When saying no to an FMCG recruitment brief is the right commercial decision
Last week, I said no to a hiring manager I’ve worked with before. I know the business well and they were struggling to fill a key role, so they got in touch to see if I could help. On the face of it, it was exactly the sort of brief we should have been interested in.
We jumped on Teams, talked through the role, what they were looking for and what had happened in the search so far. As the conversation went on, it became clear that several FMCG recruitment agencies were already working on the vacancy. If we took it on, we'd simply be joining an increasingly long list of recruiters all trying to reach broadly the same talent pool.
So I said no. Not because it wasn't a good role, because it was. And not because I didn't think we could fill it, because I think we probably could have. I just couldn't see the value in becoming agency number five.
More recruiters doesn't necessarily mean more candidates
There's an understandable logic when a difficult FMCG sales or marketing vacancy isn't being filled. If two agencies haven't found the right person, give it to another two. Surely more recruiters means more candidates?
Except specialist FMCG recruitment doesn't really work like that. Whether you're looking for a National Account Manager, Field Sales Executive, Head of Sales, Brand Manager or Marketing Director, there isn't an entirely separate pool of brilliant candidates sitting behind every recruitment agency.
Good specialist recruiters will inevitably know many of the same people. We know who's performing well, who's recently moved, who's potentially considering something new and who might listen if the right brand or opportunity came along. So putting five agencies on the same vacancy doesn't suddenly give you five times the reach. Quite often, you simply end up with five recruiters approaching the same people.
And that can make the job harder to sell.
If you're a candidate and three different recruiters approach you in the same week about what is very obviously the same vacancy, what do you think? It probably isn't, "Wow, this must be an amazing opportunity." You're more likely to wonder why everyone is recruiting it, how long it's been open and why nobody has managed to fill it yet.
That's not necessarily a fair reflection of the business or the role. But it's the impression the recruitment process has created.
I'd rather recruit a role properly
There's a difference between properly recruiting a role and simply working a vacancy.
Give us the opportunity to properly understand an FMCG business and we'll go considerably further than the job description. Why is the person leaving? What does good actually look like in this business? Is the salary realistic? Which backgrounds are going to translate well? Does the person really need the exact category experience you've asked for, or are we unnecessarily narrowing the talent pool?
That’s where I think a specialist recruiter earns their fee. It's the knowledge of the market, the conversations, the judgement and sometimes being prepared to tell a hiring manager something they perhaps don't really want to hear.
It's also why I'm increasingly reluctant to invest that level of time into a process where four or five agencies are racing towards exactly the same finish line. Eventually it stops being recruitment and starts becoming a race to see who can send the CV first. I don't think that's particularly good recruitment and frankly, it's not very interesting either!
Knowing when to say no
Obviously, we're a recruitment business. We make money by filling jobs, not turning them down.
There would definitely have been a time when I'd have taken that vacancy and backed us to outperform everybody else working on it. Sometimes we would have. Sometimes we wouldn't.
But I've learned (occasionally the hard way) that being commercially minded doesn't mean saying yes to everything that lands on your desk. Sometimes the better commercial decision is recognising when the conditions aren't right for you to do a genuinely good job.
That doesn't mean every FMCG sales or marketing vacancy needs to be exclusive or retained. It does mean there has to be enough commitment on both sides for a recruiter to do more than fire over whichever CV happens to be closest to the top of their CRM.
Recruitment works best when there's some form of partnership. Give us the opportunity to understand the business, properly challenge the brief, represent the brand well and speak to the right people and we can add real value.
Sometimes that means telling a client their salary isn't competitive. Sometimes it means questioning whether they really need five years' experience in exactly the same category. And occasionally it means saying, "Actually, I don't think we're the right recruiter for this one."
Oddly enough, I've found those conversations often earn more respect than simply accepting every vacancy that comes your way, because being a good recruiter isn't about how many jobs you're prepared to work. It's knowing which ones you can actually make a difference to.