The recruitment industry has “not done a great job of selling itself” to potential customers, Baroness Kingsmill, a member of the House of Lords Economic Affairs Committee, told an audience of recruitment executives on Wednesday [17 October 2012] in London.

She went on to say that getting decision-makers to place greater importance on the value of the service offered rather than on margins and money depended on recruiters “distilling what you offer the customer” by being more specific as to concrete benefits of what was presented.

“What you have to do is distinguish the service you offer,” said the baroness, who who also sits on the boards of companies such as Betfair and E.ON and on the Microsoft European Policy Council and on the PwC Advisory Board.

The baroness was the guest speaker at the Association of Professional Staffing Companies’ annual member awards luncheon, attended by Recruiter. She was responding to an audience question about why margins were more important than true value to corporate procurement departments. 

During her talk, she also highlighted current discussions on the Economic Affairs Committee over the potential cost to Great Britain if Scottish voters vote for independence. She said that while Scotland’s government would be “happy to take on 90% of oil revenues… would they be happy to take on 90% of [Royal Bank of Scotland]’s debt?”

What she described as “the Westminster focus” of the UK government leaves residents of England’s North feeling disenfranchised, she said, and she was concerned that “a leech of talent” to Scotland could occur with people seeking to take advantage of free services including university educations.

At the beginning of her talk, the baroness, who previously headed a government enquiry into women’s pay, noted with some irony that it was good to see “a sea of wonderful male faces” in the audience.