idealpeople blog

We came across an interesting article on how to deal with Recruiters when you’re looking for a job on CFO.com earlier in the week.

It’s interesting partly because most of the advice is pretty poor stuff, but also because of the viewpoints offered towards contigency recruiters.

In case the word contingency leaves you scrabbling for the close window icon and away from this place, here’s a short lesson. There are two (broadly speaking, it’s actually more complex than this, but for now we’ll assume it to be the case) types of Recruitment company. A contingency recruitment company only charge a fee if they fill a role, and it’s generally based on the salary of the person being hired. On the other hand, a retained recruitment company take part of their fee from the client up-front for each postion they work on, and are given exclusive rights to filling the role (the other parts of the fee, still calculated as a percentage of the salary) are normally (but not always) paid upon presentation of a satisfactory shortlist, and upon succesfully filling the role.

So anyway, back to the article.

For those who don’t want to read it, let us pick out a few key points. The essential gist of the advice given is:

1) Use a retained agent because contingency ones are rubbish
2) Always e-mail a recruiter when you’re making first contact - never phone them
3) Don’t expect a recruiter to return your calls
4) Always return a recruiter’s calls
5) Don’t take recruiters for idiots, or make the mistake of assuming that getting through their screening is “just a formality”
6) It’s a good idea to meet recruiters
7) Don’t wait until you’re out of work to form relationships with recruiters.

These points of advice are backed up by opinion from the likes of Heidrick & Struggles, Korn/Ferry and HFC Executive Search - some of the big players in the retained recruitment industry.

Indeed, the article says that a Senior Executive from Heidrick & Struggles talking describes contingency agencies using the following:

There are some good ones, but many of them just throw a lot of spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks”

and

If you don’t want your résumé to be all over the place like the daily news, you might not want to go that route

Now listen here you retained search companies you - that hurts.

Especially when the 7 points of advice you give above (just to re-iterate, don’t call them, don’t expect someone to return your call, always return their call) don’t exactly correlate with a particularly good service. We are a (predominantly) contigency recruitment company, yet we (nearly) always return calls, we absolutely don’t mind being called and - as for the spaghetti comment, that may be true for some contingency recruiters - but, trust us, you can normally spot the spaghetti-bandits a mile off (a quick peek at their website normally sets alarm bells ringing). Oh, and by the way, we do have to comply with Data Protection legislation, so the comment about CV-slinging is out-of-line too (if you come across a company who send your CV anywhere without your consent, please, please complain to the REC.

Now - here’s something to think about carefully before wasting your time forging relationships with retained recruiters. Retained recruiters work specifically on certain positions. They are (over)paid up front, and as such are committed to spending most of their time working on specific positions. Contingency recruiters are not tied in to a contract, so can manage their time more autonomously. This means that if your skills, experience and motivation are enough to tick a contingency recruiter’s box, he or she will have the time to work pro-actively with you. We can, for candidates who impress us, represent them to any potential hiring companies of interest. A retained recruiter can’t do this - they’re spending their time on four of five very specific organisations at once, and generally don’t have the time (or the inclination or indeed a reasonable-enough pricing structure) to do anything more than call you about the very occassional position they are working on which matches your background. Good contingency recruiters can deliver so much more in terms of a job-seeking process.

So, accordingly, here’s our advice on how to deal effectively with a recruiter:

1) Make relationships with good recruiters when and only when a good recruiter presents themselves.
Every time you speak to a recruiter, ask yourself how impressed you were with their level of knowledge about your industry, their level of interest in you and their overall service. Get close to the good ones. Drop them a line every now again - by phone or e-mail (recruiters who won’t spend a couple of minutes on the phone with you aren’t worth bothering with)

2) Be honest with your recruiter
It pays to be honest and up-front with good recruiters. If you mess a recruiter around or “cover things up”, you’ll just make a headache for everyone further down the line.

3) Tell good recruiters where you want to work
As we said above, good recruiters should be able to approach companies you want to work for, even if they’re not hiring or have no relationship with them. A good recruiter can identify the right person to speak to, package up your achievements and literally “sell” your background, experience and achievements to that person with the aim of getting you an interview. Remember: most jobs are filled without being advertised. Good recruiters can help you get one of these.

4) Keep in touch
Use phone, e-mail, carrier pigeon, letter…anything. Just keep in touch.

5) Never rely on a recruiter…but appreciate the benefits of using one
Recruiters can save you time, effort and money in your job search. They can uncover “hidden” positions. They can advise, guide and help you. But they absoltuely cannot guarantee you a job - you’ve got to put the effort in too.

6) Don’t wait until you’re out of work to form relationships with recruiters
We’ll give the retained companies this one.

7) Give something back
A good contingency recruiter is much more likely to put significant time into helping you if you ocassionally give them something to remember you by. A quick e-mail to them after you’ve found out that a major tech company are about to cut 500 jobs is always going to be of interest. Or an introduction to your friend, currently looking for a position after redundancy - that’ll help too. Hating and avoiding recruiters and then asking them to help you probably isn’t going to work - not when there are many other candidates out there.

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