An interesting insight from a CEO of an agency posted on a LinkedIn discussion.
The key challenge is sorting the wheat from the chaff for both 'sides' is my impression:
The key challenge is sorting the wheat from the chaff for both 'sides' is my impression:
Chris Hitchens
CEO at Platform People
Having worked my way up from being a Junior PM to Programme Director in over 6 sectors and now run my own consultancy which has a recruitment arm, I can only sympathise with what has been said.
Firstly, let’s look at what could be better with employers. Unfortunately, we will get requests for resource that turn out to be no more than a client wanting a 'free salary survey'. i.e. you get to hear that ‘the role is now filled; we have put that on hold’ etc.
Equally, we also see the ‘cut & paste’ job descriptions from HR who will not let my guys talk to the Hiring Manager to discuss what actual 'outcomes' they want the incumbent to achieve. Or even worse, there is a large Recruitment Process Outsourcer (RPO) in place who will not let you speak to the client, let alone the Hiring Manager.
What could be better about Recruiters? Well, lots! I have hired good ones and I have fired a lot of bad ones. The bad ones have had the wrong behaviour incentivised... A lot of recruitment companies pay a very small basic, so the guys have to fill roles to earn a salary. The focus then switches to volume and not quality; you may have heard of the ‘spray and pray’ approach.
If you want to navigate around this, ask the consultant if they have actually spoken to the person you will be interviewed by; have they spoken to the person you will be working for? Ask them how long the role has been live and whether you are in the first wave of applicants. They will either be honest with you, or waffle. You will soon deduce if it is a waste of your time.
From a recruiter’s point of view I can only talk about my company. We get on average 481 applicants for any jobs we post. Most are applicants from overseas without Visas; some are other recruitment consultants trying to data-mine. Some are plants by competitors of the client, who subsequently ring up demanding feedback :-) You can understand if a recruitment consultant is a little reluctant to give too much away as they would be packing their desk up mins later. Some are candidates who just mindlessly apply for every job and 1 or 2 have taken the time to tailor their CV, all the pertinent points are at the top of the 1st page and the CV is 3 pages max. These are the guys that get interviews.
So when does it work well? What about good employers and good recruiters? Our best and mutually beneficial relationships are when one of the recruitment guys can actually talk to a hiring manager and understand the business need for the role, rather than being handed a generic job description and told they have 48hrs to produce CVs.
The issue as I have experienced it on both sides of the fence, is that recruitment is paradoxically seen as an overhead and it has been commoditised so much, it is seen as valueless. It is run by either HR or procurement who, through no fault of their own, don’t know a lot about the job being advertised and they are some of the lowest paid people in the organisation… you work it out.
My advice here is to find a couple of Recruitment Consultants that you like and want to work with. These are people who are invested in finding you a job that you are going to do well in, it entices repeat business, so it’s a win-win. I suggest meeting them and building a working relationship. There will be a lot more trust between you both & you will be 'front of mind' when that killer job comes up.
However, if you have commoditised recruitment and think all consultants are blood sucking leaches (as did I when I was getting 5 calls a day and 100 irrelevant CVs as a Programme Director) then I can tell you there are good ones out there who want to do a good job & take as much pride in their job as you do in yours.
This won’t solve your problems, but I wanted to give you some insight from someone who is working on all three sides of the recruitment transaction.
Remember, even recruiters have to recruit and that, my friend, is hell on earth… Good luck!
CEO at Platform People
Having worked my way up from being a Junior PM to Programme Director in over 6 sectors and now run my own consultancy which has a recruitment arm, I can only sympathise with what has been said.
Firstly, let’s look at what could be better with employers. Unfortunately, we will get requests for resource that turn out to be no more than a client wanting a 'free salary survey'. i.e. you get to hear that ‘the role is now filled; we have put that on hold’ etc.
Equally, we also see the ‘cut & paste’ job descriptions from HR who will not let my guys talk to the Hiring Manager to discuss what actual 'outcomes' they want the incumbent to achieve. Or even worse, there is a large Recruitment Process Outsourcer (RPO) in place who will not let you speak to the client, let alone the Hiring Manager.
What could be better about Recruiters? Well, lots! I have hired good ones and I have fired a lot of bad ones. The bad ones have had the wrong behaviour incentivised... A lot of recruitment companies pay a very small basic, so the guys have to fill roles to earn a salary. The focus then switches to volume and not quality; you may have heard of the ‘spray and pray’ approach.
If you want to navigate around this, ask the consultant if they have actually spoken to the person you will be interviewed by; have they spoken to the person you will be working for? Ask them how long the role has been live and whether you are in the first wave of applicants. They will either be honest with you, or waffle. You will soon deduce if it is a waste of your time.
From a recruiter’s point of view I can only talk about my company. We get on average 481 applicants for any jobs we post. Most are applicants from overseas without Visas; some are other recruitment consultants trying to data-mine. Some are plants by competitors of the client, who subsequently ring up demanding feedback :-) You can understand if a recruitment consultant is a little reluctant to give too much away as they would be packing their desk up mins later. Some are candidates who just mindlessly apply for every job and 1 or 2 have taken the time to tailor their CV, all the pertinent points are at the top of the 1st page and the CV is 3 pages max. These are the guys that get interviews.
So when does it work well? What about good employers and good recruiters? Our best and mutually beneficial relationships are when one of the recruitment guys can actually talk to a hiring manager and understand the business need for the role, rather than being handed a generic job description and told they have 48hrs to produce CVs.
The issue as I have experienced it on both sides of the fence, is that recruitment is paradoxically seen as an overhead and it has been commoditised so much, it is seen as valueless. It is run by either HR or procurement who, through no fault of their own, don’t know a lot about the job being advertised and they are some of the lowest paid people in the organisation… you work it out.
My advice here is to find a couple of Recruitment Consultants that you like and want to work with. These are people who are invested in finding you a job that you are going to do well in, it entices repeat business, so it’s a win-win. I suggest meeting them and building a working relationship. There will be a lot more trust between you both & you will be 'front of mind' when that killer job comes up.
However, if you have commoditised recruitment and think all consultants are blood sucking leaches (as did I when I was getting 5 calls a day and 100 irrelevant CVs as a Programme Director) then I can tell you there are good ones out there who want to do a good job & take as much pride in their job as you do in yours.
This won’t solve your problems, but I wanted to give you some insight from someone who is working on all three sides of the recruitment transaction.
Remember, even recruiters have to recruit and that, my friend, is hell on earth… Good luck!
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