Blog: Recruitment in Denmark is broken.

The title for this blog has been toned down. 

The working title for the last few weeks has been ‘Danish recruitment is a bit shit’ but with one thing and another broken is more acceptable.

Also, many of the Danish HR people I spoke to whilst writing this suggested that anything too contentious wouldn’t generate the types of conversations I was hoping for, but let’s go for it. 

As may be obvious, I am not Danish.

I live in the UK, working for my Estonian registered business, with a team spread across the world, none of which are Danish.

My obsession with Danish organisations and how they recruit started pre-covid.

Sick of working in central London every week as an interim, I was looking for somewhere I could fly to in less than 2 hours and would accept me as someone who knew something about talent acquisition and knew how to improve it.  The location needed to have a mix of skills shortages, high recruitment agency spending, high salary expectations and some very traditional HR practices.

I present to you Denmark.

Back in 2019, I worked with my first embedded client, pre-immersive, helping a 200-person SaaS business to recruit salespeople.

Their model was simple.

Hire male 26 or 27-year-olds often called Mads, from recruitment agencies populated by male 26 or 27-year-olds often called Mads.  Hiring Managers would hire based on a wolf of Wall Street approach of “sell me this pen”, and if the new hire didn’t work out (50% attrition suggested that it didn’t), then they would repeat the process, with the recruitment agencies happy to help and make another fee. (I can’t share the company name here for obvious reasons.)

This might be an extreme viewpoint, but the fundamental reason that this exists and continues to exist today is the love of external recruitment agencies.   It’s combined with the belief that only recruitment agencies can proactively approach candidates, and somehow, their database is more effective than a community of engaged candidates who are interested in them and them alone.

This isn’t intended as an agency bash.  

If you have a single specialist role, sure, why wouldn't you go to an agency?

But, as soon as you start hiring more than 2 or 3 a month, you need to attract candidates in your name, building on your brand, not theirs.  

To support my view, we recently ran a survey that told us that organisations find it a real challenge when using a recruitment agency because:

• The price is too high? 26%

• The quality of candidates is poor? 42%

• Agencies don’t understand company culture? 27%

But how does this relate to Denmark specifically?

Well, fundamentally, there is the market itself.

Denmark is often lauded for its progressive social policies, but when it comes to recruitment, the country has some serious shortcomings. Despite being one of the most developed countries in Europe, Denmark has been slow to adopt modern recruitment practices, leading to a lack of qualified candidates and a shortage of skilled labour. 

With a very traditional approach to recruitment, companies often rely on word-of-mouth (Denmark is a small pond to fish in), personal connections and a heavy reliance on recruitment agencies.  Those agencies are often short-sighted, only focusing on spending time and energy on the things that make them quick money, both with clients and candidates, making them reluctant to innovate and invest for the longer term.

Throw in low unemployment and the fact that the Danish job market is highly competitive. It is clear companies are making it difficult for themselves to hire good people. Companies often require candidates to have specific qualifications and experience, and they are often unwilling to consider applicants who don’t meet these criteria. One of the most obvious is the need to speak Danish even for international roles.

My personal experience is that organisations are happy to hire through an agency because it is the agency name that goes to market, not theirs, as there is something ‘un-Danish’ about proactively targeting potential future hires from competitors.  But doing it via a 3rd party in a cloak-and-dagger way isn’t the answer either.  Transparency is the key here.

Let’s call it as it is: recruitment in Denmark isn’t working.

Way ahead of the actual assessment, where a disproportionate number of hiring decisions are made on gut feel, personal experience, who you know and corporate belief systems about the sort of person ‘hired around here,’ there is the actual methodology applied to get people into that interview.

If companies always hire via agencies, then they are missing out.  

It’s like my tale of Mads, finding Mads to replace Mads at the SaaS provider.  The continuous cycle brings the same result, and the only person who profits is Mads, the agency recruiter who gets his fee over and over again.   

That commission/success fee model isn’t new.  The problem with incentive-based pay in recruitment is that it requires less commitment from the client, which isn’t a good thing because it creates a false economy. The contingency search agency has traditionally focused on placement anywhere as long as they get paid. Agencies place candidates; they aren’t looking at roles or culture.

So what can we do?

Clearly, I have a vested interest in changing the dynamic, changing how organisations hire, one company at a time if I have to.

Firstly think about the process, put yourselves in the shoes of a candidate.  Would they rather talk to Mads about 10 roles he has on ‘his books’ or to someone who looks and sounds like you, representing your organisation, your brand and specific skills and talking to candidates about you and you alone?

Next, make that person (let’s call them a talent partner) less errm… Danish.  

Let them look locally, regionally, and globally.  Now, remote work isn’t for everyone or every role, but if you don’t have the right people in Denmark, you will find them elsewhere.  I have hired people in over 35 countries, yet lived in only 1.  I’ve managed projects worldwide and led a team in 10 countries.  

You can too.

Think about your culture and let your talent partner in.  If you compare yourself to your competitors, what makes the difference? 

It’s your culture.

Your DNA.  I know when I look at my business, clients buy from us because we are who we are and have our way of doing things.  Acknowledgement of company culture has changed how both companies recruit, and candidates search for jobs. 

So my answer?

Combine in-house talent acquisition know-how with global reach.   Hire for the skills you actually need, understand and promote your culture and talk to candidates about you and you alone.  Finally, put a model in place that can scale up and down with your business demand.  

Still think that an agency is better?

About 

Martin is the CEO of Immersive.

We equip high-growth companies, large and small, with the people, tools, and experience needed to recruit at scale on a global basis, including Denmark. Our fully-embedded recruitment solution combines talent expertise with data-driven processes to scale your team better and faster.

To schedule a call with our CEO, Martin, click here