The managing director of Hays Resource Management has criticised recruiters on its preferred supplier list (PSL) for Abbey for submitting too many unsuitable CVs.

In response to a question from Recruiter at an event on how to use the web to promote your employer brand, Paul Mallinson, said that while recruiters submitted a lot of CVs, many "were not relevant'' to the client's needs.

He argued that the performance of these agencies compared unfavourably with the effectiveness of online recruitment advertising.

Mallinson said that while spending on Abbey's PSL amounted to 44% of the recruitment budget, it resulted in only 19% of hires.

Online recruitment methods, on the other hand, resulted in 49% of hires despite accounting for only 28% of spending.

Mallinson hinted that recruiters that didn't improve their performance in supplying Hays RM, the resource process outsourcing division of Hays, faced the axe. He said: "We initiated a supply chain [in July 2006] and we are now in a programme of rationalising our procurement. There's a lot of work to be done on this in 2008."

Mallinson explained that the difference in effectiveness between online recruitment methods and the approach taken by agencies was that while the former targeted people "who wanted to work for Abbey", recruitment agency users generally did not specifically want to work for Abbey, but were looking for a choice of employers.