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Place Faith in Raw Talent To add to the debate prompted by your ‘consultant crisis’ campaign, it seems to me that the only ingredient required is a willingness to bring in raw talent and to invest in training new consultants. From talking to applicants who are trying to get into recruitment, there seems to be a wealth of ‘word of mouth’ goodwill; people already in the business frequently talk with their friends and inspire them with a desire to join the industry. But I also know that many recruitment companies are reluctant to train from cold, preferring instead to entice consultants away from their current jobs. I question whether this approach really is a safe bet. Too many ‘recruitment to recruitment’ firms market people on their books as experienced, when they may have as little as three months’ experience in the business. And even people who are genuinely experienced may come from an entirely different sector or work in a way that is unsuitable for the company they are joining. Our experience at Gordon Yates, built over a long period of time, is that to get so-called experienced consultants working productively, we have to invest almost as much training – or re-training – in them as we do with our new trainees. It is of course dangerous to generalise, but on average our ‘cold’ trainees show greater long term loyalty than ‘bought-in’ consultants. Perhaps it’s time for a re-think about the way we recruit into the industry. Richard Grace 
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