Greetings!  

Here are 3 reasons why your municipality should engage a recruiter of record.

For years we have been talking about a time when there will be an extreme shortage of talented men and women to run Canada's municipalities...now that time is here.

In the coming weeks and months as your staff retires, or simply resigns to take another job - recruited away for whatever reason - many municipalities will become casualties.

Newspaper advertising and job board posting, traditional methods of finding new employees, are increasingly producing less than stellar results. It is an accepted fact that newspaper advertising consistently attracts unhappy or unemployed people - often both. We've already seen the results in towns and cities that settled for whomever they could find. The municipal world is a small world where people are more aware of who's who than ever before. If you are looking for a senior staff member you've got ask yourself, "Why would anyone who has a good position now risk everything by blindly sending a resume to a municipality with no guarantee of confidentiality?"

Here are the facts:

The Baby Boomers (those born between 1946 and 1964) are turning 65 at a breakneck pace. Did you know that since January 1st 2011, Canadians have been turning 65 at the rate of 1000 a day? That's 30,000 a month or 365,000 each and every year? What's worse, it's going to continue that way for the next 18 years!

If that isn't sobering enough, remember that the next generation, known as GenX (those born between 1964 and 1980), will never be able to fill all the positions. That's because there are only 60% as many of them as there were Baby Boomers to fill the jobs being vacated. So, even if every GenX engineer or accountant or planner decides to work in municipal government (it's not going to happen!) there will never be enough of them to go around!

If you don't put a plan in place you are  going to  lose out

In the story of Alice in Wonderland the Cheshire Cat remarks, "if you don't know where you are going any road will get you there." Municipalities define this concept as having a mission or vision, and organizations lacking vision usually flounder. " Human Resource Planning" speaks to the idea of creating a blueprint for your municipality's future. That is, having a goal, a destined port-fulfilling your destiny. Stephen R. Covey said it well in The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People when he advised us to "Begin with the end in mind."

Bank on this: Desperate municipalities and their recruiters, driven by the realities of the day, will be all over your people to recruit them. The recruiting industry has traditionally looked at every municipality as both client and supplier. Many municipalities have wittingly or unwittingly fostered this situation, often exacerbating it by choosing to do business with whichever recruiter happens to be handy at the time.

For some time now, Ravenhill has avoided this conflict by offering our clients a guarantee that we will not recruit from them. We call it our 'Hands Off Guarantee'. We were the first to offer such a guarantee because we believe playing both ends against the middle is unethical and a practice that must not continue.

You should no longer allow recruiters to recruit for you this month and recruit from you next month. It is madness, however, to expect every recruiter to develop a great relationship with your key staff, and then beat the temptation to use that relationship to recruit the very same key staff for other organizations later. For you to ignore the reality that this duplicitous activity is taking placeevery day is folly. We liken it to allowing the fox into the henhouse.

Putting your head in the sand won't change the reality

Putting your head in the sand and hoping for the best will inevitably catch up to you. Always plan ahead. Here are some planning pointers to follow:

• Utilize your resources to the max...spend your recruiting dollars wisely If you have a great plan and do not have the resources, be ready to show your Council why you need more staff.
• Look at all the possible scenarios and make sure there are clear benefits to each alternative.
• "When in doubt, map it out". That is what the white board is for and you should use it whenever possible. Visually reviewing possible people changes makes things so much easier.
• Hold regular "people planning" meetings with your managers.

In the days ahead, you can expect several things to happen. Starting with the basic principle of supply and demand, you can expect the supply of qualified people to diminish; as a result, salaries will rise. If you don't have a plan to pay more to the people you hire, you're already one step behind. It's a foregone conclusion that at least some of your people will move on if another municipality offers them more money.

The really smart municipalities have already prepared

The answer is to develop a long-term working arrangement with a recruiter who is skilled and effective in what he does - one whom you also like and trust, and one who can do all of your recruiting for a contracted period of time. This is known as an exclusive Recruiter of Record relationship.

Here's how it works: Your municipality would have a standing agreement with Ravenhill Group Inc., in the form of a written contract. There is no cost to you unless we are working on a specific assignment. The contract would spell out exactly what you can expect and it will predefine the term and the costs and make clear the guarantees. Best of all, you will know that, as your Recruiter of Record, we are on your side and at all times working for you and the best interests of your municipality.  

By appointing a Recruiter of Record, you avoid contracting a new recruiter for each new search. This avoids the expenditure of considerable time, effort and money while you prepare RFQs and RFPs and go through a lengthy contracting process. Lengthy delays while the recruiter develops an understanding of your unique team, municipality and corporate culture are no longer necessary with each new search.

The key components of a Ravenhill Recruiter of Record agreement are exclusivity, trust and accessibility: exclusivity because our goal is to serve YOU, our client; trust because our contract is with YOU, leaving the rest of the municipal world as your source of top candidates; and accessibility because we will be available to YOU at all times.

In every municipality across Canada, there is a rising need for top talent to fill key management positions, not to mention talent at every level of the organization. Every municipality has exactly the same people needs. CAO, Finance and Corporate Services, Engineering and Public Works, etc., not to mention Planning and myriad other positions in between.

For your no obligation copy of our Ravenhill 'Recruiter of Record' agreement, call or e-mail us today. You'll be glad you did!