By focusing on external pressures on the traditional notions and ideals of recruitment, you must allow a clear picture to develop, of the direction the industry will take in the next five years.

Imagine the possibility of a recruitment agency in every location in the UK. With the capacity to work on every type of job, to identify the need of their client and respond with quality, available candidates in the right locality within 24 hours. Now imagine this business has one location, with low costs and all the experience and expertise you do. Millions of companies throughout the world have recognised the benefits of call centre environments. Major corporations turning over millions of pounds every year.

So let’s take this imagination and explore your normal processes. Ask yourself a question. How many people in your business need to oversee the administrative process? How many of your consultants have the true autonomy to negotiate whatever rate they feel appropriate? And finally, how many client visits do your consultants and managers need to go on?

So lets examine the latest technologies available to the industry. With over 78% of candidates now with their details online, and an ever increasing demand for online recruitment advertising portals as a way of sourcing staff we all face a very real threat. The main issue and threat coming from these solutions is in regard to time.

I will come back to my first point. How many of you have posted a job online? It is essentially a very quick process. I have displayed below a typical timeline of your administrative process and compared it with that of an online portal.

Task one:

I want you to go through this process chart and design tangible arguments for every step on this map. Now:

Set your future compass in line with available technologies, how many of these processes are essential to fulfilling your clients’ requirements and delivering world class customer experience? Now examine your timeline. Based on my argument above I have taken the liberty of creating a timeline for other technology friendly recruitment solutions.

How important are the argument that you have made in regards to your processes?