WOW! Does this market suck. No jobs to apply to and no openings to fill. Experts are talking about the recession ending, but unemployment rates continue to rise. Resumes are piling up on desks of recruiters and in databases around the world, but that has little meaning if the order forms aren’t coming in as well. How are we all going to get through this? What are the options out there for recruiters other than making placements? Here’s what I came up with…

OTHER RECRUITER JOBS

Diversify – A few weeks ago, I met up with Marc Belaiche from www.TorontoJobs.ca. We had a great conversation on the different facets of his recruitment business. I asked him why he was doing so many different things rather than focusing on one area and building his profit from a specific channel. This was his response:

TorontoJobs.ca services companies by providing them with our www.TorontoJobs.ca website, newspaper, recruitment and outplacement services.  This means that we are a one-stop shop for our clients, providing them whatever services they need to help them find staff.  That includes posting a job on our site, allowing companies to search our online resume database of over 75,000 resumes, using our Recruiting division to help find staff for temporary or permanent roles, or advertising in our Toronto Jobs Newspaper.

By diversifying his company, Marc is able to service his clients in a variety of ways, allowing him to take on different types of business and providing options based on budget and need.

Splits – This is common in the recruitment industry, but there are some out there who are not familiar with it. Split Fee Recruitment is where two (or more) separate recruiters or recruitment agencies work together to fill a particular position. In most cases, one agency/recruiter has the opening and offers half of the placement fee to another agency/recruiter if they can find the candidate. The two parties split the revenue because each one does half the work.

You can start doing this today via twitter and http://www.splits.org/

RPO - An RPO provider manages the entire recruiting/hiring process from job profiling through the on-boarding of the new hire, by providing recruiters, leading-edge recruitment technology and world class sourcing and recruitment methodologies. - ROSS

In simpler terms, it is like setting up a recruitment agency within a company and managing the administration processes for them in house. Although today’s market still makes this a tough sell, this is definitely a strategy that some recruitment companies may want to build a business strategy around as some of the world’s largest financial organizations are currently utilizing this type of recruitment service.

Career Consulting – In the last year or so, many recruiters have switched gears and gone from filling vacancies to using their expertise to help educate the unemployed on how to find a job. A good way to get into this field is to start off by giving free seminars on topics like job search, interviewing, and resume writing. You can hold these at local libraries, universities, and government employment centres.

I wish I could tell you that the end to this recession is near, but in terms of the recruitment industry there really is no end in sight. If you haven’t already done so, you need to strategize and create a new plan in order to survive over the next year. These are just a few ideas to help you get through the next few months. Anyone else have an idea they would like to share?