What was previously only an assumption has now been confirmed by our candidates in an extensive survey: They rate the cooperation with personnel consultancies positively overall and especially appreciate the consulting services offered.
For our current survey, we compiled 38 questions on the topic of "personnel consultancies". The aim was to obtain an up-to-date and comprehensive opinion on the service and image of recruitment consultancies. More than 10,000 candidates took part in this survey. In addition, the candidates surveyed were given the opportunity for the first time to contribute their wishes, ideals and personal experiences in dealing and working with recruitment consultancies.
Candidates would like to receive offers at least once a month
At 80 per cent, the vast majority of survey participants would like to be informed about new offers and career opportunities by a personnel consultant at least once a month or more often. More than a quarter of all respondents (27 per cent) would like to receive fairly intensive support (weekly contact), while for 23 per cent of the participants, information every fortnight is sufficient. Almost one third (30 percent) of all respondents would like to be informed about new career opportunities once a month by their HR consultant.
This preference is also confirmed in the more differentiated analysis according to different age groups: In all analysed age ranges, a monthly rotation was most frequently indicated as a wish, followed by a weekly information offer.
Our survey on the topic of "personnel consulting" goes even further. In addition to the frequency of contact, it is also important with which media and at what time our candidates can be reached. More about this in the next blog!
After graduating as an automotive engineer and industrial engineer, he began his career in the automotive industry in the areas of sales, development and marketing and also spent a year in Japan with one of the largest automotive suppliers.
He then moved to a world-renowned premium car manufacturer, where he was responsible for product marketing in Japan and South America and marketing strategy in North and South America.
In 1994 he decided to become self-employed and founded a personnel consultancy in Munich, where he has been driving development and expansion for over 20 years. As managing director, his industry focus is naturally on the automotive world as well as mechanical and plant engineering.
With his doctorate in the field of aptitude diagnostics, he ideally rounds off his fields of competence, especially with regard to personnel and management consultancy. The dissertation deals with the identification and proof of typical personality traits of engineers as well as the definition of development areas for a successful professional career.
These are scientifically derived and presented in the book "Eignungsdiagnostik im Praxiseinsatz".
At the same time, his focus is on building networks and cooperation models as well as the continuous further development of systems and processes in HR consulting.
Within the last 20 years in personnel consulting, he has developed several brands that are still successful on the market today.
What was previously only an assumption has now been confirmed by our candidates in an extensive survey: They rate the cooperation with personnel consultancies positively overall and especially appreciate the consulting services offered.
For our current survey, we compiled 38 questions on the topic of "personnel consultancies". The aim was to obtain an up-to-date and comprehensive opinion on the service and image of recruitment consultancies. More than 10,000 candidates took part in this survey. In addition, the candidates surveyed were given the opportunity for the first time to contribute their wishes, ideals and personal experiences in dealing and working with recruitment consultancies.
E-mail still the top communication channel
With more than two thirds (67 percent), the vast majority of respondents prefer to be notified by e-mail by their recruiter. Still, 10 per cent of the candidates would like to be contacted by telephone. Just as many candidates do not prefer any of the available media. Only 4 per cent and 3 per cent of respondents would like to receive messages from their recruiter via social business networks or WhatsApp.
Preferred communication channels of the candidates
The right time is and remains an individual matter
A job change is often a step that should not be made public. The current employer should not hear anything about the job search until the new position is secure. The desire for discretion is also reflected in the answers of the candidates surveyed. 28 percent of all respondents would like to be contacted by phone only in the evening after 6 pm. At 40 per cent, the majority stated that their availability by telephone varied greatly. The fewest candidates prefer to be contacted by telephone from the morning (before 8 a.m.) until the afternoon (until 5 p.m.).
Preferred time to contact candidates
Mr Daniel Fertl, Head of Research at Senator HR Management GmbH confirms that it should be clarified with each candidate individually when and how contact should be made:
"Ask each candidate directly in the first interview how often and by what means they would like to be contacted if you have suitable vacancies for them or if you want to clarify important questions at short notice. Too frequent calls or emails may put the candidate under pressure, too little contact quickly gives the impression of carelessness. For you as a personnel consultant, it should therefore be a top priority to find out what the candidate prefers. This is then the basis for further cooperation."
After graduating as an automotive engineer and industrial engineer, he began his career in the automotive industry in the areas of sales, development and marketing and also spent a year in Japan with one of the largest automotive suppliers.
He then moved to a world-renowned premium car manufacturer, where he was responsible for product marketing in Japan and South America and marketing strategy in North and South America.
In 1994 he decided to become self-employed and founded a personnel consultancy in Munich, where he has been driving development and expansion for over 20 years. As managing director, his industry focus is naturally on the automotive world as well as mechanical and plant engineering.
With his doctorate in the field of aptitude diagnostics, he ideally rounds off his fields of competence, especially with regard to personnel and management consultancy. The dissertation deals with the identification and proof of typical personality traits of engineers as well as the definition of development areas for a successful professional career.
These are scientifically derived and presented in the book "Eignungsdiagnostik im Praxiseinsatz".
At the same time, his focus is on building networks and cooperation models as well as the continuous further development of systems and processes in HR consulting.
Within the last 20 years in personnel consulting, he has developed several brands that are still successful on the market today.
The search for a new job is always an upheaval in life. Some candidates look forward to the new stage with joy, others with mixed feelings. A trusting relationship and a close personal bond with one's recruiter is therefore an important factor in the job search process. If the chemistry is right, the new job will certainly work out quickly.
This is confirmed by the current survey of the HR Consult Group on the topic of "personnel consultancies" with over 10,000 respondents. The answers to a total of 38 questions provide an up-to-date and comprehensive picture of opinions on the service and image of personnel consultancies.
Seriousness and trust are decisive factors
The survey results clearly confirm that a serious and trustworthy appearance of the consultant is of crucial importance. In all age groups surveyed, more than 80 percent of the participants stated that they place particular value on seriousness when working with a recruitment consultant. With almost 90 percent, the issue of seriousness is most important to the participant group over 45 years of age, followed by the age group 30 to 45 with 87.5 percent and the young target group (17 to 30 years) with about 83 percent. A similar result is also seen in the analysis points confidentiality and transparency. Both categories are most often rated as very important by the older candidates.
When it comes to personal contact, the result is also highest in the 45+ age group. Almost three quarters of the respondents stated that personal contact is particularly important to them. But the other candidates also attach great importance to a personal approach (73.5 percent among the 30 to 45-year-olds and 70.4 percent among the 17 to 30-year-olds).
Prompt placement is particularly important to younger and older candidates. Both among 17 to 30-year-olds and in the 45+ age group, more than 77 per cent said that a prompt placement was important to them. In the 30 to 45 age group, a speedy placement was of particular importance to only three quarters of the respondents.
30-45 year olds particularly interested in exciting offers
While the older analysis group is particularly interested in the topics of seriousness, confidentiality and transparency, the middle age group of 30 to 45-year-olds attaches particular importance to exciting offers. 84 percent said that regular information with exciting offers was important to them. The other two age groups are almost on a par here (82 percent in the 45+ age group, 81 percent in the young target group).
"Regardless of a candidate's age, a professional and trusting cooperation forms the basis for a successful and satisfying placement. It is important that job seekers feel comfortable with the support of a recruitment agency and perceive it as a reliable and serious partner. The first step is regular personal contact. In addition, communication should be kept as transparent as possible so that the candidate knows exactly what happens with his or her data and how the placement process works in detail," advises Mr Andreas Berger, Partner at Senator Executive Search Partners for the Consumer Goods, Digital & Online Business and Retail & Services sectors.
After graduating as an automotive engineer and industrial engineer, he began his career in the automotive industry in the areas of sales, development and marketing and also spent a year in Japan with one of the largest automotive suppliers.
He then moved to a world-renowned premium car manufacturer, where he was responsible for product marketing in Japan and South America and marketing strategy in North and South America.
In 1994 he decided to become self-employed and founded a personnel consultancy in Munich, where he has been driving development and expansion for over 20 years. As managing director, his industry focus is naturally on the automotive world as well as mechanical and plant engineering.
With his doctorate in the field of aptitude diagnostics, he ideally rounds off his fields of competence, especially with regard to personnel and management consultancy. The dissertation deals with the identification and proof of typical personality traits of engineers as well as the definition of development areas for a successful professional career.
These are scientifically derived and presented in the book "Eignungsdiagnostik im Praxiseinsatz".
At the same time, his focus is on building networks and cooperation models as well as the continuous further development of systems and processes in HR consulting.
Within the last 20 years in personnel consulting, he has developed several brands that are still successful on the market today.
Knowing one's own strengths precisely and having concrete ideas about where one's career should go - for many job seekers, this is often more of a wish than a reality. In order to work out the candidate's strengths and weaknesses, wishes and perspectives individually together with the candidate, personnel consultancies offer so-called aptitude diagnostics for such cases.
The current survey by HR Consult Group AG on the topic of "personnel consultations", to which more than 10,000 participants responded, examined, among other things, how candidates evaluate such aptitude diagnostic procedures.
More than half of the respondents are interested in aptitude diagnostics
The majority (56 percent) stated that they are interested in aptitude diagnostic procedures. For 32 percent of the respondents, this topic is less interesting, only 12 percent feel uncomfortable with such tests.
This tendency is confirmed in the detailed examination of the evaluation. The results, broken down by age of the respondents, show that the younger target group (17-30 years) shows the greatest interest in aptitude diagnostics with 60 percent. This is closely followed by the middle age group (31-45 years) with a share of 58 percent and the age group 45+ with 54 percent. The greatest scepticism towards aptitude testing is shown by the 45+ generation with 15 per cent, followed by the middle age group (11 per cent) and the young age group (8 per cent).
If one breaks down the participants according to the amount of the desired salary, the candidates who have a salary expectation of 150,000 euros and more have the greatest interest with 89 percent. The group with the lowest salary expectations of 30,000 to 45,000 euros follows at a considerable distance with 60 percent. The group with a desired salary of 45,000 to 75,000 euros (14 per cent) showed the greatest rejection of aptitude diagnostics procedures.
"Aptitude diagnostics is a great thing for job seekers. No matter whether you are a career starter or someone who wants to reorientate themselves professionally - the results of the diagnostics help to work out the candidate's individual strengths and thus identify the best career opportunities. My many years of experience as a personnel consultant show that these procedures not only increase the chances of success in the end, but also save time and spare nerves," reports Mr Daniel Fertl, personnel consultant at SENATOR.
After graduating as an automotive engineer and industrial engineer, he began his career in the automotive industry in the areas of sales, development and marketing and also spent a year in Japan with one of the largest automotive suppliers.
He then moved to a world-renowned premium car manufacturer, where he was responsible for product marketing in Japan and South America and marketing strategy in North and South America.
In 1994 he decided to become self-employed and founded a personnel consultancy in Munich, where he has been driving development and expansion for over 20 years. As managing director, his industry focus is naturally on the automotive world as well as mechanical and plant engineering.
With his doctorate in the field of aptitude diagnostics, he ideally rounds off his fields of competence, especially with regard to personnel and management consultancy. The dissertation deals with the identification and proof of typical personality traits of engineers as well as the definition of development areas for a successful professional career.
These are scientifically derived and presented in the book "Eignungsdiagnostik im Praxiseinsatz".
At the same time, his focus is on building networks and cooperation models as well as the continuous further development of systems and processes in HR consulting.
Within the last 20 years in personnel consulting, he has developed several brands that are still successful on the market today.
The fact that companies must have a compliance management system is largely undisputed today. Crucial in this context is the question of the type and scope of the compliance function.
In principle, the goals of a compliance function in a company are clearly defined: on the one hand, compliance violations (from within the company) should be prevented in order to avert damage (material damage as well as damage to reputation) from the company. On the other hand, the compliance function should also minimise, if not prevent, the personal - criminal and civil - liability of the management.
Since the topic of compliance has gained a great deal of media attention and numerous corporate scandals have increasingly raised the awareness of an increasingly critical public, the question of setting up and implementing compliance management systems (CMS) is also being discussed in circles that previously did not feel addressed.
Risk landscape and risk strategy
In every company - regardless of industry, products and business model - there are risks that can be realised and thus cause damage to the company. In the course of globalisation and internationalisation, regulatory requirements have increased. Some sectors are particularly affected. One example is the energy industry, which has to deal with a flood of new laws in connection with significant market changes. But also the regulatory frenzy within companies, especially in corporate groups, is constantly increasing, so that internal guidelines also have to be observed to a greater extent.
With the increasing number of regulations, the risk of unknowinglyviolating legal, normative and internal requirements increases. The intentional violation remains unaffected by this.
Not every risk has critical or existential consequences when it materialises. Against this background, the determination of the risk landscape and the risk strategy are an essential basis for the future development of the compliance management system. The first step is to identify the risks; this results in the risk landscape (which risks exist in which business context). In a second step, the risks are assessed with quantification of possible damage and estimation of the probability of occurrence. In a third step, the risks are prioritised and assigned to a strategic handling (as a rule, a distinction is made in risk strategy between risk avoidance, risk minimisation, risk transfer and risk assumption). Low risks are often borne by the company itself, while risks with high losses are transferred to third parties (e.g. insurance). In the case of non-transferable risks, the company tries to minimise or even avoid them through appropriate measures.
Obligation to establish a compliance function
Every manager is well advised to protect his company - and himself - against risks arising from compliance violations. This is usually done through a specific risk management system (CMS). But to what extent is there an obligation to set up such a compliance function?
The opinion on this is anything but uniform. Explicit legal obligations only exist in individual cases, such as § 33 WpHG[1] and § 25a KWG[2]. The aforementioned provisions explicitly require the introduction of compliance functions, whereby companies that provide investment services or financial services are affected here.
Proponents assume that there is a general obligation to introduce a compliance function. This results from a holistic view of existing legal provisions such as §§ 76, 91 II, 93 I AktG or §§ 35, 41, 43, 85 GmbHG (legally standardised management function of the management)[3].
An obligation to introduce a compliance function can also be derived from the provisions of the OWiG (sections 3, 9, 130 OWiG)[4].
Finally, the German Corporate Governance Code (GCGC) requires the executive board to ensure compliance with the statutory provisions and the company's internal guidelines and to work towards their observance by the group companies[5].
Critics do not share this opinion. The main argument is that - with the exception of the aforementioned provisions of the WpHG and KWG as well as the supplementary provision of § 64a VAG[6] - there are no explicit statutory regulations. If the legislator had wanted compliance functions, of whatever kind, to be mandatory, it would have included this in relevant statutory regulations.
The interpretation of the German Stock Corporation Act (AktG) and the German Limited Liability Companies Act (GmbHG) to the effect that this implies an obligation to implement a compliance function is also considered excessive.
Finally, the GCGC is also rejected as a legal basis, as it has the character of a recommendation and is therefore not legally binding. Moreover, it only applies to listed companies and therefore does not take into account all other companies.
All of the above arguments are valid and justified. Nevertheless, they lose their effect before the question of whether members of management want to expose themselves to the risk of civil and criminal liability due to a lack of compliance management.
The compliance management system must fit the company
In answering this question, the first simple observation is that there are no specific legal or normative requirements for a compliance management system. In this respect, every company management is basically free to choose the functional and organisational structures for the compliance function in its company. Notwithstanding this, there are a number of aspects that are helpful to take into account when setting up the CMS and that can - directly and indirectly - have implications for the design of the CMS. Finally, such a function ties up human and material resources and thus represents a not inconsiderable cost factor.
The compliance function can only develop its desired effect effectively if it is integrated as a management system into the overall company organisation. It is therefore necessary to install a system that is suitable for the respective company. This requires at least:
Assignment of personnel A personnel assignment must be made for the topic of compliance, i.e. the relevant responsibility must be assigned to individual persons. In small companies this can be done in personnel union with other functions (e.g. controlling), large companies employ their own compliance officers for this purpose. Outsourcing to a specialised consultant is also conceivable.
Organisational anchoring The compliance function must be organisationally anchored in the company. This aspect also depends on the size and structure of the company: from a staff unit to a separate compliance department, all variants are represented in practice. However the organisational anchoring takes place, it is important that the compliance function does not represent an isolated solution. It is essential to ensure that there is close integration with other management systems (quality management, risk management, etc.).
Definition of tasks The definition of the tasks of the compliance function has two dimensions. On the one hand, the concrete operational tasks must be described (e.g. advising the management as well as other bodies in the company, developing and implementing internal regulations, training employees as well as controlling and detecting compliance violations). On the other hand, care must be taken that the tasks of the compliance function are suitable to ensure the fulfilment of the duties of the company management (organisational, control and investigation duties) - after all, this is the delegation of supervisory tasks and the interplay of delegation act, selection decision and monitoring of the delegate that is relevant in this context.
Monitoring, control and reporting A compliance function requires monitoring and control. This is usually done through a reporting system, the extended scope of which also includes the performance of internal and external audits.
The CMS must be individually tailored to the company, taking into account its specific requirements and concerns as well as its individual risk landscape. In this respect, it is indispensable to carry out a careful analysis of the decisive parameters before setting up or expanding a CMS.
[1] In Section 33 of the German Securities Trading Act (WpHG), the legislator has imposed special organisational obligations on securities trading companies (establishment of an independent compliance function)
[2] § 25a KWG (German Banking Act): An institution must have a proper business organisation that ensures compliance with the legal provisions to be observed by the institution and the business necessities (excerpt)
[3] Section 91 (2) AktG (German Stock Corporation Act), for example, stipulates that the executive board must take appropriate measures, in particular set up a monitoring system. The same applies to the GmbH.
[4] According to § 9 OWiG (Administrative Offences Act), the "ownership" of the company within the meaning of the OWiG is attributed to the persons acting directly. In practice, liability for organisational culpability under the OWiG does not fall on the company itself, but on the management level.
Eckart Achauer, studied law and business administration, postgraduate studies to become a Master of Business Administration (MBA). In-service training to become a European Quality Manager (DGQ), a mediator specialising in business mediation and a Certified Compliance Manager (TÜV).
He worked for around 10 years in the international insurance industry in the management of a Swiss insurance group in various functions (claims department, sales, assistance) before moving into management and business consulting in 1997.
As a consultant and managing director of various consulting companies, Mr Achauer has specialised thematically in organisational and process optimisation as well as in the development and implementation of management systems - quality management, risk and compliance management.
At Senator Executive Search Partners, Mr Achauer is responsible for the area of compliance management. Within the scope of compliance audits, he analyses their organisational "compliance fitness", he sensitises and trains the management, executives and employees and supports the companies in setting up and implementing individual compliance management systems. In doing so, he always takes into account the specific risk situation of the companies. Due to his many years of experience as a manager and consultant, he is very familiar with the entrepreneurial challenges from practice.
