Recruiting is a service business. There are ways to ensure you and your needs are met with a sense of urgency.
Here are 10 insider recruiter secrets to be top priority.
Client companies engage with search and placement firms through contingent or retained agreements. Recruiters then identify, screen, qualify, prepare and present candidates to the client based on their discovery and understanding of the requirements. Clients then interview the candidate(s) and hire them to fulfill work objectives that ultimately achieve corporate goals.
The faster open positions are filled, the sooner business goals are achieved. When business goals are achieved, stakeholders are pleased with results. CEOs look for this kind of outcome.
So, you are a hiring manager or the director of HR with a number of open positions. How will you ensure you have done everything possible to enable your recruiter to help you fill those quickly? How will you accelerate your goal attainment to achieve your CEO’s expected outcome?
Here are some insider recruiter secrets that can help.
- DO – Plan ahead. As you anticipate growth and organizational expansion, meet with your recruiter early and prepare them to plan for supporting your needs. Many do this 3 or 4 times a year. Help your recruiter be ready when you are.
- DO – Partner closely. If you have a competency model of standard jobs you typically search for and hire, share these job descriptions. If you know your turnover rate, and hire in anticipation of it, share that with your recruiter too.
- DO – Early engagement. Promptly let your recruiter know the moment your finance department has approved the hiring requisition. The sooner they know, the sooner they can queue the hiring assignment among other searches for you.
- DO – Respond promptly. In all communications, especially in getting back to your recruiter on questions, setting up interviews, and making offers. Do this promptly within the day you receive a message. Don’t make a recruiter wait.
- DO – Be realistic. Look for candidates that can perform the job. Asking for more than 2 or 3 years experience in most job tenure will make the job unable to be filled. Recruiters call this “looking for a purple squirrel.”
- DO – Recognize the profession. Search firms hire and train recruiting professionals with a very unique skill. Many are even professionally certified. Their skill engages and attracts talent to your company when you don’t have the time.
- DON’T – Reassign a requisition. Look within if you find a job description that is problematic and hard to fill – simplify it. Look at the interview process if candidate after candidate decline your offer.
- DON’T – Go silent. Nothing will put your job order on the recruiter’s back burner faster than not returning the recruiter’s email and voice messages. If your recruiter needs information, respond to keep the process going.
- DON’T – Pit recruiters against each other. Telling your recruiter that you have given the assignment to 2 other recruiters is going to make all three of them give it low-priority, which will ultimately delay your hiring.
- DON’T – Bait and switch. Candidates get interested based on the job description. Recruiting for one role and then changing the job description on the new hire at the start date is a recipe for disaster.
Keep your partnership with your search and placement firm close. Ensure the sense of urgency you exhibit in your daily engagement reflects the same sense of urgency you are asking your recruiter to have in filling your position. That’s the best way to keep your recruiter focused on helping you achieve your goals through hiring.
You can accelerate your own goals to meet your CEO’s expected outcome.
Barton Professional Placement Group works with clients that have urgent needs, and invests time and effort to ensure success in building their organization with a sense of urgency. Not all recruiters think in terms of the client’s sense of urgency. Call us today if you are looking for a recruiter aligned with the way you want to work.
