Challenge the brief, set the pace, own the process
Elena Kliueva, Head of Sourcing Center at NGRS, shares three principles behind the NGRS approach to hiring and explains how they work in practice.
We help our clients better understand where they are and whom they need to hire now.
Sometimes clients come to us thinking they need one type of position, but after conversations with us, they realise they actually need something slightly different.
For example, there are some 360-degree positions, especially in fintech — team leads with multiple skill sets and perspectives. Because of very high retention in the company, these people haven’t hired anyone for a long time, sometimes for as much as 10 years. They come to us saying that they want someone like themselves with similar skills, but with skill A, skill B, and skill C added. We go to the market and realise that these people simply don’t exist. We honestly tell our clients that we can’t find what they need. “You can find your skill set plus skill B and skill C, or your skill set plus skills A and B, but your initial request is simply unrealistic.” With this said, we present a solution, explaining which skill set would be the best fit instead.
Very often, clients take some time to think, but almost every time they come back saying thank you for saving them time and effort instead of wasting resources on an unrealistic search.
We create a realistic yet effective timeline for the hiring process.
We hardly have any internal KPIs, but one thing is certain for us: the day after we receive an assignment to fill a position, we need to schedule an interview with a candidate — not for the client, but for ourselves, to start the hiring process.
With our expertise, outreach, and experience, this is an absolute must. If this process takes longer than expected, we come together as a team and discuss what the problem is.
And most importantly — we manage the entire hiring process. Every client is a separate project for us.
I would describe our service as one with no brakes. For every client, we create a dedicated team to fill the roles. We don’t have a fixed limit on how many people we assign. The size and composition of the team depend on the project and the positions we need to fill. It may be only one role, but a particularly difficult one. In that case, we expand the project team to conduct the hiring process effectively. It is definitely not a “one role — one sourcer — one recruiter” model that many agencies use.
The entire hiring process is transparent, with weekly catch-ups. After the placement, we stay involved until the probation period is over. We ask how things are going and whether there are any issues or challenges.
In our experience, very important things fail to happen for very simple reasons: someone didn’t understand something, someone skipped something, or someone didn’t finish something — especially in the corporate world, where time is limited and the window of opportunity can close very easily.
This is exactly where our work is especially helpful: to spot these simple mistakes throughout the entire hiring journey and fix them quickly.
Elena Kliueva is Head of Sourcing Center at NGRS — Next Generation Recruitment Services. Her other column: Sourcing: How To Find Candidates for Hard-To-Fill Roles. More columns from the NGRS team are in Insights; the people behind the work are on the People page.
If you’re not sure your brief is realistic, talk it through with us before the search starts — that is the cheapest moment to change it.