Chair: Martin Gill

Panellists:
Brett Ennals – Founder and Director of Cento (UK)
Peter French MBE – CEO at SSR Personnel (UK)
Aaron Kutz – Practice Leader at Direct Recruiters, Inc. (US)

Key points

Peter French notes that one of the significant changes that is taking place in terms of who is recruited is the greater emphasis being placed on cyber knowledge. The fines and reputational damage that follow from not protecting data are significant; that focusses organisations’ attention. Covid-19 has created a need for a strategy to protect people.  Another change is the increasing focus on diversity. Black Lives Matter has helped with this. Working from home has been very real in its impact, it has increased the talent pool as there is less need to recruit local or require recruits to move local. It has also increased the value of recruiters with their ability to reach far and wide, conduct appropriate checks, work on a good fit and then provide mentoring. Moreover, engaging recruiters generally leads to speedier recruitment and therefore deployment. Peter notes that one of the principal consequences of Covid-19 has been the increased faith in the security sector.

Aaron Kutz notes that the role of a good recruiter is to be an extension of the client, providing recruits who can make a seamless engagement with their existing staff. His view is that the pandemic has created different roles, made use of different technologies, and there is a different approach to geography facilitated by working from home and less reliance on being local. While remote working was always in vogue it is now more entrenched and he too emphasised the increased talent pool to recruit from. That said, so far the type of personality needed to work from home is not noticeably different, but this may emerge, watch this space. People find security by chance and often they are attracted by the ‘cool factor’. Covid has meant people change jobs with more caution, the role of holding hands and mentoring has become more important; recruiters need to be good at that.

Brett Ennals stresses the distinct characteristics of a good recruiter, including: working in partnership with clients; truly understanding the culture of the client to ensure a good fit with recruits; and recognising that there is a skill set to understand a CV/resume. Covid-19 has changed recruitment in several ways. For example, before the virus hit his clients were generally sceptical about home working, but much less so now and that means there is value in a different type of recruit. In another, the first interview with candidates is conducted over zoom these days, it makes things easier and quicker. Companies can still recruit themselves, if they can get good people then that makes sense, but Brett notes recruiters provide a service, ensuring a good supply of suitable candidates who are likely to stay, providing reach and speed in the recruitment process.

This webinar outlines the distinct role of recruiters and helps to explain why the best have thrived. Covid-19 has changed things, working from home has increased the talent pool which plays into the hands of those with big networks and access to even bigger ones. It is also interesting to see how living with the virus has introduced practices such as zoom meetings and interviews, that makes things easier and quicker. It seems diversity is in, good too are those who have technology skills. Security is an attractive world, its ‘cool’, that is something else we need to highlight, there is so much that is good about security, we just have to tell more people.

Martin Gill
5th November 2020