RLC,now known as JacksonGrant, was named the Outstanding Small Company of 2022 at the BCCT King Power Thailand Business Awards (TIBA) last month. It’s the second significant accolade RLC has received this year: In September the agency won the Best in Client Service Award (Asia) at Vincere’s Vinny Awards. Why has JacksonGrant been receiving so much recognition lately?

JacksonGrant’s Brand & Marketing Executive Chanuchida ‘Cook-Kik’ Korranut interviews Alexander Grant, Director of Recruitment Operations, to learn more about how the agency manages to punch above its weight and stay on top of an increasingly challenging marketplace.

COOK Kik:

Were you surprised that we won the BCCT award?

Alex Grant:

Yes. There was a lot of competition, and a lot of innovative companies nominated, so it came as a huge surprise. Perhaps it shouldn’t have come as such a great surprise, because this is 2nd prize we’ve won this year, along with Best in Client Service from Vincere. In any case, it is a big honour to be named the Most Outstanding Small Business in all of Thailand.

I think these accolades & recognition are down to the fact that we continuously try to provide innovative solutions in recruitment, during a time when the industry is becoming increasingly transactional.

A lot of companies are mainly engaged in CV-farming, whereas we develop relationships with candidates and clients on a personal level; we build deeper, long-lasting ties with the people we work with.

In essence, we make an effort to go the extra mile to serve clients and job-seekers alike.

Cook Kik:

What are some of the innovations that JacksonGrant has introduced?

Alex:

We are now providing Recruitment as a Service [RaaS]; it’s a game-changer.

The benefits include massive cost savings for clients, easy-to-forecast billing, an affordable monthly subscription plan, time-saving, integrated expertise, and dedicated client support.

We’ve also introduced new technologies, such as our BI dashboards, which provide comprehensive data and additional insights for our clients on their end-to-end hiring timeline.

By working in partnership, rather than on a contingency basis, we are providing more than just a recruitment service. With the aid of cutting-edge technology, we are building client algorithms … this means that the more we search, the better the results become.

Cook-Kik:

Why is Raas better than the traditional contingency recruitment model?

Alex:

The traditional model has a service rate, or success fee of 18-25%. On average, with contingent recruitment, only 20% of the jobs that consultants work on are successfully placed. This means that consultants will, on average, waste 80% of their time on non-billing activities under the contingency model. They are more likely to move onto another job before finding a solution for the client. With contingency recruiting, the client is often left unsatisfied, with their much-needed position remaining unfilled. Recruiting consultants naturally give up on a search after a period of time, because there is no incentive to push on and solve the problem. It becomes a function of diminishing returns for their labour.

With RaaS, our consultants are motivated to push through the barriers that are inherent with contingency recruiting: there’s no wasted time.

Cook Kik:

Can you give an example of how RaaS works in practice?

Alex:

Sure. One of our clients recently had six positions remain open for 15 months. During that time, they advertised extensively online, but failed to find matching candidates. They gave these positions to multiple recruitment agencies; they all failed to fill the positions.

Then they came to us and signed up for RaaS. We faced the same challenges that others faced; however, we conducted a deeper analysis into why the candidates weren’t matching. We determined that the seniority levels were incorrect, and the job descriptions did not precisely match with the work each position entailed.

We have managed to place five out of those six vacancies in three months. And we haven’t given up on the sixth.

Cook-Kik:

How was JacksonGrant able to achieve in 3 months what several other agencies could not in more than one year?

Alex:

Our subscription model truly enhances our ability to find the right candidates.

We’ve put in a tremendous amount of legwork over the past 10 years, and now we – and our clients –are reaping the rewards of the relationships we’ve cultivated. JacksonGrant consultants develop detailed talent maps that reach all the way from junior positions to the senior executive level.

People whom we placed in junior to mid-level jobs five years ago are now running entire country operations or leading regional divisions; we know where they are at and where they came from, they are our friends. We helped them get to where they are today. This is why our network is so powerful, and why we continue to get results when others fail.

Cook-Kik:

How does the special technology you mentioned help with RaaS?

Alex:

In past we had to do a lot of manual research. Now, by using advanced tech and algorithms, and Boolean searches, it drastically reduces the time it takes to do these things.

With this mapping technology, and deep experience with consulting, our clients are able to get more well-rounded advice based on facts and less on conjecture … our analytics are data-driven, not emotional, not someone’s opinion. It gives us more time to spend on what’s more important, which are namely our candidates and the clients.

Cook Kik:

What do you have planned to stay ahead of the pack in 2023?

Alex:

We will expand our RaaS service, we will scale back our rec-tech [contingency] efforts, and we will strengthen our executive search division.

We anticipate a lot of activity in Manufacturing, Engineering, and Supply Chain in the coming year. A lot of our focus will be on these sectors.

We also will continue to invest in the latest recruitment technology software to stay ahead of the curve – at no extra cost to our clients.