So let's say that you work in HR and you've been charged with filling a hard-to-fill position. Perhaps the ideal candidate needs an obscure skill set and your advertising campaign has yielded few candidates. Now you are considering hiring a recruiter to help you but have no idea where to start. What can you do?
Easy: Hire me. I'm the best. The end.
Short blog post, huh?
Seriously, the first thing you need to do is figure out what kind of a recruiter you wish to hire. In a previous post, I explained the difference between contingency and retainer-based and research-based search firms. Regardless of the type of firm you pick, there are a few things you might wish to keep in mind when interviewing potential recruiters:
Who will be doing the work? Large firms often have sales people, who sell the search work, and people who execute the searches. Not only do you want to know the skill set of the person who will be conducting the work, but you also want to know if you like them. Remember, if a search was easy, you would not need to hire us. You will likely get to know your recruiter quite well over the weeks or months of the search and it's important that you like and trust them.
How will they represent you in the market? While recruiters can do their initial screening without revealing the name of your company, eventually candidates will come to learn who you are. It's a small world out there and an overly aggressive recruiter can sully your reputation in the marketplace. Ask the recruiter how they find candidates. Understand their methods. Make sure you are comfortable with what they will be doing on your behalf.
Do they think outside the box? When looking for candidates, it's rare to find someone who 100% fits the bill. If I am looking for a branding specialist for a consumer goods company and the branding specialists in competitor firms are are happily employed, I need to know where else to look. A good recruiter understands business, so they know where to find the needed skill set when the obvious places do not yield good results. Creativity is key.
Are they charming? Ultimately, recruiting is a sales job. If your recruiter sounds like a sleepy, disgruntled chain-smoking telephone operator from the 1940s, they may not be able to convince an ideal candidate to consider the position you are trying to fill.
Are they persistant? Good people are not always easy to find. A good recruiter has to chase down leads. You want to know that your recruiter has stick-to-it-iveness.
Do you like them? While it's nice to think that you'll give your recruiter a job mandate and then not hear from them until they present someone to hire, this is not the case. There is a lot of back and forth, as everyone figures out who could best fill the position. If you can't stand the recruiter, it will be a long, torturous process. A sense of humour helps a lot too.
It's a tall order, isn't it. The shortcut is to simply hire me. I'm the best. The end.
Happy hunting!
Nancy
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