David Farmer - Recruiter Profile | Harnham Recruitment

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David Farmer

Senior Partner / COO

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Bio

As a Founding Partner of Harnham, David has built and established sales teams facing in to the UK and international markets. David is now responsible for overseeing Harnham’s global sales team, whilst also building best in class Learning & Development, Human resources and Internal recruitment teams.

David’s career has spanned over 15 years in recruitment across the IT, Pharmaceutical and Data & Analytics markets, and is recognised as an expert in the analytics market.

Harnham blog & news

With over 10 years experience working solely in the Data & Analytics sector our consultants are able to offer detailed insights into the industry.

Visit our Blogs & News portal or check out our recent posts below.

Harnham Achieve Best Companies' 3 Star Accreditation

We are delighted to announce that Best Companies has awarded Harnham a 3 Star accreditation, their highest standard of workplace engagement. Presented only to organisations that truly excel, the accreditation reflects 'extraordinary' levels of workplace engagement. As a business who dedicates a lot of effort towards our employees’ wellbeing and development, we’re incredibly pleased to see that our team remains incredibly engaged. This is only our first year of participating in this survey, so to achieve such a high score reflects how highly we value our workforce. Following a recent run of award wins, including being named APSCo’s Recruitment Company of the Year £10m-£50m and LinkedIn’s 6th Most Socially Engaged Staffing Agency (out of 38,000), we’re excited to see what the remainder of 2019 holds for Harnham. If you’d like to work for us, take a look at our Internal Recruitment area or email joinus@harnham.com.

by David Farmer

24. January 2019

Download our 2018 UK & EU Salary Guides

We are thrilled to announce the release of the 2018 editions of our market-leading Salary Guides for the UK, US and Europe. Having spoken to thousands of Data & Analytics professionals across the globe, we gained invaluable insights into key industry salaries and trends across a wide variety of specialisms and sectors. Our surveys are created for analysts, by analysts, and offer a detailed, on-the-ground look at what’s concerning talent in the industry. As with the last few years, 2018 has shown us that the data industry continues to grow and shows no sign of slowing, with demand for analysts still easily outstripping supply. The guides include salary and trend analysis across five key specialisms: Data & Technology, Data Science, Digital Analytics, Marketing & Insight, and Risk Analytics. You can download the UK & EU guides here.

by David Farmer

10. September 2018

Charity begins at work

At Harnham, we believe that charity begins at work. We allow each employee to take one paid charity day off a year, in addition to their annual leave, to work for a charity of their choice. In December 2017, almost every employee in our London office decided to use their charity day to collectively volunteer for a local charity. In the lead up to Christmas, 50 employees went out in small groups daily to volunteer at the Wimbledon Foodbank. Employees generously brought in their own food to donate, and Harnham also donated a £500 supermarket order. Thanks to our volunteering at the Wimbledon foodbank, we contributed to providing help to 889 people in crisis in December 2017. 8 tons of food was donated, sorted and dated, and over 300 food parcels were handed out. In comparison, during November, 352 people were fed, 124 parcels were handed out, and 3 tons of donations were received. In order to keep supporting the Wimbledon Foodbank, employees have the opportunity to donate directly to them through our Payroll Just Giving Scheme. Harnham also matches all donations up to the value of £20.

by David Farmer

21. May 2018

Data and Analytics Market Review

Anyone working in analytics will know as well as I do that things move fast. The pace of change and evolution in the market means that each year presents new challenges and opportunities for us all. As I write this, we are busy planning our 10th anniversary celebrations; since the first day Simon and I started working from a couple of desks in his lounge back in 2006, we’ve immersed ourselves in data and analytics, and now Harnham is filled with a thriving team who are equally as passionate about the market as we are. Harnham’s Market Insight 2016 saw us release our latest data and analytics salary guide. Apologies to those who had issues downloading it – our website was overwhelmed by the 900 people who downloaded it in the first few hours alone! It yet again, emphasised many interesting points about the market, whether you’re hiring or being hired. If you would like more information on anything from this year’s guide, feel free to get in touch with one of the team. Beyond the UK, 2016 has been a busy year. Harnham’s international expansion has continued apace – in the last year, we have welcomed Alex Hutchings as Director of our European business and Craig Brown as Managing Director of Harnham USA. With these two additions, we now have consultants working in 11 countries across Europe alongside our growing UK and USA teams, meaning we are more equipped than ever to support you in any of these regions. As well as learning to say resume rather than CV, the team in the USA has also shared their tips on strategic CV writing and how to overcome hiring challenges. Data And Analytics Is Moving OnOver the last few years, data and analytics has spread its reach far and wide. Data science in particular, has continued to grow as a discipline, moving it from “must-have title” and industry buzzword to a clearly defined discipline. For graduates entering that market, the options are broad and potentially bewildering. So, Harvey offered solid advice for graduates in his recent article. As fast as the market is developing, it is not without its struggles, as seen in Jethro’s post about why it is hard to build a Big Data team, whilst Ross detailed why Business Intelligence is often considered “old news”. Beyond simply focusing on analytics and data, we’ve created commentary on topics important to us this year. As a new dad, I wrote about what I see the challenges working parents face and what I believe companies can do to support them. With all this activity, let’s not forget about the over 500 people we have found roles in the last 12 months! All in all – it’s been a busy start to the year, with more to come! You can get involved Don’t forget to download your copy of the 2016 Harnham Salary Guide and participate in ourongoing survey and tell us which trends we all should be looking out for in 2016 – 2017.

by David Farmer

05. July 2016

The Mummy Problem

As a manager of a recruitment business, I am often called into meetings with organisations to discuss the challenge of attracting a diverse workforce. The expectation of us as an agency being to ensure we are doing as much as we can to create a diverse shortlist. What strikes me about this is that as a supplier, we will be rewarded for sourcing candidates for these roles, so it is firmly in our interest to make sure we send the best candidate, no matter what sex, nationality or age. Also, positive discrimination (Affirmative action in the USA) is not legally acceptable in the UK, and therefore asking agencies to present diverse shortlists will potentially lead to more discrimination, rather than less. Equally, I think that looking at the supply of candidates to solve the diversity problem is potentially looking in the wrong direction, and instead companies need to look at some of the things that they do, that prevent them from attracting a diverse pool of candidates. There is a common trend in the meetings I attend. We work in a technical market where entry is dominated by men and where many clients struggle to attract women into management and senior management roles, and this is where I think that organisations are causing their own issues – namely the “Mummy problem”. First and foremost, let me clear up any potential for accusations of sexist generalisations – the problem should be considered a “parent problem” rather than a “mummy problem”, but the challenge does seem to disproportionately impact the female workforce more than their male counterparts, so please forgive my use of this phrase. The parent trapThe following example highlights exactly what I mean: Chatting to a friend recently, she asked me for some advice. She was in the advanced stages of an interview process and liked the company. She has one child and was thinking of a second in the future. She had asked the organisation in question to send through their benefits package and had been sent it, but it didn’t include the parental leave policy. Her concern was that if she went back to the company to ask for this then she would immediately damage her candidacy, so she wanted to see if there was a way she could find out what their policy was without asking. My advice was simple – ask them for it. If they’re not willing to share it with you or it does damage your chances of securing the role, then you don’t want to work for them anyway. In this situation, the company in question sent it through to her, and all ended well with a job offer and a new role, but that’s not the issue at hand – the problem is her perception in the first place. How many other female candidates withdraw from processes because they haven’t wanted to ask for a maternity policy? The lack of information available on these policies without asking directly for it seems very poor. Had my friend not had the confidence to ask, the company would have missed out on someone they clearly wanted to hire based on her misconception. Transparency is keyAs far as I can see, the issue isn’t exclusively with externally advertising the policies. In researching this piece, I spoke to a client within a FTSE 50 company. She shared with me that she had been looking to leave that business to secure a role with better maternity benefits as the published policy suggested that she would only be entitled to statutory maternity pay and she was worried that if she asked anyone internally if this was the case, she would then be looked at differently. It was only when she had found a potential role and approached a friend in their HR team about a question on notice period that she had an off-the-record conversation about the fact she was looking and was made aware of the fact that she was actually on an enhanced maternity package. She stayed in the business. So we find ourselves in a situation where (some) female candidates don’t want to ask the question, and female employees don’t either. Either way, this should serve as a wakeup call for many organisations that they clearly must do more to communicate parental leave policies. In my eyes, if these two examples are indicative of the norm, then the solution for companies is simple – it all comes down to communication… Knowledge is powerDetail your parental leave policy in your benefits package. Almost all the packages we see from organisations have a thorough breakdown of all potential benefits, however barely any has any detail regarding parental leave. Companies, of course, want to hire people who will spend many years in the business, but in my eyes, they’re simply not doing enough to show what that would involve. As a new father, I know just how important these conversations of maternity and paternity leave are when considering children, so companies need to consider this when selling roles to potential hires. One thing I have reflected on when writing this – is there a reason for companies to be secretive on parental leave policy? Is there a fear of other organisations learning these benefits? Is the fear that employees will feel hard done by at a junior level when their policy is not enhanced? I haven’t been able to pinpoint the answer, and whilst I have asked a number of people about this, and can’t find a conclusive theme, I would appreciate people’s thoughts.

by David Farmer

23. May 2016

HR analytics and the challenges

If I may, I'm going to start with a somewhat base level analogy, but one that I think serves a purpose! Big data is like teenage sex: everyone talks about it, nobody really knows how to do it, everyone thinks everyone else is doing it, so everyone claims they are doing it... HR analytics seems to be exactly the same We started Harnham in 2006, and reflecting on our 8 years, the market and industry is almost unrecognizable from the early days of our business. The use of data is of course growing exponentially, and companies are placing more importance on using data to make intelligent decisions. The era of just following gut instinct seems to be over. With an increase in the volume of data available, companies begin to look at new ways to use the data at their disposal, both for external and internal gain. With that in mind, I attended a conference on HR analytics recently and got a fascinating insight in to this growing sector. Of course the term HR analytics is not new. This has been around for a long time – but I learnt that there is a real desire and a real need to use the data available in new ways, and to change the analysis that companies are performing to add additional value. The buzzword from attendees at the conference seemed to be "journey". Companies have spent years gathering and collating data on employees, but now seem to be at a crossroads - do you continue just compiling this data and generating excel reports on whatever metric has been asked for by a manager that week, or is there a better way to use this data? Are we at a point where we can start going further? Can we start using this data for predictive analysis? Here is where I feel we hit three challenges. 1. ROI There was a fascinating presentation at the conference in which a case study was shared by a major retailer. They found that in a 3 year study, they could prove a link between an engaged workforce and the profit of a store. I'm sure you'll agree that this is a great find and a useful exercise, but I wondered how many organizations would be willing to spend 3 years analyzing the relationships in their business to find out if it would have a small increase in profits at a local level. Herein lies the problem, - as the actual analysis of this data seems to be a new thing but how many management teams are willing to invest in it? It seemed to me that the analysts and data managers that I met were confident that they were able to give amazing insights to their businesses, but did not have the time and resources to get in to the data and have a look around. Instead they were simply required to submit excel reports to show what has happened rather than predict what this means for the future or make recommendations on what the organization to do as a result. 2. Data Quality The systems where this data is stored largely seem to require input from a manager within the business, and at the point they're inputting this data it is likely that they are either just dealing with someone leaving the team or joining the team. In either of these situations, I would imagine they're busy and stressed, so will potentially not be too worried about what they're putting in to a workforce management system. The upshot is that the data you're then analyzing may not actually give you a true reflection of the fact. Again, it seems like the person inputting the data needs to understand the value to them of making sure that it is correct and I was not convinced any of the presenters had quite got this right in their business. 3. Skill Set I listened to a fascinating debate at the conference about what skills would be needed to grow a team of HR analysts, and I would say the room was split almost 50/50 between the "data is data" opinion and the "HR knowledge is essential" group. I reflected on this afterwards based on a comment made during the discussion. It was noted that HR analytics is probably 5-10 years behind other analytics disciplines such as logistics and marketing analysis for example. I would agree with this, but rather than worrying about this fact, the teams should look at the reasons why and also how to utilize those skills. Analysts in marketing or credit risk don't study marketing or credit risk at University. They study mathematics, physics, statistics or similar and then apply these techniques to an industry. They don't know everything about marketing strategies on their first day in the role, but they can model data to tell you with a very high degree of certainty what the propensity for something to happen is. Data is data - you just ask it the questions. So if companies don't utilize these data skills, my concern is that they will stay behind other analytical disciplines and only be able to do a small proportion of what could be possible with the data available to them. The Ethical Standpoint People are more aware of their personal data now than they were 5-10 years ago, and also more willing to share it - as long as they get something in return. Therefore the data available for HR and workforce analysis now is vastly different to 5-10 years ago - you only have to look at the growth of Facebook and LinkedIn in that period to know that you have more opportunity to know more about your teams than ever before. Here is another question then - the interests on someone's LinkedIn profile or Facebook page will give you a huge amount of insight into skills that you may not see on a day to day basis in their role, and may mean that you consider them for roles that they wouldn't normally be considered for, but is it ethically right to look at this page for the potential benefit of the candidate? Where do you draw the line? It is potentially for their benefit, but does that make it right? I heard of tools where members of staff could link their Facebook to a talent management tool within the business - the take up was very low. Let's be honest, you may not want your company seeing your personal photos and online conversations, even if it could mean more chance of an internal promotion! Putting the onus on the employee seems to be the best course of action then. If they fill in their internal profile similar to how they would a Facebook or LinkedIn account, then you have all you need to be able to draw better analysis. They have a vested interest in the outcome, and as long as this is understood you should get pretty accurate data to use. However, building an internal platform to match the functionality of the likes of Facebook and LinkedIn can be costly and once again requires more data experts to analyze the new data it will generate so we are back to the ROI challenge. In conclusion I agree that HR analytics could and should have a direct impact on business profit, but just in the way that all new concepts need to; HR teams need to harness the skills of other analytical disciplines to achieve all that is possible to prevent falling further and further behind. It is also going to take companies being brave and setting the trends for the use of this data to show what is possible before others will follow. As someone put it when discussing how companies improve the potential and usage of analysis in HR and workforce planning - we should talk about it a lot in conferences and meetings to share as much as we can to make sure that we all learn as much as possible from each other, but we don't want to share too much so that nobody can do it better than us…! At the end of the day, being better at anything within the sphere of analytics and data gives you competitive advantage and you don’t want to lose that.

by David Farmer

09. May 2014

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