What are Contingent, Retained, RPO Recruiting?

20 QUESTIONS ABOUT WENTWORTH RECRUITING

#5: What’s the difference between contingent and retained?  What is RPO?  What is on-site recruiting?

In 1984, a division of Xerox invited us to set up a temporary recruiting function in their offices.  In 28 weeks, we filled 28 off-brand assembly language programmers.  With that, we gave birth to on-site contract recruiting in Southern California.

“Contingency” means you only pay if you hire someone from the vendor.  Seems like a good idea, doesn’t it?  Take a look at this: TABLE COMPARING RECRUITING BUSINESS MODELS and you may not think so any more.  It’s a brutal and imprecise sales (not service) business, with lots of at-bats required to get a hit.  The best recruiters get out into a saner environment. 

“Retained” means you pay up front, often in three payments.  Virtually no one offers contingency to help fill positions above $125,000/year in salary, so most vendors who are qualified to help with senior jobs are retained.  A few, like Wentworth, charge hourly, providing a better alignment of interests and, thus, better results.

“Hourly” means you pay hourly, as you do for a lawyer or accountant.  If the recruiter’s work is measured, so you can know if they are worth their rates or not.  Wentworth charges hourly.  We set goals for each project, report weekly as to progress against the goals and offer a no-penalty, any-time ability for the client to cancel.  Our clients can make choices to control the cost of our services.  We supervise our work with a very senior Wentworth manager to make sure our clients are delighted.

“ RPO” (recruitment process outsourcing) is just a fancy name for the more complete version of on-site contract recruiting.  The vendor does it all except make the hiring decision, typically on-site.

Obviously, having spent 30+ years refing how we do our work, we think hourly combined with measuring the work, from your site, from our offices or a combination, provides the best outcome for you.  This client thinks so, too:

“You are the best recruiters that I've worked with in the approximately 25 years that I've had any contact with recruiters.”

We offer our clients a unique, innovative and science-based approach to recruiting.  We deliver candidates carefully screened against 50 criteria and we deliver the precise information you need to make successful, sustainable hiring decisions.  

Our service is managed by a PhD psychologist and/or former Vice Presidents of Human Resources.

  

John Wentworth  |  310 732 2301  |  johnwentworth@wentco.com  |  www.wentco.com

FROM THE FEDS and ADP: Two Pieces of Good News

November 2013: ADP National Employment Report®

U.S. Economy Added 215,000 Private-Sector Jobs in November, According to ADP National Employment Report.

See more at: November 2012 ADP Employment Report


October 2013: New Residential Sales

Sales of new single family houses in October 2013 were 444,000 at a seasonally adjusted annual rate, up 25.4 percent from September’s revised rate and up 21.6 percent from October 2012.

See more at: New Residential Sales (October 2013)

FROM THE FEDS: Construction Put In Place (October 2013) Up 0.8% from September

Construction spending in October 2013 was $908.4 billion at a seasonally adjusted annual rate, up 0.8 percent from the September 2013 estimate and up 5.3 percent from October 2012.

• Construction Put In Place (October, 2013)

This information is sent to you free by the  Economics and Statistics Administration through the Economic Indicators service. This and other economic indicators data are now available on ESA’s Twitter feed. Check out other demographic and economic data from the U.S. Census Bureau and the Bureau of Economic Analysis, and visit CommerceConnect.gov to learn how the Department of Commerce can help businesses become more competitive.

Occasionally, a fellah's just got to brag about his people.

Client responses from two recently successfully concluded searches:

We helped a client hire PROTOTYPE ENGINEERS.

The CEO said, “You are the best recruiters that I've worked with in the approximately 25 years that I've had any contact with recruiters.  Next to me and maybe a few other people here, Roman is now better at picking out candidates for us than anyone else I know.”

One hire was made and a contractor was engaged.  Total cost was about 15% of salary + contractor's fees.

Roman Poplawski is available to provide that level of service to you.  

We helped a client hire a VICE PRESIDENT OF HUMAN RESOURCES.

A member of the consulting firm that recommended us said, "I am usually a pretty harsh critic of search firms but I think that Judy Tabak of Wentworth did a great job on this one.   [The CEO] is very happy with the candidate; I…also think she’s great.   Ultimately, I think [the client] will be paying about a 15% fee overall for the search which is a good deal."  

The consulting firm's boss said, "I was impressed about how they kept [the client] abreast and the number of candidates they screened.  I’ve known John Wentworth for almost 20 years and felt he’s a straight shooter… Always nice to know that the firm that I suggested...was indeed a good performer!"

This search actually cost the client 18% of salary and was done in 6.6 weeks.

Judy Tabak is available to provide this level of service to you.

We offer our clients a unique, innovative and science-based approach to recruiting.  We deliver candidates carefully screened against 50 criteria and we deliver the precise information you need to make successful, sustainable hiring decisions.  

Our service is managed by a PhD psychologist and/or former Vice Presidents of Human Resources.

 John Wentworth  |  310 732 2301  |  johnwentworth@wentco.com

www.wentco.com

 

We Deliver the Precise Information You Need to Make Successful, Sustainable Hiring Decisions.

20 QUESTIONS ABOUT WENTWORTH RECRUITING

#4: Does Wentworth screen or interview candidates?

Our highly trained, very senior consultants dissect every job to uncover those aspects of the job that correlate with success.  A 1-5 scale is applied to each, articulating how much a candidate has of a success factor.  We generally ask about 50 separate factors for each job. 

We know what questions to ask and how to ask them.  We understand what answers are reasonable and which are out-of-pattern, so candidates are not likely to fool us.

We interview every candidate presented to you as a contender either in person or by Skype, etc.

Our reports detail our findings in writing, numerically and supported by extensive text.  Our summary report shows your entire pool of candidates, color coded so how they stack up against the requirements and against each other leaps off the page, making it easy for you to identify the best qualified.

We also observe candidates throughout the process, noting if their behavior is consistent with who they tell us they are in the interview.  We also perform reference checks early, to make sure they are what they say they are before you interview them, and later, to dig deeper into how they perform.

The candidate information you get from Wentworth directly addresses the skills, knowledge and experiences most correlated with success. 

Wentworth’s candidate information allows you to make good hiring decisions that deliver successful and stable new employees.

“You are the best recruiters that I've worked with in the approximately 25 years that I've had any contact with recruiters.”

We offer our clients a unique, innovative and science-based approach to recruiting.  We deliver candidates carefully screened against 50 criteria and we deliver the precise information you need to make successful, sustainable hiring decisions.  

Our service is managed by a PhD psychologist and/or former Vice Presidents of Human Resources.

john wentworth  |  johnwentworth@wentco.com  |  310 732 2301  |  www.wentco.com

FROM THE FEDS: Retail and Services Sales Increase 0.4%

October 2013 retail and food services sales were $428.1 billion, an increase of 0.4 percent from September 2013 and 3.9 percent higher than October 2012. Excluding automobiles, retail and food services sales in October 2013 were $346.2 billion, an increase of 0.2 percent from the prior month and 2.4 percent higher than one year earlier.

• Advanced Monthly Retail Sale (October 2013).pdf

FROM THE FEDS: Manufacturing and Trade Sales rise +0.2%

September 2013 business inventories were $1,679.1 billion, up 0.6 percent from August and up 3.1 percent from September 2012.  Sales in September 2013 were $1,299.9 billion, up 0.2 percent from the previous month and up 2.9 percent from one year earlier.

• Manufacturing and Trade Inventories and Sales (September 2013).pdf

Recruiting Is Personal. Accept This or Struggle

[This is a response to an article in the Harvard Business Review, "When Hiring, First Test, and then Interview", by John Bateson, Jochen Wirtz, Eugene Burke and Carly Vaughan (Nov., 10213).  The authors say, "Our research suggests that...companies...can reduce costs and make better hires by using short, web-based psychometric tests as the first screening step.  such tests efficiently weed out the least-suitable applicants, leavng a small, better-qualified pool to undergo the more costly personalized aspects of the proces."

After 31 years of running a successful recruiting firm, we know the issue is more complex than that. I wanted to share my response.]

The decision about sequencing selection hurdles is situational, but the over-arching and most important characteristic of good selection is that the job be analyzed as to its success factors (in a perfect world, predictors) and that those facets of candidates be measured accurately, understood and used thoughtfully in coming to a hiring decision.

To do this, one must first decide the desired balance between potential and the immediate ability to produce, a decision that is associated with a baffling amount of controversy. If you want someone with virtually zero time to productivity, they need to know how to do the job right now. You can hire potential if you can afford the luxury of training, but, unless you have done it before with the same job, you won’t know for sure that the mix of attributes you want actually works for the job (like looking for an actuary and then training them to tell jokes. Not likely!). Either way, hiring potential only requires training to achieve proficiency, and that takes time.

If you know what you want to hire and have analyzed what aspects of candidates are necessary for on-the-job success, you now need to measure each aspect. They can be measured through lots of tools, including interviewing against quantified behavioral scales, and certainly including testing.

If lots of great candidates desire your job, you can inconvenience them by running them through all sorts of impersonal obstacles (unless their being willing to be inconvenienced suggests a docility which counter-indicates on-the-job success). On the other hand, if your job is not that compelling, you probably don’t want to jeopardize filling it by doing anything short of romancing everyone who looks to be, potentially, an attractive candidate. This would indicate that you don’t want to have them take a test until you nurtured their desire for your job sufficiently that they will sit still for the test.

This is not about testing, it’s about managing all the vagaries of the complex personal relationships between candidates and their potential employers. 

A former manager in our company said that “recruiting is a contact sport”, in other words, at base it’s very personal for everyone involved. Tending the personal relationships should not be sacrificed for a little efficiency.

John Wentworth | johnwentworth@wentco.com | 310 732 2301

What Does Wentworth Cost?

20 QUESTIONS ABOUT WENTWORTH RECRUITING

#2: What are Wentworth’s Fees?

We offer you candidates others cannot find, senior staff as partners, in-depth and complete candidate analyses and personal and caring support throughout the process.

Because we have engineered our process so thoroughly, our fees for single position or low volume recruiting are very reasonable, particularly in light of the quality of the candidates and the information about them you receive.

For volume recruiting, our cost to you just cannot be beaten.  We have driven all the IT recruiting for a client for 6% of salary and the entire nurse recruiting for an HMO for less than 4% of salary.  Our hourly fees range from $100-$150/hour, allowing us to hire senior and exceptionally efficient consultants.

We charge hourly.  We plan every project with event and cost targets.  We report in writing weekly regarding our progress against plan.  We give you a 30 second, no penalty cancellation clause.  You can influence the plan…reduce our services or increase our services…and cost…and even stop the project, at any time with no penalty. 

You control how much we cost you.  This is the only business arrangement in all of recruiting in which the interests of the clients and the vendor are aligned.

Our being on the same side of the table means that true partnership is possible.  Good recruiting can only happen when true partnership exists.

There is a catch, however: we both have to be good partners.  Many organizations are not used to being responsive and engaged recruiting partners.  It may take some getting used to, but the rewards are great candidates, on time, for half of what you would usually pay.

 “You are the best recruiters that I've worked with in the approximately 25 years that I've had any contact with recruiters.”

We offer our clients a unique, innovative and science-based approach to recruiting.  We deliver candidates carefully screened against 50 criteria and we deliver the precise information you need to make successful, sustainable hiring decisions.  Our service is managed by a PhD psychologist and/or former Vice Presidents of Human Resources.

john wentworth  |  johnwentworth@wentco.com  |  310 732 2301  |  www.wentco.com

NEWS FROM THE FEDS: Personal Income Rose 0.5% in September

Personal income in September 2013 increased 0.5 percent. Nominal personal consumption expenditures (PCE) rose 0.2 percent. Real PCE increased 0.1 percent. Nominal disposable personal income (DPI) rose 0.5 percent. Real DPI increased 0.4 percent. The personal saving rate as a percentage of DPI was 4.9 percent in September.

• Personal Income (September 2013).pdf

NEWS FROM THE FEDS: Real Gross Domestic Product Third Quarter: +2.8%.

The U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) has issued the following news release today:

Real gross domestic product -- the output of goods and services produced by labor and property located in the United States -- increased at an annual rate of 2.8 percent in the third quarter of 2013 (that is, from the second quarter to the third quarter), according to the "advance" estimate released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis.  

In the second quarter, real GDP increased 2.5 percent.


The full text of the release on BEA's Web site can be found at www.bea.gov/newsreleases/national/gdp/gdpnewsrelease.htm

What does Wentworth actually do?

20 QUESTIONS ABOUT WENTWORTH RECRUITING

#1: What does Wentworth actually do?

 Wentworth helps you make successful and sustainable hires. 

You pick from superior candidates who want to work for you for compensation you expected and are OK paying.  Wentworth gives you comprehensive and detailed candidate information that is directly related to the employees staying and doing very well on the job.

The candidate information is quantified and precise.  These numerical values are displayed in vivid charts that make your candidates leap off the page. 

This numerical information allows you to tell the difference between good and less good candidates easily.  The difference between a great performer and a mediocre one may seem tiny…they may look almost identical.  But Wentworth’s candidate information can show you that difference clearly so you can hire the very best.

We take this same powerful methodology and apply it to performance management and other talent management related activities.  Now you can manage what is really going on, set programs to measure and improve performance, accurately measure how effective the improvement efforts are, prepare for succession planning and know when you are really ready…and more.

We have the most evolved and powerful talent analytics tools available, managed by PhD Psychologists and/or VP’s of Human Resources.

Powerful consultants driving the most advanced recruiting and selection process available.  This means great employees for you who perform and stay, brought on board for a reasonable price.

 “You are the best recruiters that I've worked with in the approximately 25 years that I've had any contact with recruiters.”

We offer our clients a unique, innovative and science-based approach to recruiting.  We deliver candidates carefully screened against 50 criteria and we deliver the precise information you need to make successful, sustainable hiring decisions.  Our service is managed by a PhD psychologist and/or former Vice Presidents of Human Resources.

John Wentworth  |  310 732 2301  |  johnwentworth@wentco.com  |  www.wentco.com