'Just' do it

Adding value ain't easy... but it pays off

Everyone is saying recruiters need to add more value. The question is how.

Back in March, it seemed like every session at the Recruitment Agency Expo had AI in the title. At the Expo this October, the big theme was about adding value. AI hasn’t gone away for recruiters, but we’re focusing on the bigger picture: creating real value for our clients.

This is a critical conversation for recruitment leaders. Technology continues to take the ‘easy’ jobs, and new tools are appearing at an ever-faster rate. Agency revenue has gone backwards, and prices are under pressure. At the same time, clients are paralysed by uncertainty, frightened by the risks of hiring badly, and overwhelmed by AI-boosted applications.

What your clients need more than ever is a truly consultative hiring partner. If you can deliver that level of value, you have the ability to build a business more profitable than ever before.

But it’s not easy.

Of course, it is easy to stand on stage at an Expo and say we need to offer more value. It’s easy to hop on a podcast and say we need to be more consultative. But then it falls to you to transform your business into a high-value business. And that’s not easy.

There are no easy answers. But here’s a tip from my experience of creating high-value recruitment products that actually work.

Back when I was running the products team within Reed, I banned one word: ‘just’.

As in, “Let’s just run a quick trial” or “Could you just put together something simple we can start selling next month?”. At its core, this is a mindset thing. If you’re looking to make a big impact and transform your business, you can’t ‘just’ do something and expect results.

When you say ‘just’, you’re trying to convince yourself that it won’t take long, that it will work first time, that you can probably get all the answers you need from an AI prompt. ‘Just’ is saying this will be easy, we’ll get it done soon and then move onto the next thing.

But hard things take hard work. Now that’s an offputting thing to hear, but the good news is it stops most people from trying. If you are the one that tries - the one that really commits to the hard work of change - then you have a huge competitive advantage.

Most recruiters won’t make the transition to delivering the high-value services they need to win in the next five years. If you can, you stand head and shoulders above your competitors.

So, the work is hard. But the rewards are worth it. When you offer high-value services, you get greater commitment from your clients. You get treated as a trusted expert and approached for advice. Your clients are happy to pay a premium for your work, and that means you run a more profitable business.

If you want support in understanding how you add more value, I can’t ‘just’ pull a strategy off the shelf and tell you to follow it. What I can do is run an initial value workshop to understand where you are now and the change you’re trying to achieve, and then advise you on the direction you can take to achieve your goal. If you’re going to commit to a hard journey, it’s good to have confidence that you’re pointing in the right direction.

Jon

P.S. There’s an irony that hard work is easier to do in hard times. Most recruiters have been through a tough couple of years, and there’s a natural temptation to wait for the good times to return before changing how you do things.

But change is much harder when things are going well. If the work is flowing in and clients are keeping you busy, it’s hard to find time to commit to real change. There is also the question of how much the market has changed. By building something new - better - in tough times, you create a vehicle that creates new and better opportunities.

If you want support in understanding how you add more value, I can’t ‘just’ pull a strategy off the shelf and tell you to follow it. What I can do is run an initial value workshop to understand where you are now and the change you’re trying to achieve, and then advise you on the direction you can take to achieve your goal. If you’re going to commit to a hard journey, it’s good to have confidence that you’re pointing in the right direction.