The summer is a distant memory as we enter the hectic autumn period. The good news is the jobs market remains strong, with growing employment and declining unemployment. In fact the major issue for business is finding quality candidates for the jobs available. This shows what a dynamic, agile and flexible jobs market can deliver in the face of political turmoil and economic uncertainty.

As I travel the UK talking to recruiters the key question for many business leaders is: how can we continue to grow?

My advice is simple – focus on four areas to achieve more.

1. Seek to differentiate your organisation in the minds of your clients, and do that by exceeding their expectations every day. For starters, you need to deliver good candidates, great service and an organisation which cares about helping clients achieve more. However, the best agencies go way beyond this. Clients expect more from their recruitment partner nowadays – they’re looking to you for expert advice and insight about the jobs market, knowledge about what their competitors are doing, and to help them answer the fundamental question: how can we get better at attracting the people we need?
2. Remember we’re all in human capital businesses – the only real asset we have is the people we employ. To get the best out of your team, you have to be prepared to invest in them. That means constantly developing the skills of your consultants to make sure they are the best they can be. It also means ensuring that your team leaders are fantastic coaches who can provide feedback every day, which helps your people improve.
3. Provide a great candidate experience. In the REC’s 2015 report, ‘The candidate strikes back’, we revealed that over 80% of candidates are not asked for feedback about the hiring process. This is astounding – if the customer of the recruitment process is the candidate, how can we possibly get better without this feedback? Provide a quality process, and develop metrics to help you improve.
4. Demonstrate to staff, candidates and clients that great systems, processes and above all professionalism matter to you. Be robust on how you do things and hold your people to account. Cutting corners just doesn’t work in the long term.

If you focus your efforts on these four drivers of performance you won’t go far wrong.