Top 3 Ways a Great Recruiter Can Help Your Company!

Like any service organization, not every situation calls for using a recruiting firm.  When the time is right, these are 3 ways a great recruiter can and should add value to your recruiting efforts.  This list can also help determine when working with a firm might make sense.  These factors can also be helpful when evaluating recruiting firms and deciding whether or not to engage.

    1. Finding AND Hiring the Best Talent: This is the obvious one. I mean if a recruiter can’t find good people, what’s the point. The vast majority of people we introduce to our clients are employed elsewhere and not actively looking. Many are people we’ve known for years. Many come highly recommended by someone that worked with them directly. They aren’t looking on monster.com for a new job. Our Indianapolis team has over 50 years of combined recruiting experience in the Indianapolis market. Yes, that means we’re getting old! It also means we know a lot of people. However, finding talent is only the beginning.  Managing the process, keeping candidates engaged and making sure the process is headed towards a favorable outcome takes skill and experience. A great recruiter is in constant communication with candidates during the process about salary requirements and expectations, reminders of the salary range we’re working with, are they being pursued by other companies, making sure we’re working towards a landing spot both sides can be happy with.
    2. Candidate Experience: This should be a team effort. If finding good talent is a priority for your company, attention needs to be paid to what people are experiencing during your recruiting and interview process. Especially in this highly competitive market. Leverage swings on a pendulum between candidates and employers. Right now it’s on the candidate side. The people you’re pursuing have options. They can 1) join your company 2) join another company, possibly a competitor 3) stay where they are. A good candidate experience includes regular communication, timely feedback, hiring managers that are on time for interviews, no extended waits in the lobby, efficient process and a lot more. How can a great recruiter help with all of this?  To a certain extent a recruiter is an extension of your company during the process. The recruiter is usually the point person for communication with the candidate. Staying in touch with them, keeping them informed of where they are in the process, discussing advantages and positives about your company, revisiting salary requirements and expectations, how this opportunity lines up with their career goals, etc.  A great recruiter helps you keep candidates engaged and interested in the opportunity throughout the process.  Conversely, if your recruiter isn’t doing a good job it can negatively affect the impression of your company. Choose wisely!
    3. Save Time and Money: Recruiting fees aren’t cheap. It is a big investment to hire good people and I don’t take that lightly. You know what’s more expensive though? Making a bad hire. Google ‘cost of a bad hire’ and you’ll see plenty of information about how expensive it is to recruit, onboard and train the wrong person. A great recruiter should help the process be more efficient. For example, we typically present 3 to 5 resumes for an opening because we’ve already done the screening and we’re very targeted in our approach.  If I’ve presented a resume to a client I’ve already talked to that person about the position, your company, your location, salary range, their salary requirements, their career goals, your environment and the type of people that have thrived in your company.  Drastically different than sorting through 100 resumes from a job posting hoping to get 1 or 2 good ones.  A great recruiter should also shorten the process for a lot of these same reasons. All of which saves the company time and money. Not to mention that the good people we find often make the company more efficient and find ways to reduce costs.  A good hire should result in a return on your investment (recruiting fee).

I welcome any feedback, questions, opinions.  Thanks for reading!