Tag: Shelflife Magazine

ShelfLife - 30 years of retail recruitment

30 Years of Retail Recruitment

Posted on | by Excel Recruitment

In honour of Shelflife’s 30th year milestone this month our Director of Grocery Retail Recruitment, Nikki Murran, thought it would be fun to reflect on the changes in recruitment over the last three decades.   

When our founder Barry Whelan started recruiting, we had a fax machine, recruiters smoked at their desks and everyone wore a full suit every day, there was no zoom calls, every interview was in person and What’sApp didn’t exist!  

The evolution of technology has obviously had some of the biggest impacts on how we recruit, from how we advertise, how candidates apply and how candidates are referenced to how we communicate between candidates and employers. But there has also been a shift of focus to include soft skills, a heightened awareness on diversity and inclusion, the emergence of employer banding and of course remote working has been added to the mix. 

The market has flipped several times over the last 30 years. If you look back to 1994, the year of Shelflife’s first publication, unemployment was nearly 15%, so jobs were in short supply, with an abundance of candidates on the market. Some notable retailers of the day would have included Crazy Prices, Quinnsworth, St Bernard’s Dunnes Stores and Superquinn. Notably Aldi and Lidl had not yet joined the market.  

By 2001 the unemployment rate has drop as low as 4% where is would stay for the next number of years while Ireland experienced the Celtic Tiger Era. Similar to today’s market, candidates where scarce and many turned away from jobs in the retail sector. Until 2009. By 2009 Ireland was experiencing a recession and unemployment was back to 12% and continued to stay at this level over the following 8 years, peaking in 2013 at nearly 14%. During this era, it was a client driven market with employers once again having ample candidates available for every open job. The last ten years has seen a steady decline in unemployment, bringing us back to today – near perfect unemployment and retailers again shouting out for talent to remain in the industry!  

30 years ago, retailers looking to attract candidates would place an ad in the Irish Independent – on a Thursday – which included an address you could post your CV to and a landline number for more information.  Today we have a multitude of professional online job board forums, as well as a dedicated social media platform in LinkedIn. Mind you, the old process of an “apply within” sign is still holding firm! I guess some things don’t change after all.  Radio Ads also went through a phase in the early 2000’s but later died out too.  

One of the more amusing trends I have noticed over the last decade is how candidates present themselves for interview.  As recent as 10 years ago, every candidate wore a full suit, and every man wore a tie to an interview. This was a given, even for trainee managers or apprentice butchers and bakers coming straight from school – they borrowed a suit if they didn’t have one. Today, more and more candidates show up in much more casual attire – sometimes too casual. Fashion retailers no longer wear suits, but dress to match the brand they represent, junior candidates believe a pair of jeans and their best runners is a full effort and whilst some still wear suits, it appears ties are mostly a thing of the past!  

Over the last 15 years, as the unemployment figures have come down, candidate’s behaviours have shifted substantially, nearly directly in line with the unemployment trend. The market is now full of passive candidates, rather than active. With the emergence of CV databases like Indeed and LinkedIn, increasing numbers of candidates have an expectation of being approached or headhunted, rather than compiling a CV and submitting it. With the acceptance of online interviewing, there is now a reluctance to travel too far for interviews. Whereas go back even 12 years and I don’t ever recall a candidate refusing to come to Dublin to meet me, weather they were travelling from Donegal or Cork, regardless if the job was for Deli Supervisor or Store Manager, they came, no questions asked. 

There has also been more unsavoury candidate behaviour – many retailers have plenty of stories of no-show interviews, counter offered candidates and new starters leaving after a week. At the risk of sounding old, these things didn’t happen when I worked in retail – or certainly not to the extent of today’s candidates. It’s hard to know if it’s an era thing or reflective of today’s economy or perhaps both?  

I’ve enjoyed watching the changes by clients over the years as they have moved from a wish lists for potential candidates which included all hard skills to a much broader wish lists, which now, nearly always, include softer skills. Most roles I had registered when I started recruitment cited things like – experience with store ordering, stock takes, floor standards, newspaper returns etc. Now, skills such as having an ability to lead people, bring their team in on the journey and increase customer engagement are much higher on the priority list. The best retailers have gone from being excellent managers to outstanding leaders instead.  

And finally – formality – the whole level of formality has changed – we have gone from cover letters addressed to “Dear Sir” 30 years ago, to today’s world of Text and What’sApps!  

I wonder what the next 30 years will look like!  

For more information call us on 01 814 8747 or email nikki@excelrecruitment.com. You can view all of our live jobs here.

referee

The Do’s & Don’ts to consider before choosing your referee for your CV

Posted on | by Excel Recruitment

Who you choose as a referee could put your job offer in jeopardy. Our Director of Grocery Retail Recruitment, Nikki Murran, outlines the Do’s and Don’ts to take into consideration before you give your prospective employer contact information of who you decide to speak on your behalf. 

Before my life as a recruiter, I worked in retail as an Area Manager for one of the large discounters for over five years. This week I received a phone call asking for a reference for a Store Manager who worked in my district 15 years ago. Whilst I remember him well, and fondly, I did wonder if I was the best person to give this reference all this time later. I know I would not like to be measured now by the 15 year ago version of me! My management style has evolved, my emotional intelligence has been fine-tuned and I am a lot less easy to overwhelm!  

It got me thinking of some Do’s and Don’ts when it comes to reference checking that I could share this month.  

Do be honest – starting with your CV. Make sure your CV is accurate, including dates and titles. Don’t be tempted to exaggerate or overstate – it will come out, if not during the interview or reference stage then certainly when you start your new job! Most employers appreciate honesty and would much prefer to invest in training to cover any skills gaps rather than a candidate trying to blag their way through an interview for a role they are not ready for. Dishonesty is usually easy to detect and will lead to immediate rejection from an interview process.  

Don’t give referees whom you did not report to. I can’t count the number of times candidates have supplied a colleague’s details rather than their line manager – whilst this is usually done without malice it comes across as otherwise. Consider which of your references can best discuss the traits and qualities you possess that directly relate to the job you are applying for. 

Do make your ex-employer aware you are providing their details and that they are comfortable speaking on your behalf. For example, I remember talking to a referee who didn’t remember the candidate and another who was shocked to have been used as they had finished up on awful terms. Before you submit a reference list to a prospective employer, it’s a good idea to contact each and give them an update on your recent career and the role you are applying for. For example, if you are applying for a job that involves a strong focus on fresh foods you could highlight this and remind your reference of some relevant success you had in their business. This is likely to make for more engaged referees willing to speak on your behalf.  

Do make sure your referees are contactable! It goes without saying, but if you haven’t flagged to your referee to expect a call they may not answer or return in a timely manner putting your job offer in jeopardy! Make it easy for an employer to speak to your references by providing clear contact information for each individual, including the person’s name, phone number and e-mail address. You might even note the best time of day to reach him or her. 

So what about Do’s and Don’ts when you are the one conducting references on a prospective employee? As a recruitment agency, we always carry out thorough reference checks on all our candidates, but what about when you are recruiting directly? Our advice here is to make sure when contacting a referee, you have a list of questions ready that are relevant to the role the candidate is being considered for. For example – are they reliable, trustworthy, good with customers etc.  

You should highlight the role the candidate is being considered for as well as a quick update of where they have worked since they left the referee’s employ. This will give them a better framework to base the reference around. 

We also always ask if they would recommend them for re-employment. It requires a definite response so it usually gives a fairly direct assessment of their opinion of the candidate!  

Finally, it’s also always worthwhile to determine why a candidate left their previous role as it can give some understanding of what motivates or de-motivates them.  

For more information call us on 01 814 8747 or email nikki@excelrecruitment.com. You can view all of our live jobs here.

management mistakes

Management Mistakes: Part 2

Posted on | by Editorial Team

Our CEO, Barry Whelan, featured in this month’s issue of ShelfLife magazine discussing the final part of the top management mistakes series. Check out what he had to say below:

Continuing last month’s series on management mistakes, Excel Recruitment’s Barry Whelan outlines 11 more errors managers should avoid in the pursuit of keeping staff members happy, motivated and productive.

When candidates come to Excel Recruitment looking for a new role, we zone in on their ‘reason for leaving’. We want to understand completely why the candidate wants to move job, so that we can find the right new job for them. One of the reasons that comes up consistently in the top five is frustration with a manager or poor management. Here are the second set of the top bad management mistakes that can drive an employee out the door.

For all those managers out there interested in improving their ability to manage others, take heart in the fact that you’re only human. I know I for one have made every single one of these management mistakes at some point or another in my career. Let’s start with another personal favourite of mine!

1) Belittle their team over things, both significant and insignificant:

When a soft deadline is missed, this manager raises it at a staff meeting by throwing their hands up and remarking about how everyone’s incompetence will ensure the closure of the organisation! The dramatic manager who makes mountains out of molehills is a prime example of a bad manager. While a good manager should never ‘lose it’ with the team, they may be forgiven for doing so in a crisis, but not for something insignificant.

2) Passive aggressiveness, reminding the team of the power they hold over them:

This manager does things like often making “jokes” about firing people, then laughs it off, like they want to show their team that they have a great sense of humour, but, at its heart, this behaviour is bullying.

3) Active aggressiveness:

In a team huddle, this manager makes comments such as: “I know you have all performed really well and the business is performing, but we are only as good as last month and if anyone drops the ball, they will know about it.” Using direct threats and fear as motivation does not have a place in modern professional management.

4) Cross personal boundaries:

The risk of crossing personal boundaries arises easily in social occasions involving work. How many employees have woken up the morning after the dreaded office Christmas party with a completely different impression of their manager, who drank too much with the staff or became their pal at the party, before reverting to the previous relationship status come Monday morning as the boss.

5) Physically invade people’s spaces:

No physical contact is permissible anymore. If a member of staff is upset in front of their manager, while human nature might illicit a response like a hug, this is a no-no. A bad manager invades an employee’s space. The employee takes a step back and they take a step forward. An employee asks for personal space, and they don’t give it and stand too close when talking.

6) Delegate autonomy, without meaning it:

They tell you they want you to make the decision. They don’t want to be involved or indeed need to be, because you have the experience, and you are driving this project. They then take your decision, and go and change everything, without bothering to explain why. This is so deflating for staff.

7) Play favourites with team members, and make it obvious:

This manager takes the same team member out for lunch every week; they make a big deal of their birthday, but not others. They play favourites and do not operate in a fair and equitable manner. This causes resentment and a poor team environment.

8) Criticise team members in front of their team:

A critical tool of performance management is to criticise a team member away from their peers. This should be done outside of the process. Criticism should be given one-on-one and should always be constructive. Whilst public humiliation means everyone gets to learn, it is a sure way to make an employee have a browse through job boards.

9) Become defensive at the slightest constructive feedback:

The bad manager asks for feedback in meetings and then bullies and belittles everyone who opens their mouth. Then when people don’t contribute to meetings, they act passive aggressive about it: “I guess no-one has anything to add and we’ll just have to go with my plan.”

10) Multi-task while interacting with others:

This behaviour of a bad manager is very insulting to the team member. Clearing email while in an important conversation or taking calls mid meeting makes team members feel their input is not respected or indeed needed.

11) Take credit for employees’ ideas and work:

No decision is made, or action is taken, that isn’t the idea of the manager. A bad manager will only carry out an idea that they believe is their own. How many managers have you had whereby you had to make them believe an idea was theirs to get it implemented!

If you would like to read the full March 2022 issue of ShelfLife magazine you can do so by clicking here.

Management Mistakes

Management Mistakes: Part 1

Posted on | by Editorial Team

Our CEO, Barry Whelan, featured in this month’s edition of ShelfLife magazine talking about the mistakes managers make. See what he had to say below:

Securing great talent is harder than ever in today’s competitive market, so it is vital management don’t alienate staff by adopting the wrong attitude or techniques.

Here, Excel Recruitment’s Barry Whelan outlines 12 of the top mistakes to avoid:

When candidates come through Excel, looking for a new role, we zone in on their ‘reason for leaving’. We want to understand completely why the candidate wants to move job, so that we can find the right new job for them. One of the reasons that comes up consistently in the top five is frustration with a manager or poor management. Over this month and next, I will be outlining 30 of the top bad management mistakes that drive an employee out the door.

For all those managers out there interested in improving their ability to manage others, take heart in that you’re only human. I know I for one have made every single one of these management mistakes at some point or another in my career. Let’s start with my personal favourite!

1) Be inconsistent and unpredictable:

This manager likes to keep people on their toes by being totally inconsistent in terms of communication (both style and content), expectations, feedback and long-term vision for the organisation. All the employees’ nerves are shot from playing workplace Russian roulette!

2) Move the goalposts:

This manager changes their expectations every time you meet with them. They give out to employees for not meeting the new expectations they have just told them about and for instead wasting all their time trying to meet the expectations they set last month. They look for constant validation!

3) Involve themselves in every decision:

This manager does not let any decision be made without weighing in, no matter how small, and no matter how long it will be before they have time to review the matter. They are hands on…no problem is too small that needs their faultless problem solving!

4) Correct small mistakes to demonstrate how clever they are:

The classic insecure micro manager will review and approve emails or business correspondence, then change their mind over inane word choices. They will randomly ‘correct’ already correct grammar or spelling on documents given to you to sign in pen, ensuring that even once you understand it’s correct, it has to be re-printed!

5) Refuse to give any feedback:

The manager who won’t give any feedback, either positive or negative, ever, but will overreact completely when people fail to correctly understand what they want!

6) Make everyone run on their schedule:

They will be 20 minutes late to every meeting, leave early, and then get angry when a minor decision is made without having their input. They insist on being the final decision maker for every aspect of every project, but then don’t make decisions in a timely manner; instead waiting until the eleventh hour and making everyone scramble to get the work done.

7) Spend time on less important things so that they can ignore more important things:

The manager who insists on doing tasks someone else could do while unmade decisions pile up on their desk to the point of nearly halting anything getting done.

8) Refuse to let people do their jobs, then give out to them for it!

How many times have we met candidates who were hired for a job that they were not allowed to do! I met a graduate the other day who was hired as an accounts assistant but ended up selling products on the showroom floor.

9) Treat people the same, regardless of their experience:

A good manager must adjust to their audience, don’t treat 10+ years experienced employees the same as those with less than one year! This is a sign that the manager does not have the confidence (or experience) to manage experience.

10) Don’t learn new skills or improve existing ones:

This boss feels, why should they learn stuff when they have people to do stuff! They fail to learn even the most elementary technology like email attachments, making their staff do that in addition to their own work.

11) Only communicate the trivial:

This manager can’t deliver big news that is in any way negative. They communicate on small, insignificant things and don’t tell anyone about challenges in the business, changes in process or even positive news.

12) Build a sense of importance by talking about how busy they are all the time:

This manager constantly tells their team how busy they are, how they had to catch up by working all weekend. They have to remind everyone how they are busier and thus work harder than everybody else. Often these are the same people who talk excessively at work.

If you wish to read the full ShelfLife Magazine February 2022 Issue, you can do so by clicking here.

Retail Recruitment Experts

Grocery Retail Recruitment Experts in Dublin City Centre

Posted on | by Aisling Rafferty

Excel Recruitment MD, Barry Whelan and Head of Grocery Retail Recruitment Nikki Murran answered some questions for a March feature in Shelflife Magazine. Here they discussed how Recruitment Agencies can help you and absolve all hardship when it come to a new hire. Statistics from the most recent Retail Sector Survey show the sector has the propensity to be worth €46 billion by 2020. Currently, our industry employs 270,000 people nationwide, with the potential to grow to 310,000 by 2020.

Recruitment the right way

Any business, no matter what sector it operates in, is only as good as its people – and retail is absolutely no different in this respect. But what do you do when you need to fill a position fast and already have a million and one back-office tasks to complete on your to-do list? Time to outsource your dilemma to the professionals, writes Orla Keeling

During the recession, Ireland’s retail value dropped dramatically. Even with the recovery and the growth in the economy since the crash, 2015 figures showed that the total value of Irish retail sales remained at 14% below the peak levels. Retail employment is dependent on economic growth and an increase in consumer spending.

Over the years, retail employment figures have declined by over 45,000. Despite this, the downturn didn’t affect the retail sector dramatically as it remained as Ireland’s largest industry and largest employer at that time (Source: Retail Ireland – ‘Retail in depth’).

Unfortunately the cost of doing business has escalated.  Rent, insurance, utilities and local services have increased. This increased costs for retail businesses without the necessary profits and growth in consumer spending. The result was that this added significant pressure to retailers.

But recent figures show the consumer economy is growing again. Ireland’s inflation rate is now steady at 0.1%* (as of January 2016). This is a huge benefit to the industry, and more retail opportunities are expected in the near future. However this adds even more pressure to retailers to compete within the marketplace *(Source: Trading Economics).

With the rise in the consumer economy and spending, retailers are once again recruiting. The recruitment process can be very stressful and take up a huge amount of the retailer’s time. The time they spend on increasing store profit margins and customer service is shortened and their priorities have shifted to recruitment. But there is an easy solution: recruitment agencies.

What do recruitment agencies do and how does it help the retailers?

Recruitment agencies put the retail organisations in control of their recruitment aims and connect them with the right candidates without the hassle and stress of the recruitment process.

A recruitment agency will take care of everything. This includes services such as advertising, checking CVs and conducting the initial interviews.

The agencies research the organisations and find out who and what works best for them. Knowing what works best for the retailers and how their business is run, gives the recruitment agency the knowledge of the necessary personality and skills for the ideal employee. This is also used to maximise the potential of future employees.

Pressure and stress on retailers is reduced, as the best CVs land on their desks without all of the stress, and having to deal with the recruitment process and its tasks. (Source: Excel Recruitment).

Maximising retailers’ energy and time while reducing stress, is of huge benefit to the organisations. But this is just one of the many benefits of the service. Retailers can focus on their stores and improving their profits as the economy improves, instead of slowing productivity and increasing stress levels through recruiting employees.

Only certain recruitment agencies specialise in retail. Many large retailers, as well as smaller independents and symbol group retailers avail of their services.

On average, a retail enterprise in Dublin employs 13 people. This figure is significantly lower in other areas in the country as the midlands employs on average, four to five people, the west employs five and the south-west employs six (Source: Retail Ireland – Strategy for Retail 2014-2016).

Employment potential in Ireland’s retail sector

Retail Ireland’s Strategy for Retail 2014-2016 states: “On the basis of annual growth in retail sales of 3-4% until 2020, the Irish retail sector has the potential to reach €46 billion in value terms. Such growth would lead to total employment in the retail sector of over 310,000 people – an increase of almost 40,000 on the current number.”
This potential growth in both employment and value terms is a huge opportunity for not only the Irish economy but also for recruitment agencies. With the rise in employment numbers in retail, more and more retailers will turn to these companies and avail of their recruitment services.

Q & A with…

Barry Whelan and Nikki Murran, Excel Recruitment

From the employer’s perspective, how do you ensure that you find the best candidate(s) to fulfil a particular role?

Excel Recruitment is ‘the retail recruitment company’. Our team of consultants all come from strong retail careers. We believe that the ability to find great people for our clients comes from our knowledge of the market, the people in it, the businesses we recruit for and fundamentally the ability to understand each role and each client intimately. We are 13 years in business recruiting for retail in Ireland. We’re fortunate enough to recruit for some of the best Irish and International retailers in the world, operating here in Ireland, from large corporations to wonderful independents. We have a database of over 50,000 candidates. This represents a fifth of the entire retail employment market in Ireland. We have built up this database over 13 years and live on it.

Why should a candidate enlist your services to help find a new role?

Recruitment consultancy is a complex process and as past retailers, we realise that both our clients and candidates are our company’s customers. We need to find the best candidates in the market. We need to understand their ‘reason for leaving’ their current employer or find them the right role if they are job seeking, matching them with the best position and company possible. In order to do this firstly we need to be the expert.

Expertise

Our policy of hiring only retailers and training them rigorously in recruitment means we know retail. We know the businesses our candidates are coming from, the companies they work for, along with the businesses they want to work for.

We offer candidates a broad overview of the industry and a variety of options for their careers. We find candidates come to us daily for guidance with their options.

Placing a candidate is not just a sale to us. We understand that moving jobs and job seeking can be very stressful. A period of unhappiness in work or unemployment can be a very difficult time in a person’s life and we understand that your job is one of the most important things in your life.

What, in your opinion, makes the expertise of your team stand out from rivals?

What sets us apart from other recruitment companies is our in-depth knowledge of the retail industry. Not only does founder and MD, Barry Whelan, have extensive experience in retail management, having started his career with the Shopping Basket convenience store chain and worked for Quinnsworth and Dunnes Stores as a manager, but combined, our team has over 50 years’ experience in retail with each of our consultants having worked for a variety of retailers.

Recruitment, like retail, is a people business. To have the best employees, you need to recruit the best people. We use state of the art behaviour profiling from TTI Success Insights coupled with SHL Aptitude testing for verbal reasoning.

We invest in our people. Our training is unique and represents best practice in the market. It ensures trainees are trained fully and consistently. As trainees qualify from the company training programme, we invest in external training. This investment means staff feel (and are) valued. They are part of the strategic plan for Excel’s future.

All our recruiters are past retailers. (They would never call themselves ex-retailers as they really believe it’s something that’s in your blood). However not all of our recruiters have worked with all of our clients. We regularly send consultants out to our clients for top-up, hands on, retail training. This ensures our team have an in-depth understanding of all of the clients we work with and are up-to-date on all the new changes, policies, and trends in the retail world.

Consistency ensures success and only professional processes ensure consistency. We have invested heavily in processes in our business. This has culminated in our 30-page recruitment consultant’s manual entitled ‘Excel: 40 steps to recruiting’. This manual gives our consultants the knowledge when working, to keep a professional process in place for every step of the recruitment process.

Testimonials

Client

“I have three different Centra stores with many different challenges facing my team. With the help of Barry and his team in Excel, throughout the years I have chosen the right candidates to suit my needs. Excel brings me high calibre candidates capable of doing the job. Barry and his team understand my expectations and they deliver every time. Selecting the right people for the job is crucial in getting your business right. I wouldn’t use anyone else for selecting my team.” Breda Cahill – Owner, Cahill’s Centra

“I have dealt with Excel Recruitment for a number of years and time after time they always come up with the exact person I am looking for. When you speak to Barry and the Excel team, they listen to every word that you say. The overall service I have received from Excel is the best yet.” Edmund Dick – Owner, Dick’s SuperValu

Candidate

“Barry found me a job with Steven Nally’s SuperValu Group. I’m grateful for the fact that Barry thought of me for the role and put me forward for it. I am really enjoying the job and I am looking forward to the future; I really feel it’s been a great move for me.’’ Michael Hickey – Bakery area manager, Nally’s SuperValu Group

Read more: https://www.shelflife.ie/recruitment-the-right-way/#ixzz8YDDekAz6