Normally, I have nothing but praise for the articles that come from my ERE daily newsletter. However, on Friday I received an article entitled “Losing your Professionalism” in which the author has some not so pleasant antidotes about the world of agency recruiting. Clearly she had a bad experience… statements like:
"You're only as good as your last deal" was a common phrase during my agency days. I didn't just view it as a deal; this was a person's livelihood by placing a candidate in a new opportunity. But when "deals" are associated with your income, people are commodities.”“During my agency experience, I had a manager who told me to inform a candidate that the candidate should accept an offer because it would "make my numbers" for the month. How embarrassing! Why would this candidate care about my numbers?
Apparently this lead the author to conclude the following:
The agencies will always focus on metrics… Agencies tend to hire salespeople from all walks of life, and it is a commissioned-based environment.
Occasionally, there are agency recruiters who believe in the customer-service aspects of recruiting and want to "cross over" to corporate recruiting to take a different approach to recruiting that better addresses their values and interests.
I can only say that the Author must have had a very bad agency experience. Firms like mine, stress the importance of working with a candidate as their advocate and advisor, and we have often coached candidates to accept offers that we aren’t representing or even talked candidates out of interviewing for opportunities because we didn’t think it would meet their long-term needs.
A commission based recruiter gains nothing by trying to fit a square peg in a round hole. If the candidate doesn’t work out, or decides to leave the role, we have to do all the work of replacing that candidate for no additional “production”.
Yes, there are bad recruiting firms out there, but not all Third Party Recruiters are the used car salesmen and “hard sell” artists. I feel bad that this person left our industry with a bad taste in her mouth, but there are agencies that hold themselves to high standards of customer service, operate with ethics and integrity, and are focused on the needs of both candidates and clients.
These sort of over-arching generalizations about my chosen line of work bother me… not all recruiters are ruthless headhunters, just the bad ones.
To me Successful Recruiters:
- Are successful salespeople - Recruiting is the art of connecting the right people with the right companies and selling is the art of accurately identifying needs and providing effective solutions. Successful recruiters have the drive, tenacity, and focus of great sales people, combined with the desire to be a powerful positive force in both the lives of candidates and the success of our clients.
- Are self-motivated and goal-oriented to develop and maintain momentum on a search, to develop effective strategies and plans that keep them working smart and progressing toward goals.
- Use all available resources to identify and recruit top talent in the industry. This includes building a network of professionals, prospecting candidates by phone, using the Internet and working closely with industry organizations to develop strong and fruitful relationships.
- Understand how to measure experience, not just skills, and make connections between candidates and companies based on more than keywords. Great recruiters also know how to truly qualify candidates and how to evaluate the “fit” between candidate and client.
- Represent the best interests of his/her candidates and clients, facilitating effective interview processes, offer presentations and employment transitions.
- Remain focused and demonstrate tenacity, energy and enthusiasm for each new assignment. They welcome new challenges and strive to succeed.
- Act with honesty and integrity at all times, without exception. They treat candidates and clients with sincerity and honesty and never present false or misleading information.
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