Ross in the Media

Walk away from bullying, cheapskate clients: Ross Clennett

This article originally appeared in ShortList on Friday 26th September 2008.

ShortList is the number one source of information for both corporate recruiters and recruitment companies.

Recruitment companies will preserve their cashflow and their credibility by walking away from bad clients, says recruitment trainer Ross Clennett.

Speaking at an RCSA breakfast in Sydney today, Clennett said it took a lot of confidence to walk away from business which wasn't worth it, but doing so was essential.

"We've got to have the courage to walk away because our focus should be on a smaller number of jobs that are exclusive to us - not dealing with clients who are going to bully us or who don't respect our professionalism."

Clennett cited the example of a recruiter who had been working with a Melbourne client for five years, and had a great relationship with the company, until a new general manager with poor people skills arrived.

One of the recruiter's placements, who reported directly to the GM, left at the end of the fourth month. The agency had a three-month guarantee limit, but the GM demanded a refund or a future discount, and threatened to stop doing business with her otherwise.

Her response was: "Well I'd be very disappointed if that was the case, but I'm not changing my mind because we did the right thing." And for five months she went without any business from that company - until she ran into the managing director at a function.

He asked her why he hadn't seen her lately, and she recounted what had happened. The MD was surprised as he hadn't been told.

"She thought no more of it, but about three weeks later she got a call from the managing director: 'Hi, do you want to come down and help me? I've got a general manager role I'd like you to recruit.'"

Clennett said it was inevitable that when a recruitment company walked away from a client, over terms and conditions or fees, sometimes the client wouldn't be back.

"But that's okay because they're probably the ones that we don't want to deal with anyway. The ones we really want will come back."

He said that even in a buoyant market, recruiters tended to put up with people like the GM, "because we're looking for that extra fee".

But in a softer economy it was, in fact, more important than ever to jettison badly-behaved clients.

"In... the market we're coming into, we can less afford to deal with those people. It's not how many jobs you have, it's how many jobs you have in true partnerships with your clients, which is the biggest indicator of your fees."

Chase the SMEs, not the big employers

Clennett cited a recent Shortlist article on Foster's Group's efforts to improve its applicant tracking and talent pooling and to leverage its 50,000-strong candidate database, as well as a range of other internal recruitment initiatives.

This was "happening all around the big corporate employers", he said, which was why recruitment companies should focus instead on building business in the small business market.

"If you have existing relationships (with big employers), fantastic - but if you're just trying to call the recruitment department to get a meeting and try to get on a PSA, frankly, I'd advise you to focus your energies on SMEs."

Not only was this the fastest-growing section of the economy, he said, but unlike big employers, SMEs were simply focused on finding good people, rather than doing it themselves.