Help Your Recruiters Help YOU!
Attention Executives and Talent professionals: I’m going to give you an inside view of how search firms look at your business, manage your searches and ways to improve the results you’re getting from recruiters.
The Numbers Don’t Lie
The performance based (contingent) search world is a numbers game. We recruiters have to manage a large pipeline of searches to generate the revenue needed. We do this knowing, for various reasons, we won’t necessarily fill all the job searches we take.
You can’t hide from the big data …Today any good size firm is score carding you as a client and making decisions about whether your search is fillable and in a time frame that is profitable. The data around how quickly you’re responding to resumes, moving good candidates through the process, and how your story is being received by candidates are all being tracked. The outcome determines how much work a firm will put into your search.
Here are some common issues, and solutions:
1. Slow Resume Flow – This is the most common problem. This usually means the search is not getting resourced properly or the recruiter is focused on other searches. This could also be the result of the lack of a good search plan ... SOLUTION: Do what you can to advance your search as a PRIORITY for your recruiter. Offer some interview times, check in multiple times per week and let them know that working your search will result in a hire quickly. You could also consider a performance bonus (say $5K) for candidates that are sourced during the first 3 weeks of a search.
2. Seeing a lot of average resumes – This is usually an inability of the recruiter to convince an “A” player to take a look at the opportunity ... SOLUTION: Arm your recruiter with better ammunition on how to sell the opportunity. Have them pitch you as if you were a candidate and help them to fine-tune the message. Show the recruiter some “sample” profiles that you like on LinkedIn so they really understand how you define top talent.
3. Seeing candidates who are not ready to make a move – This is usually a recruiter hoping to get lucky with a candidate they know probably won’t move ... SOLUTION: When your recruiter is presenting candidates to you, ask them to articulate why they (candidates) would want to make a move. Also, ask your recruiter to explain why this opportunity would be better than their current situation. If the answer is “they are always looking” without any more detail, save yourself the time.
Fine-tuning your results from a recruiter can require very little extra work. It’s a matter of being involved in the process and willing to contribute to the solution… If you’ve tried these tips and still aren’t getting the results you need…well of course, call ME. I get it, and I’ve got the data to back it up!
-Bill