What are the benefits of using our Industry Expertise?
At Team First Base, one of our core values is that of Industry Expertise, but what does that mean for the people we work with?
We took a deep dive into what our industry expertise means to our clients across each of the sectors we offer.
- We have well-established networks and access to a specialised talent pool within our respective industries.
- We have connections with passive candidates who may not be actively searching for new opportunities but possess the skills and experience sought by organisations. This access allows us to source highly qualified candidates that may not be readily available through traditional channels.
- We can streamline the hiring process and save valuable time for organisations. Having a clear understanding of the required skill sets and qualifications enables us to efficiently screen and shortlist candidates. The industry knowledge we have gained from over 25 years in business, also helps in conducting targeted searches, reducing the time spent on sourcing and screening unqualified candidates.
- We stay up-to-date with market trends, including changes in talent supply and demand, emerging skill sets, and remuneration benchmarks. We provide organisations with valuable insights into the current landscape, helping them make informed decisions regarding talent acquisition strategies, salary offers, and competitive positioning.
- The team at First Base possess specialised knowledge and expertise in their respective fields. They are familiar with industry-specific recruitment best practices, including sourcing strategies, candidate assessment methods, and interview techniques. Leveraging this niche expertise, we can guide organisations in optimising their recruitment processes and ensuring a higher quality of candidate selection.
- We can enhance your business branding and reputation. By working with us in partnership, we’ll support you in attracting top talent and building a positive experience. This can result in higher candidate engagement, increased employee retention, and improved perception among industry peers.
- While there is a cost associated with engaging us, leveraging our industry expertise can result in cost savings in the long run. Efficient and effective candidate selection reduces the risk of hiring mistakes and turnover, which can be costly.
In summary, we offer the advantages of deep industry knowledge, access to specialised talent pools, efficiency and time savings, market insights, niche expertise and best practices, enhanced employer branding, and potential cost savings. These benefits can contribute to successful and targeted hiring, resulting in better-quality candidates and improved organisational outcomes.
If you would like to discuss how we can help, don’t hesitate to contact us on 01453 755330, info@first-base.co.uk or click here. Anything you discuss with us is completely confidential and there is no obligation to use our services.
Communication & Well-Being for Furloughed staff
This time last year I certainly did not envisage 2020 playing out the way it did for thousands of companies and for many, the full extent of the pandemic came as a complete (and prolonged) shock. Our first concern was, of course, the spread of the virus and looking after our people’s health. For many of us, this has now settled down as we know our teams are safe, staying inside and are successfully adapting to remote working life. Now that we are in 2021, our understanding of the virus has somewhat changed and the vaccine provides hope that we will return to some form of normality.
Most organisations we have spoken have had to make decisions over the last year which they could not have foreseen. Many have utilised this time to review their forecasts, look at streamlining where possible and putting plans in place to grow, as we begin to return to some form of normality.
Over the next couple of weeks, I will be posting some helpful tips to continue to help you through this challenging time.
Communication & Well-Being for Furloughed staff
To help business through the pandemic the Government created the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme which allows employers to Furlough their staff in return for 80% of peoples wages*, up to a maximum of £2,500 and was further extended until the end of April 2021.
If you currently have staff on Furlough, one of the best ways to retain your employees is to continue to communicate and check in on them from a well bring perspective. Check-in and remind them that you are available for support and advice if they ever require it. You could provide them with well-being tips such as healthy eating, exercising regularly and the importance of keeping in touch with friends and family. You could also direct employees to external sources of support such as Charity Mind, the Mental Health UK Website Headspace and Future Learn.
We also have some great blogs on our website that may help around identifying and managing stress.
Communicating with your staff during Furlough will help you identify any issues that they may be facing and help them through this difficult time. A good communication strategy will also minimise the risk of losing members of your team due to any perceived lack of engagement. Surprisingly, we have continued to see a high degree of movement in the market as people continue to look for alternative employment.
David Thomason, Hospitality Business Manager
*Now excluding NI and AE contributions.
How to Stop Candidates Dropping out of the Hiring Process
Have you ever had someone back out of a job offer?
Often, you may not discover that your new recruit has dropped out of the hiring process until a couple of weeks before their start date or worse, on their first day, when they just don’t turn up! This can cause all sorts of issues including the time and resources spent on the interview process, discussions with teams surrounding a plan for onboarding and the purchase of tech or a vehicle.
Most candidates will have a notice period and therefore may have a gap of a month or more, between accepting a job offer and their first day in the role. For more senior roles, a realistic notice period could be up to three months.
Keeping in touch with your new recruit is key to ensuing your candidate doesn’t drop out of the recruitment process. Regular communication between making an offer and their start date is often overlooked, but this key strategy can prevent any disappointing news in the future and beginning the process again. We call this maintaining the motivation to move – this can quickly diminish if comms are stopped altogether.
A lot can happen in a month. Think about how quickly things moved in 2020!
People change their minds and sometimes they are just too nervous to let you know. As a recruitment agency we are now finding an increasing trend in candidates declining offers, that they had previously accepted. Applicants may be at risk of redundancy and therefore panicking about both their financial situation. This is resulting in job seekers making quick decisions to accept an offer that may not actually be the right fit for them. An increasing number are being counter offered by their current employer as a result of changes happening fast, or backing out of a role if they accept a better offer.
Working with a good recruitment agency can help prevent candidates dropping out between the offer and start date as, ultimately, good recruiters want to find you the right candidate from the get go – they don’t want to be looking for a replacement a few weeks down the line.
Your recruiter will qualify applicants in a series of communications over time. I recently had an experience where, having spoken to a candidate several times, alarm bells started to ring. I’ve been doing this a long time and my gut instinct is spot on. I spoke to my client to raise my concerns and together, we decided on a course of action which included agreeing on a timescale and keeping other candidates close by should we need them. As it turned out the candidate, as predicted, dropped out and took another job role where, perhaps, no such diligence was applied. We dodged a bullet.
By maintaining contact you really can ascertain any problems early on and protect your business from being on the back foot.
I suggest keeping in touch at least once a week; this could be a courtesy email to check they have received their contract and see if they have any questions, or a video call to explain what their first day will be like. Let’s face it, their first day probably isn’t going to be the same as it would have been this time last year and this will open up a conversation to cover off any concerns or questions. If you don’t receive a response don’t worry initially, however, make sure you follow up and have a plan B just in case.
Once your job offer is accepted don’t just sit back and wait. From my experience, communication with your new recruit, right up to their first day is hugely important.
Lilly Chappell, recruiting into the office environment at all levels.
Why use a recruitment agency? The benefits
“Why do I need to use a recruitment agency when there are plenty of people looking for work?”
It’s a fair question and one that some employers are probably thinking. Even those who have done well throughout the pandemic might be thinking it’s now time to review their recruitment strategy.
It might be true that it’s easy right now to place an ad and get hundreds of applications within a few hours, but here’s why using a good recruitment agency can help you in this new world of continued restrictions and subsequent pressure on businesses.
What are the benefits of using a recruitment agency?
Save time (and possibly lower your blood pressure!)
Ok, so you might get hundreds of applications, but a huge proportion will be generic CV’s from people not right for the role you’ve advertised. It’s difficult enough in ‘normal’ times but the task is now an order of magnitude and hugely time-consuming. When you partner with a recruitment agency, they will make sure that you only have to deal with the candidates suitable for the role you’re looking to fill.
Get on with business
Recruiting the right people takes time and customers still want innovation and high service levels. Your time (rightly so) will be split in dealing with the pandemic and all the HR related issues surrounding this. Normal day to day business is hard enough without recruitment becoming a full-time job. An agency makes sure you only need to be involved in the decision making stage of the process.
Tap into your consultants’ network
Quite often the right person for the job isn’t actually looking for work right now. You might be surprised that agency’s still have daily contact with great people thinking of a career change but not actively applying for anything. Good consultants haven’t stopped networking and building their database. That means agencies can proactively recruit on an employers behalf, reducing the time and effort it takes to find the right candidates to interview – often within a few hours – and reduce the chances of a bad hire.
Manage your employer brand
For even the best employers, the pressure of recruiting can sometimes mean the recruitment experience for candidates is less than satisfactory. Easy and frequent social media access means that, even for the best-intentioned, a bad experience can be shared and widely commented on. Consultants recruit as a full-time job and make sure an employers reputation is protected and promoted.
Companies are still recruiting!
Undoubtedly, it is a tough time for a lot of companies and a lot of people. Never the less, many organisations are still hiring. Many companies are already planning ahead for better times and growth – and they haven’t stopped looking out for good talent.
When you partner with a good recruitment agency, you can not only gain access to the best people, but you can put yourself in pole position when it comes to hiring them, pandemic or no pandemic.
The team at First Base can help you recruit the right quality of people for your team and give you access to the right talent whilst at the same time helping reduce the stresses of these testing times.
If you’d like further info regarding placing a role with First Base click here.
Office management and support
Did you know that we place candidates into HR, Sales, IT, Finance, Marketing and Financial Services roles?
Our commercial team have continued to source, engage, shortlist and propose only the best candidates for any and all office-based roles during lockdown (1.0, 2.0 and 3.0).
Roles recruited to date this year include: Software Developers, HR Managers, Customer Service Administrators, Finance Managers, Mortgage Advisors, Service Desk Technicians, Events and Training Administrators and Marketing Executives, to name a few.
The team have built up a solid reputation in the market place and have a fantastic retention rate, whereby 90% of the candidates placed remain in post at their first years anniversary. Their mission? To offer an exemplary experience to both candidates and employers, an experience that they enjoy from start to finish.
Don’t take our word for it – head on over to google and see what our clients have to say.
Lilly and her team are available on 01453 755330 or by emailing commercial@first-base.co.uk or by utilising our chat box at www.first-base.co.uk
