Are you Hiring a Recruiter or a Pencil Pusher?

I want to make a sports analogy. Sorry, Dallas Cowboy fans. It pains me to say it, but Jerry Jones wants a puppet as a head coach. It has always been that way. He wants someone who he can push around so he can ultimately do what HE wants YOU to do. The last person who he let have control won a Super Bowl. That was in 1994. Nothing since. Jimmy Johnson is a FOX Sports Analyst today.

I'm a Cowboy fan. It truly pains me to see this year in and year out. I think as long as Jerry has the reigns, the Cowboys will never win a Super Bowl.

So you want to build a team? You want to hire a recruiter? Release control.

See, recruiters are a unique breed. They come in all shapes in sizes. What works for one recruiter, may not work for the other. We are sales people. We all have our processes. We ALL do things differently.

How do you know what you are getting when you hire a recruiter? Ask them how they do things! How do they go about finding candidates? What drives them to succeed? How do they know when they have found the right candidate? Ask questions around their sense of urgency.

Metrics and me are not friends. You know, at the end of the day, I will have found you a gem. I will have built the relationship with the manager and have placed the candidate that you really wanted.

Do you want someone to make 150 calls, send out 50 e-mails, 100 inmails a day? How about having 10 face to face meetings a week? I don't think that will guarantee you ANY success. How do I know? I've tried it. You spend all day spinning your wheels! You are talking to irrelevant people!

The next time you hire a recruiter, know what you are getting. People will say it is a numbers game, but I say it is all about WHO you call, not HOW MANY you call. Hire a SMART recruiter. Hire someone that is awesome at sales, is a great sourcer and maintains and develops long lasting relationships.

Really and truly, do you want to win a Super Bowl? Let the recruiters creativity run wild and let them loose. After all, a pencil pusher is just that.

If you enjoyed this blog, please click on the link below and subscribe to my website. Please follow me on Twitter at WThomsonJr and connect with me on Linkedin. My personal e-mail iswill@wthomsonjr.com. Thanks! Will

Comment by Will Thomson on June 21, 2013 at 10:19am: When I wrote this, I wrote out of frustration that certain metrics don't matter. I think companies (agency and corporate) are taking numbers to an extreme. Greg is right, the more people that interview, the better chance of a hire. What it takes to get those interviews, I could care less. I guess that is my beef. Getting the people hired and yes, to your point, do they STAY! Lets just say you have one open req. You submit 2 people, 2 people get interviewed, and one gets hired. You did an awesome job. Lets say you submit 10, and 2 get interviewed and no one gets hired. Something is wrong. Recruiters can get consumed with getting the # of candidates submitted rather than the RIGHT candidates submitted. I think a lot of companies are dictating metrics to tell some story. I guess people have to manage something, but if you put some of the best sales people in a "metric oriented" box they will fail. Recruiters will also.

Comment by Barbara Goldman on June 21, 2013 at 10:35am: You can count the tiles on the floor and call it metrics. Years ago, we counted everything. How many people you pitched, number of dials, length of time on phone etc. We have a points system in our office that is simple. And, it centers around interviews. So, get the interviews. I don't care if you can do it in three calls, and spend the rest of the day at the beach. Get the interviews.

Comment by Will Thomson on June 21, 2013 at 11:20am: I like that analogy Barbara. :) These days just about anything can be measured with so many reporting tools. I guess there is some value but an awful lot of Analysis Paralysis going on today also!

Comment by Sandra McCartt on June 21, 2013 at 11:26am: I am waiting for some idiot to start putting something on the metrics form that says, how many LinkedIn profiles did you look at?

My idea of metrics that matter is cash in at the end of the month, how many are still on the job in six months because if they aren't the cash in will fast disappear. How you get there does not make a tinkers damn. Repeat business is the metric that counts the most.

I even hate the word metrics.

Comment by Will Thomson on June 21, 2013 at 11:35am: Amen Sandra! I did laugh at your comment. You know it is amazing to me how many people are against metrics. Still, people live inside this box. How much money did you make? Are they still there? I think that is a metric worth sharing.

Comment