Staffing companies who wish to stand out from their competitors have been urged to provide organisational charts of their potential clients’ competitors.

“If a recruiter comes along with an organisational chart of our competitors we will listen to them,” Gary Franklin, talent acquisition manager at Symantec, told an audience of recruiters at an Association of Professional Staffing Company (APSCo) meeting in London at the end of September.

Daniel Whitehead, director of recruiting (Europe) at Barclays Global Investors, added that he values recruiters who can provide information on what is going on in the market and what his competitors are doing. “This type of information is like gold dust,” he said.

Franklin also emphasised the importance of how recruiters come across on the phone. “Are they friendly and do they thank you for your time? It’s down to the personal approach. If that goes well, I will give them a couple of minutes of my time to differentiate themselves from the competition.”

For Whitehead, being an expert in a particular area will grab his attention. “If they are a generalist, I can probably tell them more than they can tell me,” he said.

Emma Smith, international resourcing manager at Tesco (Europe), said that she was happy to engage with companies and was open to looking at CVs. “Why wouldn’t we, when we are looking for the best global talent?” she added.

However, she said she didn’t have time for sales calls involving pre-planned scripts. It is also important that recruiters actually listened and didn’t follow up by sending CV that didn’t match the criteria.

Smith added that Tesco was increasingly looking to use recruiters for specialisms, for example, property mangers and directors in India, “where Tesco doesn’t have sight of them”.

Katie McNab, recruitment manager at PepsiCo, said she looked for suppliers who had experience of working in the industry they wished to supply, “not a 25-year-old straight out of university who wants to make a quick buck”.