Recruitment Matters: Caroline Foote

Caroline Foote is the managing director of Careers Move Group

Four important areas for recruiters

Listening: The ability to listen to both candidate and clients, there are so many people who talk over them all over the time. There's nothing worse than a candidate coming in and spending an hour with us and we do something opposite

Passion: We want someone who really enjoys the role and really want to do a good job.

Expertise: You need to be an expert in your field with a continuing interest in the subject.

Customer service: Absolutely critical. A career for a candidate is a huge part of their life and we help facilitate that. It’s one of the biggest things recruiters do. We need to be a trusted and reliable partner.

Networking is vital

For agencies and professionals it's all about finding roles that internal recruiters can't. You have to have a really extensive network and they can be both physical networking through to virtual through things like LinkedIn. Having been around for a while, we have quite deep networks, but it needs to be a seen as a living and breathing thing.

Keep an eye on partner relationships

We’re doing a piece of research about the relationship we have with clients and seeing what valued partnership means to us. We’re seeing an increase in client relationships as we move further away from recessionary times. Clients are prepared to look at fairer fees for finding niche talent. They want to work more and more with knowledge-based agencies. We've had some major PSL wins and that's all been down to the fact we embrace working in a different way. I think the next 12 months is going to be pretty good.