Engaging a Recruiter – What You Need to Know First

With the shortages in the labour market and the difficulty companies everywhere are having in attracting top talent, it’s no wonder many businesses are looking at alternatives to going it alone and considering engaging a professional recruiter to assist with their search.

Like anything in business, getting support to attract, find and secure the right person for any role in your business may from time to time require professional support. Sometimes to save you time, sometimes because it isn’t in your wheelhouse and getting an expert is simply a smarter option, and sometimes out of pure desperation because you think the recruiter has a magic wand and can make a candidate appear out of thin air (or because they promise they can do just that…).

Whatever the reason, if you’re considering engaging a recruitment firm to assist with your current or future campaigns, I’d like to pull back the curtain and share with you some things you may not know, and some questions to consider before going ahead and signing anything at all.

I preface this by saying I was once, quite some years ago, a recruiter myself. In fact, my first consultancy business was a recruitment agency, and it was a super successful business, one which I am really proud of – including how my team conducted themselves and how we conducted business.

But the reality is, like any industry, not all recruiters are created equal, and there are, as you’d expect, the good the bad and the very very ugly in this industry.

Here’s the first thing you may not know – to be a recruiter you need no specific skills, no qualifications, no HR background or expertise, nothing at all except the ability to effectively ‘sell’. That’s right, recruiters are sales experts. Their job is to ‘sell’ to you that the candidate they are representing is the best and only option for your role. Now the good recruiters out there will do that with genuine intent, by getting to know your culture, by knowing their candidates, by matching values, by understanding the role they are filling and the company they are recruiting for. However, the rest of them are simply looking to make a sale – and given recruiters are paid largely on a commission basis, making the sale directly correlates with their income, so it would be easy to see how ethical and best intention considerations may take a back seat.

The other thing that many people aren’t aware of is that there are actually options, there are different types of recruitment firm models, and different ways in which they work, and charge for their service. Knowing this and understanding the options available to you assists in selecting the right recruitment partner to work with.

For example, there are industry specific recruiters, who have a database of industry specialists. The good ones build great relationships with their pool of candidates, they know what they are looking for, and what they’re not, so when an opportunity is listed with them, they know who to call straight away. They also often know the people in the market who may not be actively looking, but who would be perfect for a role, so can make approaches to people who may not be actively in the new job market. These recruiters often charge a percentage of salary for placing the candidate with you, and the better they are, the stronger the database of candidates, the harder the specialist area they work in, often the higher the placement fee.

Then you have recruiters who are more generalist, maybe geographical location specific, but less so these days. They too will hold a database of applicants, but it’s less specialised. They may charge in the same way, or by a flat fee arrangement, again for making the placement.

The other format is the consulting approach, where businesses like mine treat recruitment as just one function of HR more broadly. These consultancy businesses don’t keep a database of applicants, but rather will work closely with you to develop a strategic and specialist recruitment campaign to help you attract the best person for the job.

There are also model which sit between these 3, and of course there are labour hire firms for your casual, short term needs, but these are the most common you’ll come across. Understanding what you need, and which model will be most ideal for your needs, is the first step in ensuring you’re engaging the right recruitment partner.

Whichever option suits you the best, there are some things to watch out for, be aware of, and questions to ask before you sign any contract or agreement with a recruiter. Unfortunately, I spend more time than I’d like trying to support businesses who have been blind sighted by a restrictive service agreement with a recruiter, which has often left them out of pocket by thousands of dollars, with no employee to show for it.

Before you sign anything, these are the top considerations you should be reviewing in any recruiters service agreements:

• Exclusivity – are you being tied into only sourcing a potential new employee through this one service provider? Whilst pitting recruiters against each other, and playing the multiple recruiter game is often not ideal, being limited to putting all of your eggs in one basket also has it’s risks. So understand where you stand with this and if in doubt, re negotiate or don’t sign.
• Guarantee Period and Terms – let’s say they find you a new employee, you hire them and pay the fee, but they don’t work out. Where do you stand? What are your options? How long do you have to make that decision? Whilst most recruiters won’t offer refunds, they will replace candidates within a certain time period. The challenge right now is, if finding someone is ridiculously hard, if they don’t work out what are the actual chances of them finding a second person for the role? Really consider what is available to you here, and again if in doubt renegotiate or don’t sign.
• What Does the Fee Cover – this might sound silly, but be really clear on what they are actually doing for the fee, and hold them accountable for it. You need to project manage this. Make sure the references are done (and done well), ask for transcripts, make sure they have actually done an interview, and done whatever else they have promised.

Ultimately, there can absolutely be benefits to getting a professional recruiter involved to support you when filling key roles in your business, but like anything else knowledge is power, and knowing what you are signing up for, what questions to ask and what options are available will help you to make the right choice on whether to engage a recruiter, and how to select the best partner for your project.

An Invitation
If you have questions about engaging a recruitment partner in your business, I’d love for you to join us inside our free Facebook Group where you can connect with other like minded business owners, leaders and managers to discuss all things HR - www.facebook.com/groups/hrsupportaustralia