Building trusting relationships with employers and candidates, and then managing those relationships via highly developed skills, tools and processes… that is the fine art of a good recruiter.
Why Employers Use Recruiters
Right fit employees are the single most important factor in business. Increasing profitability and ensuring sustainable growth for your company can only be achieved when you are working on your company, not in it. That means you need to have high potential A-level players on your team.
Finding right fit employees is a time-consuming and costly process that busy employers don’t have the resources, time or manpower to manage cost-effectively.
Sourcing great talent is far more than building lists of candidates.
The modern day recruiter must have an understanding of what clients and candidates want, and of the people involved in the process to ensure success. Our advanced sourcing techniques learned over many years in the retained search arena have helped the Ashton Associates team to more effectively source – saving you time and money.
A good recruiter will not only help you source and hire the talent you need, when you need it, but will be your number one resource for finding the skilled employees on an ongoing basis. This is especially important for key hires where a well-trained and objective eye for good talent is essential or, as with so many of our clients, you are faced with crippling time constraints or simply don’t have the skilled resources inhouse to get the hiring done.
Call it what you will, talent acquisition, headhunting, recruiting …
What’s important is that you know that your consultant will be starting with the end result in mind, gaining clarity on skills, behaviours and performance objectives.
The ultimate goal is that you receive results – a short-list of well-qualified and highly motivated talent, people who can and will do the job well, not just do well on the interviews.
Partnering with a good recruiter will ensure your next key hire is someone who brings passion and is committed to building bottom line, right out of the gate.
If a candidate is good, and their availability gets known by others in your industry, there will be strong competition. But just because someone good comes available in your industry, that doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re the right fit for you and your company. In fact hiring a wrong person in a key hire role, can be one of the worst, and most expensive hiring mistakes you can make.
A good recruiter earns the respect of high capacity candidates.
It may take time and the right measure of influence to woo stronger candidates over to your side. Savvy professionals build and rely on the trusted adviser relationships they have with recruiters, professionals who they know they can rely on to have their back and represent their best interests.
As an employer you’ll want to build those relationships with the same search professionals. After all if the talent you most want to hire is placing their trust and their careers in their hands, it only makes good business to have them on your hiring team as well.
How can you tell a good recruiter?
A good recruiter is a trusted advisor to top candidates during their job search process and will learn and probe to know what makes them tick, what their motivators and drivers are as top performers.
Just like leading employers, star candidates work closely with a good recruiter as their trusted adviser. These people trust a good recruiter to know that their values, work ethic, motivation and drive are a good cultural fit with employers that they are selected for.
That’s a win-win that saves you tens, and in some cases, hundreds of thousands of dollars in a wrong hire.
The Two Types of Candidates Recruiters Tap Into
Active Candidates
These are people who are engaged in finding a new job. If they are unemployed they will be flooding online job boards and sending out resumes to anyone and everyone. The ones that you are after are usually the ones who are covertly looking through confidential referrals, and industry connections.
In both cases these candidates will always turn to a good recruiter and want to be included in confidential their talent pool. They know that a good recruiter will work confidentially with them to represent jobs with A-Level employers.
Passive Candidates
These people represent approximately 70% of the qualified talent pool and are best accessed through the confidential approach of a good recruiter. With only 30% of the qualified talent pool actively looking for work, employers who do not utilize the services of third party recruiters shut themselves out from the majority of qualified candidates.
Any recruiter can go on LinkedIn to find potentially qualified candidates. A good recruiter will be skilled in the art and craft of quickly gaining respect and securing relationships with the talent you’re after.
Three Ways to Use a Good Recruiter
- Permanent, direct hire employees where your recruiting firm provides full cycle staffing service, from sourcing and screening, through to presenting you with a final short-list of right fit qualified candidates for you to make your hiring selection.
- Temporary or contract (contingent) employees, where you essentially contract with your recruiting agency to have someone working on site for you, as and when needed. The recruiting firm will handle all employment costs and be responsible for all payroll remittances, legal and employment standards compliance.
- Try Hire or Temp-to-perm, where you start out with a temporary hire with the option to “try before you hire” to see if the employee is a good fit before making the decision to bring them on board full-time.
Permanent Staffing
A good recruiting firm will learn everything they need to know about your company and the position you need filled. They will then be fully equipped to do all the candidate screening, testing, and initial interviewing. Once you’ve decided on your final short-list they will handle all of the pre-employment background and reference checks. When a good recruiter has done their job you are assured of having the right person, for the right job.
Temporary or Contingent Staffing
A good recruiter will also help you to hire temporary or contingent employees which can be a great alternative. Hiring temp staff is an extremely cost-effective method to cover seasonal work cycles, vacation time, maternity leave or to cover for a temporarily absent employee. Temporary staffing is also a good way to “try before you buy”, and can save your company tens of thousands in bad hires. Regardless of your reasons, a good recruiter will ask the right questions to ensure the right person is made available for you.
What to Ask Before You Hire a Recruiter
Is the recruiting firm able to fulfill your needs?
Not all recruiters are created equal. You need to be fully aware of the agency’s policies and recruitment methodologies. Having good communication and a thorough understanding of expectations on deliverables with your recruiter will help you to build a strong and lasting relationship with them. Getting references is also a great idea as you can find out pitfalls from their other clients. Ask how the agency handled any issues that arose. Were they handled professionally to everyone’s satisfaction?
Is the recruiter a good fit for your company?
What are the recruiting firm’s values and guiding principles? Does that fit with your company? Statistics do show that the closer a recruiting firm’s values and principles match those of the companies they serve, the better and more lasting the hiring results are.
How important is staffing flexibility to your company?
Most business customers would rate flexibility as very important when working with recruiting firms. It allows them to stay fully staffed during busy times and then adjust staffing if business slows down.
What are your short and longer term hiring needs?
Take the time to talk with several recruiting firms about your business needs. Whether you need temporary, temp-to-hire, or full time recruiting services. Giving the recruiter a clear view of your company’s culture and goals will guide them to recruiting the very best right fit employees, and by that we mean the ones who will make the largest contributions to your productivity and bottom line.
Barbara Ashton is the President and Founder of Ashton & Associates Recruiting. She is a leading social recruiter fast approaching 11,000 LinkedIn followers. Phone: 800-432-6893
Email: [email protected]
Ashton & Associates Recruiting Inc. Placing Powerful People.
Offices in Kamloops and Kelowna serving BC industry leaders.
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Great write-up. I must state A good recruiter is a master at building relationships is the ideal
article in the topic.