Former recruiters are being identified as the best new recruits for HR business partner roles, the founder of HR recruitment firm Oakleaf Partnership has said. 

Citing anecdotal evidence, Richard Colgan said on Friday that skills characteristic of recruiters are valued operationally in organisations where HR business partners are intended to be strategic partners and change agents alongside senior business leaders, whom they help execute the people dimensions of business strategies.

“They’re fast, commercially savvy, they have good communications skills, they’re good at ‘speed dating’,” Colgan said. “They’re making the best HR business partners.”

Colgan and Annapurna HR founder/director James Ballard shared the podium last week at the HR Forum 2016 in discussing how HR professionals can add value to their organisations in the current VUCA [volatile, uncertain, complex, ambiguous] world environment.   

When seeking candidates currently for clients of their respective HR recruitment businesses, Colgan and Ballard say, previous management consultancy experience and project management skills are hotly sought after in HR roles they are filling. These traits are likely to continue being essential ‘must haves’ going forward.

“I see thousands of CVs from HR business partners,” Colgan went on to say, adding that what should appear on those CVs is evidence that the candidates “understand the language of business – P & L [profit and loss] statements and balance sheets”.

Held on the cruise ship Arcadia, the HR Forum 2016 was sponsored by Richmond Events.

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