Every so often, we combine things here at Top Echelon. For instance, we combine the Recruiter of the Month and the Recruiter of the Week.

One reason is Trey Cameron of the Cameron Craig Group. Trey wins the Recruiter of the Month Award every month. He did so again in February.

However, a new recruiter cracked the top five recruiters for the month of February. That recruiter is Kimberly Taylor of the Harlan Recruiting Group. As you might have already guessed, Kimberly is the Recruiter of the Week in Top Echelon!

Praise for member Kimberly Taylor

Kimberly Taylor

Kimberly made four split placements in rapid succession at the end of 2017. She and her trading partner for those placements (Melissa Truax) received their share of the checks for those placements recently. (And, of course, we received our 6% brokerage fee.)

In fact, Kimberly and Melissa made those four splits in a span of 40 days, between November 17 and December 26. Kimberly had the candidate all four times. Below is what Melissa had to say about Kimberly following one of the placements:

“Kimberly! I am so glad we are working together! You are truly a PRO at what you do! I am so proud to have you on my recruiting partner team! You keep up this hard work and incredible positive attitude, you are going to outshine all the others! Thank you!”

So congratulations to Kimberly, to the others on the list below, and to everybody who made placements in our split network during the month of February!

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Recruiters of the Month:

1st Place: Trey Cameron
Agency: Cameron Craig Group
Placements: eight (8)
Commission: $58,468

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2nd Place: Melissa Truax
Agency: Premier Health Careers, Inc./Premier Paths
Placements: five (5)
Commission: $15,326

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3rd Place: Terry Rhodes
Agency: NewCareers
Placements: Four (4)
Commission: $27,617

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4th Place: Kimberly Taylor
Agency: Harlan Recruiting Group
Placements: Four (4)
Commission: $11,453

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5th Place: Robert Alexander
Agency: Systems Technology International, Inc.
Placements: three (3)
Commission: $19,852

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Top Echelon determines the monthly and quarterly winners of its split recruiting awards based upon two criteria, which are listed below in order of importance:

1.) The number of split placements made
2.) The amount of “cash-in” dollars earned as a result of those split placements

This explains why, when multiple recruiters are tied with the same number of placements during a given month or quarter, the recruiter with the largest “cash-in” total is deemed the winner.

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If you’re looking to make more placements with your Top Echelon recruiter network membership, contact Director of Network Operations Drea Codispoti, CPC/CERS. You can do so by calling 330.455.1433, x156 or by sending an email to drea@topechelon.com.

The buzz phrase “work-life balance” often conjures up images of busy parents trying to juggle work with childcare responsibilities. But workers who are also taking care of elderly relatives in addition to their own children take that balancing act to a whole other level.

Of the nearly 40 million Americans caring for elderly individuals, 22% also care for children under the age of 18, making them part of what is known as “The Sandwich Generation,” according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Some employers try to help with programs such as the “back-up elder care” program. However, those programs are rare.

“The Sandwich Generation” and flexibility

In these situations, contract staffing is often the answer. Contracting provides flexibility to “The Sandwich Generation” (and other generations) in the following three ways:

#1—Providing more versatile schedules

Because contract assignments are often project-based, clients may allow workers to stray from the typical schedule.

#2—Allowing work from home

A contractor may be able to do some or all of their work remotely. This is critical for workers with elderly relatives who need constant supervision or who live far away.

#3—Allowing extended breaks

Elder care issues sometimes require more than a little time off. The worker may need to arrange in-home care or a nursing home. They may need to relocate the relative from across the country. Or they may simply want to spend additional quality time with their loved ones with a terminal illness.

The federal Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) may help some workers in these circumstances, but the law does not apply to all employers. Contracting allows them to take breaks between assignments to care for their loved one.

No one should have to choose between their job and doing what they think is best for their family. As a recruiter, you can make sure they don’t have to by providing them with a flexible contract assignment.

There’s a good chance that many of you are familiar with what is called a “SWOT Analysis.” SWOT is an acronym that stands for the following:

• Strengths
• Weaknesses
• Opportunities
• Threats

In this particular blog post, we’ll be dealing with the threats. Actually, we recently asked YOU to identify threats to the recruiting profession. Specifically, we posed the following poll question in the Members’ Area:

What is the biggest threat to the recruiting industry right now?

The choice of answers that we provided is listed below, along with the percentage of split network recruiters that selected each one:

• Possibility of a recession — 22.0%
• Social media (LinkedIn specifically) — 8.5%
• Artificial intelligence — 9.3%
• Companies hiring internal recruiters — 25.4%
• There is NO threat! — 29.7%
• Some other threat not listed here — 5.1%

Here a threat, there a threat . . .

This was a close race. However, there was a clear-cut winner. “There is NO threat!” was the most popular answer with 29.7% of the vote.

There were a couple of answers that were close, though. One of them was “Companies hiring internal recruiters” at 25.4%. Another was the “Possibility of a recession” at 22.0%.

For as many people who think that LinkedIn is going to put recruiters out of business, it does not appear as though recruiters are among them. That’s because only 8.5% selected “Social media (LinkedIn specifically) as their answer. Heck, LinkedIn is apparently even less of a threat than “Artificial intelligence” (9.3%).

Last, but certainly not least, 5.1% of recruiters indicated that the biggest threat to the recruiting profession is “Some other threat not listed here.” Ominous, but ultimately, non-specific.

There are two kinds of threats: those that you can see and know about and those that you can’t see and don’t know about. Hopefully for recruiters and the recruiting profession, all the threats that exist are the ones that can be seen.

It’s the ones you can’t see that can prove especially problematic.

Looking to maximize your membership and make more placements in Top Echelon’s recruiting network?

Then contact Director of Network Operations Drea Codispoti, CPC/CERS. You can do so by calling 330.455.1433, x156 or by sending an email to drea@topechelon.com.