Recruiting the Right Recruitment Partner: Three Things They Should Not Do
Talent is the lifeblood of any organization. In order to get the best people, you must have someone on your side completely focused on this task. This is of course where recruitment agencies come in. Unfortunately, not all recruitment agencies are created equal, and there are some you may completely want to avoid.
Here are 3 things a recruitment agency should not do.
Pressure you to hire one of their candidates.
Recruitment agencies, like any organization, are driven by key performance indicators and financial incentives. Most of them are compensated with a portion of the talent’s salary, should the organization hire them. This system can create misalignment: Many agencies, for example, may pressure a hiring manager to hire the first person they interview, even if that candidate may not be a good fit from a cultural or technical standpoint. In this case, the agent or agency may just be after their individual or company fee. But this thinking is counter-productive in the long run. Even if a hiring manager were to succumb to pressure and hire that person, any candidate who is not a strong technical or cultural fit would likely leave soon thereafter, forcing the agency to begin the search for a replacement. You need to work with recruitment agencies who can rise above this common misalignment. They need to empathize with your organization and your team, enough to want to bring you only the best people.
2. Cast a wide net.
This one may seem counter-intuitive. If you’re a hiring manager, you want the widest selection of possible talent, after all. Right? The problem with bringing every Joe in off the street to go through the recruitment process is that the hiring manager is no better off. Now he or she has to go through an astounding number of applications, which would have been the same had they chosen to just post a job posting online and not partner with an agency. This approach is fundamentally wrong. You want your recruitment agency to have such a deep understanding of your organization and the role that you are hiring for that they provide a qualified list of candidates. For important positions, this may indeed be a long list, but it’s one that has had some vetting already applied. You want your recruitment agency to be laser-focused on your needs and not just firing shots off in the dark.
3. Evaluate based only on technical qualifications.
A role is much more than just a list of qualifications. For most roles, in fact, there will be a wide variety of people who can meet the technical requirements or specifications of the job. Again, you don’t want the recruitment agency pushing you to hire the first person that qualifies. Instead, they should be vetting candidates as much for cultural fit as they are for technical. Every professional has a working environment they will perform better in over other settings. That’s nothing to be ashamed about - it’s human nature. There are some groups of people we will always work better with compared to other groups. As such, it’s the recruiter’s responsibility to understand your organization’s culture and evaluate each candidate not only in how he’ll perform on the job, but how he’ll thrive in this much larger professional environment.
Before your recruitment agency can help you find the best talent, you must yourselves properly recruit them. Find one who has patience with your hiring process, understands your culture, and remains laser-focused on the specific candidates you need for your roles.