I get 1-2 messages here on LinkedIn and via email a week from consultant brokers and recruiters, and the occasional SMS reminding me to update my CV on a consultant broker’s website or database.
During the soon 5 years I have been an independent consultant, I have learned quite a bit about the business models of recruiters and consultancy brokers and the dynamics between end client, broker/recruiter and consultant.
I have my opinions on what works for me, and how I feel the consultancy brokerage business should develop.
A few key points I have noted that I will elaborate on in this post are:
- The types of requests that get sent to me are usually tied to the current role I have stated on my LinkedIn profile. I would assume brokers/recruiters use manual LinkedIn filters to search for the type of competence they need for a particular assignment using the Premium LinkedIn subscription, without checking for past roles or text in the prospective candidates’ profiles. I don’t see that many clues of any advanced algorithms or scraping of data being done.
- Consultancy brokers/recruiters are still working from the concept that consultants have all the time in the world and will cater 100% to their business models. They expect you to continuously and manually update CV information on their databases at least once a quarter; a quick calculation would have a consultant spending 2 hours per database, with roughly 50 of those being out there reminding you to update their troves of data for free. I at least don’t feel like spending time on pre-historic practices of manual CV updating, building on someone else’s database.
- Few if any of the brokers focus on what sets them apart from an algorithm: relationship building. The total amount of time a consultant broker has called me up for lunch to discuss my current assignment and situation the 12 months? Two
If you are good at what you do as a consultant, you will have a lot of options – when searching for new assignments, you will put your time and attention on quality assignments and the established client and broker relationships you have.
In a time where a lot of manual tasks can be automated, consultant brokers and recruiters who focus on putting people on such tasks will inevitably be left behind and replaced by algos that can do such tasks better. Databases requiring a lot of human labor to update are not creating value for consultants and end clients, and I look forward to these becoming obsolete.
I would like to end this blog post with Zlatan Ibrahimovic’s famous quote: “do what you are good at”. To consultancy brokers reading this: focus on what makes you better than a trainable algorithm, maintain your consultant and client relationship and use your expertise in understanding client needs, consultants’ competences and matching these.
To clients reading this, be careful when choosing your consultancy broker or recruiter; they are representing you when talking to consultants, and you want to have the most professional and competent ones representing you; do your due diligence.
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