Words of advice from the chief headhunter

Katarzyna Korpolewska is CEO of Profesja Consulting

Katarzyna Dębek: Why do companies turn to personnel consultants even though they very often have their own internal HR departments?

Katarzyna Korpolewska: Finding the right employee is hard work. Companies don't always know the labor market very well and a recruitment mistake can cost a lot of money. Much depends on the posts that are vacant - in the case of the low-level vacancies, it is easier to organize recruitment.

How do you proceed when asked to find a specialist?

First, we check our internal database but also trawl for candidates via newspaper or internet adverts. As a result, we usually get masses of applications, the majority of which are totally irrelevant. Later, we have to make a thorough selection - conduct interviews, collect recommendations, check documents. We don't really trust written recommendations and often ask the candidate to point to someone that we could talk to on the phone.

You also have to be really careful about the things people write on their CVs. One of our employees was once very impressed by a certain candidate who was very outspoken and seemed competent. He also had the kind of professional experience we were looking for but when we started checking his CV it turned out that the majority of companies he mentioned didn't even exist. I also interviewed a person who was a graduate of an American college and couldn't say a word in English.

What if the person you found turns out to be the wrong choice. Do you give any sort of guarantee?

We usually do. I think the optimum guarantee period is three months as this is usually when the employer has to decide whether to prolong or terminate the contract with the new staff member. We do, however, give a longer guarantee period in the case of senior management. We are flexible - it all depends on the specificity of a post. A guarantee is negotiable like all other contract components.

How much does it cost to get 'the perfect employee'?

The price range is really wide depending on the job post and selection tools we are using - from a couple thousand to a couple hundred thousand złoty.

What about the rule some companies use that the remuneration for the search should amount to three salaries of the potential employee?

I don't think it makes much sense. It is obviously much more difficult for me to find a good specialist who would be satisfied with a lower salary than one that demands higher remuneration. So I see no reason why my pay should depend on the employee's rates. We simply estimate the price of our services depending on the difficulty of our search. It might, for instance, be very easy to find an English-speaking manager while finding a locksmith who would be able to communicate in Spanish can be a real hassle.

Do you ever steal employees from your client's competition?

We don't steal them, we offer them better conditions. Yes, it does happen. Sometimes our clients give very specific information as to the companies we should check for specialists. That's headhunting. The novel phenomenon is that some people started to estimate their own value as an employee on the basis of the number of phone calls they get from headhunting firms.

The Polish market of personnel consulting firms is dominated by international concerns with big marketing budget and potentially wider search possibilities. Is it difficult for a medium-sized Polish company like yours to compete?

We are doing pretty well. What really counts in a company are people. Recruitment success relies to a great extent on the professionalism and skills of the staff. So no matter what kind of sophisticated know-how is brought by big concerns to Poland, their services won't be top quality if their employees are not experienced enough. If my company ever went through a lean period it   was less caused by the appearance of international companies' on the market than as a result of a general economic recession and labor-market crisis. People were more often laid off than employed and finding a new specialist was an easy task.

Besides, big international firms usually co-operate with other concerns and there are more medium enterprises in Poland realizing that recruitment is not an easy task.

The unemployment rate among young people is staggering. Do entrepreneurs ever look for recent university graduates?

The problem with young people is that they lack a little bit of humility. They expect too much and have little to offer. We often have job proposals for them but they are difficult candidates. That is why employers prefer graduates with some kind of work experience - even a McDonald's job - because they have learned the work discipline and know the reality of the labor market better.

Interviewed by Katarzyna Dębek