There are many good reasons to reject Contingency Search in any form, but for today’s post, I’ll deal with only one reason.  Quantity vs Quality. In most cases, by no fault of their own, recruiters are forced to produce poor quality work or get left in the dust by other recruiters with a quicker trigger finger. The inherent weakness of Contingency Search lies in this conundrum: The more you endeavor to vet and qualify your candidates, the less likely you…

I've been writing about the marginalization of recruiters and thought I would put down the signs that you can use to evaluate whether or not you fall into that category of recruiter. Technology plays a significant role in the marginalization of recruiters, but it is not merely technology that forces many recruiters to the margins. Here are some clear signs for recruiters to take an honest look to see if they too are becoming marginalized.

7. The company makes you sign their…

How do you evaluate your recruiting business? What metrics are important to you? Are there any metrics which enable you to measure your effectiveness? I recently read a recruiting site discussion where the person initiating the discussion asked “which recruiting metric is most important to you?” I read through some of the answers which were predictable; Send Outs to Placements, Calls to Send Outs or Job Orders etc. I am convinced that the most important metric and the only one I care to…

I recently received a call from a $100mm medical device company wanting me to help them find a new Marketing Director. They told me that they were referred to me by a few executives within their company as “the recruiter of choice.” The first 30 minutes of the call was me asking questions to determine their ideal profile and how they envisioned attracting that caliber of talent to their company. I am quite familiar with their company and in the past have  recruited from them for some of my…