Hiring

I have just experienced recruitment utopia. It came in the form of true partnership with an organisation as I placed a talented Chief Customer Officer into their executive leadership team. I am not talking about the one-way-street commonly cloaked as ‘partnership’ between recruiters and their clients where the client serves up their wish-list and the recruiter responds by ticking the boxes.

It seems like not long ago that we felt a shift in thinking when it came to recruitment. Organisations began to embrace the idea of culture fit, ensuring that the people they hired would complement existing teams and cultures. Over the last couple of years, however, we've seen some organisations take a different approach, moving on from culture fit in favour of hiring for culture add. Whilst there are certainly benefits to both, here’s why we are seeing the emergence of this new trend.

After the initial onboarding period, it’s easy to get so accustomed to the presence of your newest team member that you simply leave them to get on with their role. We get it – it’s hard to make time for everything when you’re busy, but ‘set and forget’ isn’t the best way to get the most out of your new hire. Once the first few months on the job are behind them, it’s well worth your while to check-in and make sure everything really is going as smoothly as it seems to be.

As experienced recruitment and search consultants, we know that building relationships is the cornerstone of our job. Working alongside a partner that knows the retail recruitment market inside out – the trends, challenges and everything in between – means increasing the chances of reaching top talent

Success! You’ve found your ideal candidate but with the consequences of hiring the wrong person ringing in your head, you move on and check out their references (read more on the subject here).