We all know how stressful it is dealing with irate candidates, and to the best of your ability, you are the calming factor to them while they deal with the frustration of not having a job.

Sitting in an office of recruiters, I have noticed the ever emerging double edged sword when it comes to dealing with your candidates, or potential candidates politely. Sometimes they forget their manners, and the consultant becomes their new punching bag. Naturally, you as the recruiter was to be professional, and put that across to your candidates.

All you want is to place your candidate on the right path, and help them nurture their careers, so when they become unruly and create ridiculous expectations, it is a recruiters worst nightmare.

Let me break these candidates into 5 categories, and share light on how to deal with them accordingly:

1. The Ego Elitist

This type of candidate usually has ZERO work experience, and expect the perfect job to fall into their laps. With the perfect salary to go with it. The frustration starts when they keep pestering you, and fail to understand why you are taking so long to place them (because they are so perfect, right?). Even if they do possess an impressive skill set, the delusions of grandeur are even more impressive, and telling them that will backfire in the most dramatic way.

How to deal with and help them:

The easiest way to deal and help these candidates is to make them realise their own shortcomings. When these candidates are forced to think about their inadequacies, a more realistic way of thinking may set in.

2. The ‘whatever’ candidate

Recruitment is tiring and beneath them. Why would anyone want to have a good work ethic, surely that is for losers only? The candidates are the ones that typically cancel an interview an hour before it starts because they couldn’t be bothered.

How to deal with and help them:

Somestimes, and it is unfortunate, but you have to cut your losses. Why stake your reputation on someone who doesn’t actually want a job. Unless you are the reason they have become so unreceptive (in which case, apologies and try rekindle the relationship), these candidates will be ‘unmarketable’.

3. The ‘umm’ and ‘err’ candidate

These candidates never have an answer to your questions. They fumble with their words, and honestly have no idea what is going on half the time. Researching isn’t an obvious choice, and GOOGLE is a foreign entity.  Sometimes, this is because they are inexperienced. They have never been for an interview and are unsure of the work needed to progress to the second stage of interviews.

How to deal with and help them:

Job applications can be daunting and stressful, but if you think these candidates have potential, invest in them! Coach them into becoming interview machines! It never hurts to mentor, and build a strong relationship.

4. The ‘I need you’ needy candidate

You’ve just done their first face to face interview before sending off their documentation to the respective client, and your cellphone hasn’t stopped ringing. These are the candidates that over-think everything. From what font to type out their C.V’s in, to what colour socks they should wear to their interview.

How to deal with and help them:

They need to establish boundaries, for themselves and for you. The only way to truly help them is to keep them updated when you have information, and not respond to every single whatsapp you receive from them. Each consultant has several candidates they are looking after at any given time, so a precedent needs to be set. For fairness sake. Plus, you need to let your candidate try and figure out the answers for themselves.

5. The Obnoxious and Rude candidate

These candidates want a job, but heaven forbid you pair them up with the wrong industry.

‘How dare you put my CV forward for a sales position that is beneath me! They are the kings and queens of the condescending voice tone, and it’ll be hard to get them to answer their phones.

How to deal with and help them:

Do they understand the error of their ways? Are they aware of the fact that they easily offend people? Sometimes the best way to get them to understand their bad manners, is to tell them, point blank.

If they are truly keen on finding a job, and allowing yo to help them, they will change their attitude and be more amicable.

Looking for a job?

Please visit our jobseeker page, and upload your C.V  to our nationwide database! Should a potential job offer open, and you are considered, we will contact you!

Looking for staff?

Let our dedicated and hard working team of consultants find you the perfect candidate. Please visit our employer page and tell us what you are looking for!

Ever wondered what it takes to be a leader and a mentor? This blog article aims to help highlight how you can, in fact, be both.

I’m pretty sure that every human on this earth longs for a work environment that is conducive to progress. We all want to learn. We all want to be appreciated for putting in the effort to learn as well. The push and pull of leaders and their students is a two way street however. The mentor must be willing to teach, and mould. The student needs to be willing to learn, and apply what they have learnt.

I’ve always said the fundamentals to becoming a great leader is to learn how to mentor.

I have found, in my time, that your designated leaders in each job are often not well enough equipped to take on the ‘extra task’ of actually mentoring. Be it for reasons of time or energy, or the most common reason, not wanting to.

The truth of the matter is, you will not help anyone by just ‘managing’ them. By managing your staff, you are only telling them what they already know. That’s why they got the job. By mentoring, you may be surprised at how their performance increases! Your young employees, especially, are the future leaders, and why wouldn’t you want to be a part of what makes them great future leaders?

When you finally come around and realise how rewarding mentoring can actually be, there are a couple rules of thumb to follow:

1. Always make sure your purpose is clear. There is no point in trying to mentor if you have no plan. What are you hoping to achieve? What sort of growth will you be facilitating?
2. Learn how to read body language. Sometimes a discussion needs to be drawn out, for all points to be uncovered and further discussed. Your learners may be nervous at first, but if they know they are in safe hands, with ears that are always ready to listen, your lessons will be well received.
3. Try not to leave important discussions for the last minute. Rather have small discussions frequently. Try not to give off the ‘we should have a chat’ vibe, as this may seem rather off-putting.
4. Remember you have chosen to be a mentor. So walk the talk.

Looking for a job?

Please visit our jobseeker page, and upload your C.V  to our nationwide database! Should a potential job offer open, and you are considered, we will contact you!

Looking for staff?

Let our dedicated and hard working team of consultants find you the perfect candidate. Please visit our employer page and tell us what you are looking for!

It is pertinent to bring yourself up to date with current labour laws, not only to perform better in your job, but to know your rights too. With that in mind, we have put together a basic guide to ‘sick leave’ for you.

HOW DOES IT WORK?

As stated by the Department of Labour, ‘workers may take the number of days they would normally work in a 6-week period for sick leave on full pay in a 3 year period’. Employees can also insist on proof of illness (doctors’ note and so on) before paying a worker for sick leave.

APPLICATION:

The Basic Conditions of Employment Act applies to all employees and workers, but;

• Members of the National Defence Force,
• National Intelligence Agency,
• South African Secret Service, or
• Unpaid volunteers working for a charity.

See, Basic Conditions of Employment Act

APPLICATION FOR SICK LEAVE:

The provisions for sick leave do not apply to;

• Workers who wrk less thatn 24 hours in a month,
• Workers who receive compensation for an occupational injury or disease,
• Leave over and above that provided for by the Act.

NUMBER OF SICK DAYS:

As stated by the Department of Labour, ‘workers may take the number of days they would normally work in a 6-week period for sick leave on full pay in a 3 year period’.

However, during the first 6 months of employment, workers are only entitled to one day of paid sick leave for every 26 days worked.

PROOF OF ILLNESS:

An employer may require a medical certificate before paying workers who are absent for more than 2 consecutive days, or who are absent often (more than twice in an 8-week period).

That is your basic guide to sick leave in South Africa. Be sure to read our article on Annual Leave, and how it works.

Measured Ability SA

WHAT CAREER PATH SHOULD I CHOOSE?

The step-by-step guide

When you start thinking about your future and choosing your career path, your heart beat may increase and your brow may sweat, but never fear; the complete guide is here!

No need for settling, no need for dreading work; here are some of the best ways to make sure you choose your career wisely.

 1.

 What are you passionate about? Explore those fields.

What are some of your hobbies?

What do you like doing?

Once you have a better idea of that, start exploring the different job opportunities within the parameters of what you like, or possibly what you are good at.

You don’t have to only explore your likes, or interests, but understanding this provides you with a good starting point. Also, don’t compare yourself to others, choose a path that YOU would enjoy and perform the best in.

No matter if you are analytical, practical, creative or technical, you may even be a socialite; there will definitely be a range of career paths that will suit you.

2.

Now that you have jotted down your skills – Use them.

By now you should have written down your skills, qualifications, like, dislikes and experience. With this information you can further refine your potential role research, and have them actually play to your strength.

Bare in mind, no matter how well you excel within different skills, hard work will always pay off and there is always more to learn, but those skills you possess will make it easier to find an achievable job prospect.

This also means that your strengths will be recognised and used to their maximum potential. You don’t want to be stuck in a career that doesn’t use the skills you have developed.

3.

 You may not enter the perfect job straight away, but you can always plan it out.

Once you have made your decision, think about the steps you may have to take to work your way into your dream position in the career path of your choice. If you are a people’s person, and have great sales and customer service skills, your chances of becoming the Sales Director is greater, especially if you are willing to start from the bottom and learn all the tricks of the trade.

Also ask yourself: is what I’m study going to bring me closer to my dream? Is the experience I’m gaining beneficial? If not, consider changing your game plan.

Remember, if you feel stagnated in your current job, there are courses you can take, volunteering groups and further educational training. These steps also help you better understand your value, and it makes you more employable.

Also, remember that a field of work is far more than a single job. Fields are broad; try looking for 5 jobs within that field

4.

Experience is key.

So, the well-known double edged sword of, how do I gain experience, if I need experience beforehand?

People seem to forget about work experience and internship opportunities, and this is a good place to start. Within these, you will be able to use the skills you have in a practical fashion, in a work environment. You will also gain more skills while doing so. If you work hard, it may turn into a permanent position and you may leverage key connections within the industry. Networking is very important.

Learn as much as you can about the qualifications needed to enter this field.

Even if the position doesn’t work out, you have still learnt something, and knowledge is invaluable. You’ll also have a better idea of what you truly want to do.

Here is a list of current internships in SA.

5.

 Always research what the career actually entails.

Remember, nothing is what it seems, until you’ve dug a little deeper.

Speak to people in the industry, try and get an idea of what their day to day tasks are, and what sort of lifestyle they lead.

Lifestyle is extremely important. A high status roll like a doctor or a lawyer may seem great, but they aren’t for everyone.

Dedication is key to any career, so make sure you can commit to your chosen career path.

6.

Expectations, don’t make them too high.

Be realistic when setting goals and looking for your future career path. As much as we all want to follow our childhood dreams, if they aren’t attainable, your career may not go anywhere.

Go into every career with an open mind. Expectations can trump the reality of the job and you may not enjoy it as much as you thought because you set them too high.

For example: You may not like your job at first, but by keeping an open mind, it may turn into the best career decision you could ever make.

You also don’t want your CV to put forward the notion that you are a ‘serial job happier’.

Keep this in mind: Leaving a job after 6 months because you have realised that career choice is wrong for you is acceptable. Leaving after a day is not.

Let’s have some fun:

https://www.buzzfeed.com/ashleyperez/what-career-should-you-have?utm_term=.xmglXxYZb#.ik31DrQ4W

We hope that this read has helped you move along to your dream career. For more information on how to write a CV, how recruitment agencies work and more visit https://measuredability.com/blog/

How do recruitment agencies work?

The most common misconception about recruitment agencies is the idea that recruitment agencies find you work. In most cases, recruitment agencies do not find jobs for people, rather they find people to fill the positions that their clients are wanting to fill.

In this day and age, it has become too easy and too cheap to apply for jobs, and some people just send out hundreds of CVs for every position that remotely interests them. This means most of the time, if you advertise a position on job boards, you get hundreds (or possibly even thousands) of responses, most of which do not fit the minimum requirements for the position. It can be very painful to engage with this process, so a lot of companies get recruitment agencies to shortlist candidates for them.

On that note – please don’t be that person who just sends out hundreds of CVs. Choose carefully the jobs that you want to apply for. If you are applying for a job that you don’t meet the minimum requirements for, you will not get the job. They will not consider you. They will just throw your CV away. You are wasting your time and the recruiter’s time by doing so. 

A recruitment agency is a company that works as a ‘middle man’ in between the company looking for candidates, and the candidates themselves. The recruitment agency does the advertising, wades through all of the submissions, and shortlists the best candidates for the company. They usually do background checks (at Greys Recruitment we generally do criminal record checks, credit rating checks, reference checks and qualification checks), and they normally do a first interview of the candidate before sending them to the client for an interview.

Recruitment agencies also keep a database of candidates, to enable them to sometimes fill positions without even advertising. These databases can grow rather large (ours is up to hundreds of thousands of candidates), so it is important to make sure that your CV contains keywords relevant to the positions you would apply for, and that the CV is readable by a computer (ie. not a scanned image). This is because recruiters will put in keywords when they are searching for possible candidates for a position, and if your CV does not contain the right keywords (skills, qualifications, job titles, etc) then it will not come up in their searches. See our post on how to write a CV for more information about this.

Recruitment agencies normally do not charge candidates (be wary of any that do try to charge a candidate, these are usually scams.) Rather, they normally charge the client a percentage of the annual salary for a successful placement. They also usually guarantee the placement, so if the candidate leaves within the first few months they will often refund the client a percentage of the placement fee. (At Greys Recruitment we offer a 90 day guarantee.)

Companies normally do not use recruitment agencies to fill entry level positions. They normally would only pay a recruitment agency’s commission for the harder to fill positions. So if you are newly graduated, then you are unlikely to find work through a recruitment agency. They will usually only be useful to people with at least two or three years experience, and the higher level you are the more likely you will be to find work through a recruitment agency. But remember that agencies aren’t normally trying to find a position to suit you, normally they are trying to find people to fill a position, so you can sometimes be in for a long wait after uploading your CV to a recruitment agency’s database. You should still also apply for jobs directly, and through Job Portals. Don’t think that just because one agency has your details that they will find a position for you.

Unfortunately, as with most things these days, there are always people trying to scam you, and there are lots of scams around when trying to find work. Try and do a bit of research about the recruitment agencies you are thinking about using. A free email address is a bad sign (gmail, hotmail, yahoo etc), as is no company website. Most reputable companies would be a member of APSO, which is an association for staffing agencies. Also be very wary of people that want you to Fax a CV to an 086 number. Numbers that start with 086 can be used to make money from the person calling. So if you fax a CV to an 086 number it is possible for the person receiving the fax to make money from the fax. This means people sometimes advertise positions that don’t really exist in order to make money from the faxed CVs coming in. Because of this, most internet cafes will charge you up to R20 a page to fax to a 086 number. Besides, who uses faxes in this day and age? Surely a modern, professional recruitment agency would want electronic CVs emailed to them that they can search digitally?

In South Africa we also have something called ‘labour brokers‘. These are companies which outsource their own employees to other companies, and usually provide workers on the lower end of the scale, such as general workers and semi-skilled workers. If you get a job through a recruitment agency, then you become the employee of the client, not the recruitment agency. If you work through a labour broker, then you are employed by the labour broker, not by the client company themselves. Companies use labour brokers if they have fluctuating staffing needs (seasonal or temporary increases in labour needs) and cannot employ someone permanently. We have our own labour broking division – Western Star Outsourcing.

Need Staff?

Measured Ability provides staffing services for all industries, all over South Africa, and into Africa and the Middle East. We have divisions for recruitment, labour broking, international placements and staffing, a nursing agency and a contract cleaning agency.

Contact us now to find the right candidates for your vacancy.

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