The expanding and evolving role of recruitersGary Thompsonrecruiting
If you are like almost everyone who has ever contemplated a
career move, you've probably come into some form of contact with an
outside recruiter offering his assistance in your job search. Also,
if you have had multiple opportunities to encounter recruiters over
the years, you've probably had experiences that have ranged from
the recruiter hardly giving you the time of day to feeling like the
recruiter had become a second mother, responsible for keeping track
of your every move. The average recruiter experience is most likely
somewhere in between these two extremes. So if someone should
consider using an outside recruiter in his job search, what are the
advantages or disadvantages? And, on the flipside of that question,
what are the advantages or disadvantages of a company contemplating
using an outside recruiting firm to assist in its acquisition of
the top talent in its industry?
To step back for a moment, not all of that range of service
you've seen is happenstance. Some of the difference would have
depended on whether you were dealing with a retained recruiter or a
contingency recruiter. A retained recruiter works purely for the
client. He is paid an upfront fee by the client to invest his
recruiting efforts specifically for position(s) that client is
looking to fill. Normally, there is a guarantee that a certain
number of qualified candidates must be submitted for review in a
specified timeframe, but beyond that, there is not necessarily a
guarantee that the position will be filled. The advantage to the
company conducting the search is that the recruiting firm is
searching specifically for that company, and when quality
candidates are surfaced, they will not be exposed to other
potential opportunities by the recruiter. Recruiting firms with a
lot of expertise in the industry can be very valuable to their
clients in this situation. The potential disadvantage is that a fee
has been paid, which may not result in the position being filled.
Of course, retained recruiting firms that don't have a very good
track record of filling positions most likely won't be too
successful.
On the other hand, a contingency recruiter works for both the
client and the candidate, although he is paid only by the client.
The contingency recruiter will normally work with a number of
different clients, as well as candidates. His job is somewhat like
a matchmaker. He is trying to match the best candidates with the
companies they would be the best fit for and most successful at. A
contingency recruiter is paid by his client only when a candidate
has been successfully placed or hired for the position for which
the search was conducted.
For both the client and the candidate, what are the advantages
and disadvantages of a contingency recruiter? For the client
company, the advantage is that there is no cash outlay, until the
recruiting firm actually submits a candidate to them that they
ultimately hire. The disadvantage is that the recruiting firm may
have sourced other great candidates who have been directed to other
opportunities, and since the recruiter is working with multiple
clients, this particular client is only getting a percentage of his
full attention. Companies will often use multiple recruiting firms
in this situation, which, at times, can become a catch-22, as the
more firms that are competing, the less emphasis any one of them is
likely putting into the given position, due to the amount of
competition and the reduced likelihood their candidate will be
hired.
For the candidates, the advantage is that the contingency
recruiter offers another resource to be utilized in their job
search. Recruiters will (or should) have expertise in the
candidate's given industry, will have contacts at companies that a
candidate could not normally reach on his own (thus avoiding having
his résumé end up on the bottom of somebody's pile) and
can help coordinate every step of the hiring process. Recruiters
can also assist in résumé preparation/critiquing, offer
interviewing suggestions and best practices, and help to negotiate
offers. The only potential disadvantage to utilizing a contingency
recruiter is the risk that he is a bad recruiter and may actually
misrepresent the candidate. It is very important, therefore, that a
candidate does his homework on the recruiter, understanding his
background enough to know he can be a true asset.
In either case, retained or contingent, recruiting firms tend to
have some specialization or expertise for the industries they
recruit in. The more specialized the firms are, the greater
likelihood they can offer industry insights and effective career
counseling. The mortgage industry is a great example of this. The
role of the recruiter expands to be more one of a career agent for
the candidates who take advantage of his knowledge/relationships.
Because most candidates are somewhat stuck in the trenches, putting
in long hours and working hard just to accomplish their goals, they
often don't have the opportunity to step back and take a
20,000-foot perspective, to dissect market trends and know what
industry leaders are thinking. Strong recruiting firms are doing
all of the above. They are keeping up with industry trends, doing
market research and forging relationships with key managers and
executives throughout the industry. It is critical to the success
of the recruiting firm to understand the direction in which their
particular industry is heading. They need to know the stable,
long-term leaders. They need to know the aggressive up-and-comers.
They need to know which firms are facing legal, regulatory or
financial issues.
For their clients, these recruiting firms understand the nuances
of all the various positions that could potentially come open and
are well connected throughout the industry, to ensure their clients
they have relationships that will produce qualified candidate
leads. Recruiting firms that will be successful heading into the
foreseeable future will be less the hired gun headhunters of old
and more business partners that take a longer-term perspective with
both their candidates and clients. One of the hardest things for a
recruiter to do is tell a great candidate that an opportunity they
may have, which wasnt presented to them by the recruiter, is
actually better than anything the recruiter might be able to offer
them. But if that opportunity is truly the best career move for the
individual, a good recruiter will tell the candidate just that. The
recruiter will also stay in close contact with that candidate as he
moves on in his career, both to be able to assist him in future
career moves and to potentially nurture him to become an ultimate
client.
The extensive use of recruiters in the mortgage industry is a
relatively recent phenomenon. Since networking is such a key
component for success for almost all top performers in the
industry, the ability to make contacts and source talent on their
own was just the expected norm. With the overall expansion of the
industry, though, and the rapid growth of new mortgage companies
and mortgage products, the time (and potential overhead) necessary
to stay on top of the expanding talent pool, as well as grow the
business, became a daunting task. Recruiting firms have become more
prominent as an outside arm that can assist companies on an
as-needed basis, with their fingers constantly on the pulse of the
industry and access to that top talent pool a keystroke or phone
call away.
Gary Thompson is a principal at Lawrenceville, Ga.-based
K&G Recruiting LLC. He may be reached at (866) 892-1272, ext.
103, or e-mail
[email protected].
