A Northern Ireland-based recruiter has formed a LinkedIn group aimed at raising standards within the industry.

Conor Rafferty, owner of Belfast-based Altmore IT Recruitment, told Recruiter he launched ‘UK Recruiters for Reform’ because he believed
professional standards had fallen within the industry, and it faces external and internal threats. “It is imperative we set our own house in order,” said Rafferty.

The group, launched on 24 February, is open to ‘traditional’ recruiters: permanent, contingency and retained search. The group’s 50 members
include directors of SMEs and individual recruiters, ex-board members of the Association of Professional Staffing Companies (APSCo) and the Recruitment and Employment Confederation (REC).

“It’s a group where ideas are being debated and actions are being proposed,” said Rafferty.

Ashley Cooper, director of engineering and marketing recruiter Parc Ellis, told Recruiter: “Using a vehicle like LinkedIn to bring together like-minded companies for some collective action is a great start. I would hope that the group could grow to a size where it could influence and change the direction of the industry in the same way that the big players have with their RPO offerings.”

Among the proposals: a job board limiting jobs to those posted by recruiters themselves, rather than direct from employers. One possibility is that agencies posting jobs would have to be members of either APSCo or the REC. “Work is already in progress on such a board,” said Rafferty. Rafferty said the group’s formation was a reaction to “internal threats” facing recruiters, such as agencies engaging in unethical conduct. A consequence was an external threat, that employers were becoming wary of using agencies, he argued.

Rafferty said he supported the work of the REC and APSCo to raise standards. However, he argued that they hadn’t yet caught up on the potential of Web 2.0 technology “to promote interactive debate within the community of traditional recruiters”.

Rafferty acknowledged that the forum was still new, but he was optimistic tha