Most people are perfectly capable of writing their own CV. There are hundreds of books on the subject and thousands of websites that offer free advice. All it takes is time, some creativity and logical thinking. All you have to remember is that your CV is usually your first introduction to a potential employer and you only have a couple of minutes to make an impression (think about it, if you had 200 CVs to go through how much time would you give each one?). A badly written CV or one that just doesn’t make an impression is going to end up in the bin no matter how great your experience is. If you only get one chance to make that first impression isn’t worth having a well-crafted CV?

The same way you choose any other service provider. Use referrals from people you trust, see who is advertising positions in your industry and area of expertise and, most importantly, experience the way you get treated by them. If your plumber didn’t return your calls, treated you with contempt every time you spoke to him and generally offered you a shoddy service would you use him again? Probably not. A good recruitment consultant will treat you professionally, return your calls, keep you updated, offer you good advice and, most importantly, will be honest with you. If they don’t do all of these things, don’t use them.

You don’t. However, a survey carried out in the UK several years ago asked a cross section of middle managers how their careers had developed and were they happy in their present jobs. 67% said that their careers had ‘just happened’ and that they were very unhappy. Most people spend more time on choosing what pizza to eat on a Saturday night than they do managing their career. Be honest, how much time do you spend each week updating your CV, checking out recruitment trends and seeing what jobs are being advertised? Where do you want your career to be in 5 years time? Don’t know? Then the chances are a similar survey would place you in that unhappy 67%.

It goes back to question 2 and what are companies really good at? They are good at making beer, or offering life insurance and designing bridges. Are they good at recruiting their own staff? In most cases the answer is, sadly, no. Why are companies bad at recruiting staff?

There are lots of reasons, but some of them include not having a clear idea of who they need, intense pressure to recruit in haste, poor talent management policies, no staff retention strategy, no long-term staffing policies, unrealistic expectations, poor training capability and policies, hidden agendas, conflict between line management and the HR function and being completely out of touch with recruitment trends and market salaries. The sad fact is that while companies tell everyone that their staff are their most valuable asset the truth is usually very different.

It’s very simple; most recruitment consultancies are a bit like a factory – they process candidates and the ones that make the grade get put forward to their clients. The highest earning recruitment consultants are great sales people and have the best client contacts. Candidates are the product which they ‘market and sell’ to their clients. Consultants are measured by their weekly activities, including the number of people they place and if their activity levels drop below the target level for more than a few months the chances are they will be fired. The recruitment industry is tough and has a very high turnover of staff; non-performance is not tolerated. Remember this the next time your recruitment consultant gets a bit stressed when you cancel your interview at short notice.

Recruitment consultancies are very efficient in placing people in jobs very similar to what they are already doing or have done in the past. They are not so good at helping people who want to make radical career changes or who have no idea what they want to do or who have no skills or qualifications.

You don’t have to. If your company’s expertise is in identifying and recruiting talented staff then you should do it yourself. However, most companies don’t specialize in recruiting staff, they specialize in making things or selling things or offering some sort of service. The problem is that most companies still haven’t realized how expensive and disruptive and time consuming it is to recruit the wrong person. If you recruit the wrong sales executive how much money could that cost you in lost sales and possibly lost clients?