It is amazing how much childcare, domestic and care recruitment has changed over the past 10-20 years…

 

We were just talking the other day about what clients say when they first contact us and if I had £5.00 for every client who asked me “who do you have on your books” when they register with us, I wouldn’t need to make any placements!

 

In my mind, this creates a vision of days gone by, like Downton Abbey, when domestic agencies would have scores of potential maids, cooks, housekeepers etc. just sitting patiently waiting to be contacted about a new situation, my how times have changed!

 

The reality is, in today’s market, there just isn’t a pile of suitable applicants just sitting patiently waiting for jobs, as truthfully, thanks to all the “anti-immigration” policies now in place, there are a lot more vacancies out there (especially in the live in market) than there are good calibre applicants.

 

Even though we are not recruiting for “highly skilled” positions, it is amazing how many potential applicants contact us applying for work and although they may have had very previous good careers in other spheres and for whatever reason have decided to change direction, if they don’t have the relevant skills or work related experience we are unable to use them.

 

In our mind, running your own home, cooking dinner and looking after your own children does not qualify you to be a housekeeper, cook or a nanny! It’s like saying if you do home DIY or decorating you can be a painter or decorator.

 

It then falls to us to tell them as tactfully as possible, that we can’t really help them as quite rightly, our clients would not expect to us an pay an agency fee for someone who has no relevant work related experience.

 

With the advances in technology, with mobile phones, emails and online job sites, the whole recruitment process, like in every other area, now happens at a much faster pace than it did before and we find that applicants who are looking for work are pro-actively doing what they can to find jobs and not sitting around waiting patiently on an agency’s books.

 

We feel that if a client asks an agency to find someone for them and the agency do their job properly, i.e. they have all the client’s requirements, family information, vacancy details and job criteria, and have taken all the correct applicant’s details, including what they are really looking for, there really shouldn’t be a vast number of suitable candidates put forward who are a perfect match.

 

As we cover and place throughout the whole of the UK, we style ourselves as “domestic head hunters”, which means that we effectively recruit, search and match for each individual position and this enables us to target the best fit for each vacancy.

 

Even though most jobs have some common factors, each family and position has different needs, and if you just matched on the basics not the specifics you waste everyone’s time and lose credibility in the process.

 

So, in conclusion, yes, like all recruitment agencies, of course we have applicants currently registered with us, who are technically ” on our books”. These candidates have been interviewed, reference checked and are effectively ready to be placed, so obviously they will be the first people we will look at when we get a new vacancy in.

 

However, our recommendation to our clients is that instead of rushing into things, if your time scale allows, take a few days to let us see who else is out there, as if you don’t you could be settling for second best and end up missing out on the perfect candidate for your family.