilst offering complete compliance assurance.

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Sonovate2018 for Recruitment

Recruitment businesses are operating in the tightest labour market on record*. Retaining a core of focus of headcount and financial growth is challenging when fighting increased competition on all fronts. We’ve outlined five areas we believe are central to developing strategies to pursue effective scale.

1. Build collaborationsOne way to scale your recruitment business is to not only add value to your agency, but to offer added value to others. Rather than focusing solely on marketing strategies, you can achieve this any of the following ways:• Set up more events, whether they are

networking or knowledge-sharing opportunities

• Decide how you want your business to be portrayed in your industry

• What expertise do you have?• What industry speakers would be beneficial

to work with?• What suppliers should you partner with?• Social media also plays such a key role

in building collaborations. The potential reach you can get from disseminating your content across your social channels is high, and it’s an easy way to penetrate existing audiences and engage new ones. Through social, you can build up stronger collaborative relationships with:

• Your candidate network• Your client network• Suppliers• Industry peers

2. Maximise your marginsRather than focusing your time and effort on topline growth alone, a key way to improve your profitability is through a number of strategies have one shared focal point: margin.There are a number of ways to do this:• Evaluate your pricing structure• Focus your best efforts, talent, and attention

on selling in your most profitable channels• Look for ways to increase value to clients

and customers• Review your client list to determine several

things:• Who are your high value customers?• Who has the most growth potential?• Who is isn’t making your money?• And here’s how to lower your customer

acquisition costs and cut any unnecessary costs:

• Review your customer acquisitions costs:• What is the attributable ROI?• What mechanisms are you putting in place

to evaluate spend?• How many acquisitions were already in

your CRM?• Redesign workflows and systems for

greater efficiency:• Could your back office be streamlined?• Does it efficiently manage your workload?• Do your suppliers exceed your requirements

and expectations?• Can you eliminate any non-strategic

expenses that aren’t adding value to the business?

• Can you reduce your IT costs, by moving to a cloud-based solution?

• This article shares some insights on techniques to do more contract deals.

3. Outsourcing and cut wasteAssess all of your outgoing costs, with the aim of finding areas where time and finances can be optimised.Evaluate the money you’re spending and what it is bringing into your business:• When was the last time you negotiated with

your suppliers?• Are your job boards providing ROI?• Are they providing your with high value

placements?• Do they actively engage with your business?• What’s their product roadmap?• What’s their candidate acquisition strategy?• What’s their stance on GDPR and data

processing?• When was the last time you reviewed your

database?• How many candidates have you placed from it?• How many were on there before you placed a

candidate from a job board, i.e. did you really need to advertise?

• How are your consultants using the database? Are they working efficiently to extract value?

If you find that your suppliers are too expensive, or the job boards you pay to use aren’t converting, look for alternative options – there are so many competitors for these functions out there that you’ll be certain to find the best deal for your business.

Look at the processes in your business as a two-way street.

Are there any processes you’ve outsourced that aren’t as efficient and/or cost effective as you need them to be? If yes, you can look at the possibility of bringing them back in-house, or you can look for alternative external solutions.

In the same respect, are there any processes that are being done in-house that are costing you more money than they’re bringing in?

About SonovateSonovate is the UK’s leading provider of contract recruitment finance. They provide recruitment businesses with unrestricted finance, an award-winning cloud back office and dedicated support, so they can place more contractors and grow their business. To learn more about Sonovate, click here.

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Jon Addison2018 for Recruitment

Over the last few years, the recruitment industry has been adapting under the influence of increasingly complex challenges when it comes to attracting and retaining talent. For example – they’ve seen new generations entering the workforce, new technologies emerging, and new working habits take hold. On top of this, the UK’s unemployment rate is at a 42-year low, with candidate availability steadily falling, and the so-called ‘fourth industrial revolution’ – all of these factors are causing imminent disruptions to industries across the board.

Businesses are facing major global trends, which show no signs of reversing. Whether it’s the rise of automation, skills gaps, or the so-called gig economy – there’s no doubt that these seismic shifts are affecting the recruitment world. But it’s not all doom and gloom, and there are ways for recruiters to thrive and succeed among the new realities – if they can adapt their strategies.

At LinkedIn, we believe that through the combination of data and the recruiters’ instincts, the challenges of the recruitment world can be faced head on. We acknowledge that an abundance of data available to recruiters is of a huge benefit, but only if used in a right way. In today’s world operating at a 24/7/365 pace, recruiters no longer have time to sift through résumés. They need platforms that will support the recruitment process and accelerate the speed of hiring.

This is where AI comes into the picture. According to our recent research looking at global recruiting trends, LinkedIn found that 63 per cent of professionals believe, despite AI, a recruiter’s instincts and expertise will still be necessary for building relationships and spotting high potential candidates. And more than two thirds (69 per cent) of recruiters across Europe believe that AI will be beneficial, saving them crucial time when it comes to sourcing candidates.

So yes, AI will be part of the answer here, but it’s more about adapting AI into the recruitment processes. By doing this, recruiters can save time, and ultimately spend more time having quality conversations with candidates. When it comes to talent professionals, combining insights with instinct is powerful, and will only enhance the hiring process.

4. Attract the best staffDavid Oglivy, renowned advertising expert, once said:“If each of us hires people who are smaller than we are, we shall become a company of dwarfs. But if each of us hires people who are bigger than we are, we shall become a company of giants.”

It’s worth bearing this idea in mind when recruiting whilst you’re trying to scale. Employees can become vital cogs in the machinery of a business, so developing a smart recruitment strategy is critical to finding the most capable individuals for your business. Here are four points to consider when increasing your headcount to help scale:• Conduct in-depth onboarding and training

with every new employee• Look beyond core competencies and find

additional potential• Create and commit to a your company

culture• Hire experts and listen to them

5. Automate workflowsStrip back the workload completed internally, so that the time and effort of your team can be solely focused on networking and doing more deals.Marketing automation is designed specifically to streamline the workflows of key processes, including:• Onboarding• Customer care• Lead generation• Candidate marketing

Before speaking to providers, determine what success looks like for each process and then set objectives, e.g. if you want to engage with your lapsed candidates, determine what engagement is. It might be an email reply or a completion of a goal (web page visit). Then set an objective against the measurement, e.g. achieve >20% engagement.

This way you will be able to choose the solution that is perfect for your business requirements, which will avoid any unnecessary disruption further down the line if the provider you chose doesn’t deliver as expected.

Put the above into practice at your recruitment agency and you’ll find it easier to scale your business faster in 2018. And, whilst you’re going through these processes, look at the granular details and ask the right questions to ensure the best results:

*ONS: UK employment rate is the highest on record at 74.9%.

About JonJon is Head of Talent Solutions, LinkedIn UK. He is honoured to be part of LinkedIn’s mission to create economic opportunity for every member of the global workforce. Whether it’s finding work, realising a dream job, becoming great at what you do, or finding the best talent to take your business where it needs to go.

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James Osborne2018 for Recruitment

As we close out on 2017 and start looking forward to the New Year, this tends to be an ideal time for us to reflect on where the biggest wins and losses have come from this year, the lessons learned and accordingly where we should be gearing up our focus for 2018.

… and whilst the world seems to be a very different place from 12 months ago with all that has gone on in 2017, I’m not sure this year will be particularly different from any other year with regards to the core principles that are needed to thrive and survive over the next 12 months.So, this is my one P.R.E.S.E.N.T. to all recruitment leaders, 6 core principles to focus on now to close out the year…Present for Recruiters

PurposeThe so-called War for Talent is not exclusive

to the markets within which we recruit. It affects us as directly when it comes to us trying to source talent for our own businesses and for some this year, the inability to find great talent has held them back significantly from achieving their growth plans.With over 9,000 new recruitment businesses registered in 2017, the war will be even more hard fought in the new year as agencies battle to secure the best consultants and resourcers in the market to support their evolution.

Whilst we here at The Recruitment Network have a number of very exciting initiatives to launch in the new year to help our members source the best talent in the market, it is critical that recruitment organisations do all they can at the same time to hold on to their

existing talent. This is where the concept of Purpose comes in to play.

Purpose is about creating a deep rooted reason for being as an organisation, something that will capture the hearts and minds of your staff to want to go above and beyond what is typically required of them.

We have worked hard with many of our members this year to get this right – if you are not sure what this looks like, the following two videos from thought leaders Simon Sinek and Dan Pink should trigger your thinking:

Question to think about over your first mince pie: what is it that really motivates and engages your workforce?

RealismI was lucky enough to be invited to

speak at Louise Triance’s UK Recruiter End of Year Conference a few weeks ago where we discussed the UK and Global economy in relation to its impact on the recruitment sector today and tomorrow.

It was agreed that whilst we are currently experiencing a period of what economists refer to as VUCA (volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity and Ambiguity) there are many reasons for recruiters to be optimistic about the future BUT we had to be realistic about the conditions we are working in (economically, socially, politically etc.) to ensure we can capitalise on the opportunities that do lay ahead.

One of the speakers at one of our recent members Huddles, Mark Pollock (a Northern Irish adventurer, athlete, rower, author and international motivational speaker who became the first blind man to race to the South Pole) talks about the importance of adding realism into any sense of optimism to ensure you deal with the facts, as highlighted by the Stockdale Principle experienced by Prisoners of War:

Question to think about over your second mince pie: what is currently happening today that will impact your market tomorrow?

EfficiencyWe have spent a lot of the year talking about

this with recruitment leaders, debating how we can ensure that every component of our businesses, every process, tool, system and strategy behind everything we do is producing the maximum return on investment based on the amount of effort that we are putting in.

I ran a session back in November with a group of recruitment team leaders and mid-tier recruitment managers as part of our Trailblazer programme, comparing the philosophies around marginal gains brought to Team Sky (cycling) by Sir Dave Brailsford to recruitment leaders making their teams more efficient, more effective, fit for real purpose in 2018.

The principal of improving small components of every single part of your business by a mere 1% is simple but the outputs can be exponential when added together. Watch the short interview below between The Recruitment Network expert speaker Jeff Grout and Sir Dave Brailsford discussing Marginal Gains:

StabilityConsolidation will be a big driver of success

in 2018 for many businesses as many seek to lock in and secure their existing client base and strengthen their ability to generate MRR (Monthly Recurring Revenue) and consistency of billings from their current customers.

The concept of Land and Expand, deep account penetration, can often lack strategic focus for many organisations and that is just wrong! Maximising the relationships you have and ensuring you are increasing market share across your top tier clients at the very minimum (we refer to these as the As and Bs) is the simplest ways to create a more stable flow of revenue and even more importantly, profitability.

You can find some simple ideas around this online at the free recruitment video dashboard REX.

Rex Dashboard

Blank Months, where any one or more of your team doesn’t generate revenue in any one month, should be an obsessive target to minimise for any recruitment leader. The fluctuations of revenue these feast or famine cycles create can have a crippling effect on a business’ ability to forecast and plan properly.

Question to think about over your fourth mince pie: how much market share are we missing out on from our top 20% of clients?

About JamesJames is the Chairman of The Recruitment Network. is an award winning business consultant, advisor and entrepreneur, with an international board level background in the staffing and recruitment sector, ultimately as General Manager within one of the largest HR and Recruitment service providers in Australia..

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ExperienceOne thing is clear about the evolution

of technology in the recruitment sector, in particular AI (Artificial Intelligence) this is not about robots taking over the industry, but instead enhancing and improving how the industry works, how recruiters work faster, with more agility, more objectivity and work with greater efficiency.

If recruiters embrace AI technology, and wrap it in personalised, deeply human consultancy skills, then they will have a very secure and fruitful future. If we fight against what is clearly evolving at a breakneck pace, then we will be left behind. It stands to reason.

Customer and Candidate experience can be augmented by tech, but cannot be replaced by it. We brought in guest expert Geoff Ramm to talk to our members about how to deliver Celebrity Service earlier this year and coupled with our unique online Customer Experience Toolkit you can literally transform the experience your candidates and clients receive and in return the volume of referrals, repeat business and testimonials you receive.

Hear from Geoff about Christina’s story as an example:Question to think about over your fifth mince pie: are you and your team delivering a celebrity level of service across every touchpoint and moment of truth?

NetworkLess than 15 months ago we launched

The Recruitment Network Club as a way of bringing leaders of recruitment business together to work collaboratively and support each other alongside our panel of advisors and thought leaders to enable each other maximise their growth aspirations and outperform the market.

We didn’t know if it would work to be honest simply because we didn’t know if

there was a good enough appetite amongst recruitment leaders to share best practice amongst their peers and in some cases, competitors.

As we close out our year at The Recruitment Network HQ we have seen that the power of peer collaboration, controlled networking, is transformational for many recruitment businesses. Our members have recorded best ever months and years throughout 2017 and are geared up to enjoy further growth in 2018.

We don’t really take any credit for this – we just provide the right environment, tools, insights, advisors and training to make it all work. In reality it is down to the quality of our membership and the willingness to network effectively to challenge and be challenged. This is why the club has grown at such an unprecedented rate so far and why we are able to take the member offering to a whole new level in 2018.

If you don’t know what it is like to work closely with other recruitment leaders in this type of environment, take a look at this:

Question to think about over your sixth mince pie: how are you benchmarking your business against what other agencies doing to ensure you are maximising your opportunity?

Time Out2017 has been an immense year and

personally, my team and I have worked very hard to create something that makes a real difference to our customers. We are very proud of what we have achieved, have fallen ever deeper in love with the recruitment industry and are extremely excited by what we have planned for 2018.But right now is the time to take some quality time out of the day-to-day, do a bit of positive reflection, recharge the batteries and celebrate…. because we all deserve it.

C O N C L U S I O N

As part of the Future of Recruitment series over December 2017 we ran a survey to gather recruitment professionals’ views on what we would see emerging in 2018.

In the following pages we have displayed the results of the survey, so you can see the results for yourself.

The trends that we have seen from the articles and the survey are:

The overall outlook and attitude that has come from the articles and survey is positive. Everyone is learning from the past and looking to the future.

GDPR will definitely be something that is going to affect recruitment businesses who operate within the EU in 2018.

With the advice and insight to guide recruitment businesses to make their processes more efficient, optimise the way they work and achieve success in the year ahead, and ones to follow that.

We hope to continue to offer relevant, vaulable advice to our members and readers throughout 2018 and beyond, and hope that you have a prosperous 2018.

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At the end of of 2017 we asked you our members and our network what you thought about the coming year in our Future of Recruitment Survey. We're pleased to give you the first insight into the results and the interesting predictions for this year.

The Future of Recruitment Survey

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