How to Get the Most Out of Working with a Recruiter

Working with a recruiter can be both a rewarding and beneficial process — recruiters can be a tremendous resource for your company. In addition to having the knowledge and expertise for delivering top talent, an experienced and reliable individual or firm will have a clear understanding of what to look for (and avoid) when screening and placing candidates.

According to Inc., there are three main types of recruiters:

• Reactive — Working with a job recruiter who operates in a reactive manner ensures that your positions will be posted indiscriminately on various job boards. This type of recruiter limits themselves to a pool of random (and often unqualified) applicants who apply, rather than taking a strategic and targeted approach to recruitment.
• Proactive — This is a recruiter who uses sales techniques to target and attract higher-quality candidates. While more successful than reactive recruiters overall, these professionals are still missing out on crucial recruiting and placement opportunities.
• Interactive — This interactive recruiter focuses on building relationships with top-performing talent — including passive candidates who are not be actively looking for a new job. They also know how to showcase your brand to attract the best candidates.

As a professional recruiting and staffing agency, we work with a variety of employers both small and large, and across nearly every industry. As such, we wanted to share some of the ways small business owners, HR teams, and hiring managers everywhere can get the most from their experience when working with a job recruiter.

5 Tips for How to Work with Recruiters Effectively

Knowing how to effectively work with recruiters is essential to becoming more comfortable and familiar with the process. Being able to answer the question “how does a recruiter work?” will help to prepare you for this process.

Here are a few key things to keep in mind to make the most of your time and money when working with a recruiter from a third-party firm:

Tip #1 for Working with a Recruiter: Be Transparent

When figuring out what information to provide when working with a job recruiter, ask yourself: “How exactly does a recruiter work?” Professional recruiters screen and place candidates based on both their market knowledge and the criteria you provide — the more specific the information, the better your resulting candidates will be.

Recruiters work most effectively when they have a clear understanding of your goals and expectations. Some of the specific types of information your recruiter will need to know when screening individual candidates include:

• Values, beliefs, and mindset — Do these traits for each candidate align with those of your organization?
• Skills — Do they possess the skills you need for the role?
• Knowledge — Do they have the knowledge needed for the position?
• Experience — Do they have experience in your industry or a similar role?
• Expertise — Experience isn’t enough; do they have the expertise required to meet the rigorous needs of the position?

Tip #2 for Working with a Recruiter: Be Responsive

The best “working with a recruiter etiquette” advice we can offer is to respond in a timely fashion to emails and phone calls from your recruiter. One of the most frustrating scenarios as a professional recruiter is working with a client who is unresponsive or inaccessible.

The recruiting and hiring process needs to move quickly to keep the best-qualified talent from being snatched up by a competitor. Being responsive to your recruiter:

• Shortens the hiring process (saving you both time and money);
• Leaves candidates with a positive impression of your company or brand; and
• Helps to make your company more productive by placing the best people in the right positions.

Tip #3 for Working with a Recruiter: Trust Their Expertise

As with any professional partnership, trust is an integral component of working with a recruiter. Not only is it important to trust the relationship you have with your external recruiter, but you also should be able to rely on their expertise. A reliable and experienced professional recruiter invests countless hours developing and nurturing relationships with their large pool of active candidates as well as their network of passive candidates.

If you don’t feel like you can trust your recruiter to put the needs of your company first, or that they can’t competently screen and place candidates, then it’s time to find a new recruiter.

Tip #4 for Working with a Recruiter: Find the Right Recruiter

Sourcing the best talent with the right values, mindset, knowledge, and skills is a challenge on its own. Trying to find them at the right time makes the process even more complicated. This is where working with a specialist recruiter — someone who has experience hiring for roles in your niche field or industry — can be highly beneficial.

Partnering with a professional recruiting and staffing agency with specialized experience adds a higher level of structure to the recruitment process. This is because they are more likely to have:

• An in-depth understanding of your market and industry trends concerning talent;
• Access to an extensive network of candidates; and
• Relationships with passive candidates who are experts in your field.

Tip #5 for Working with a Recruiter: Build a Long-Term Relationship

The more time you spend working with a job recruiter who demonstrates extensive experience and expertise, the more they will get to know your company. The better the recruiter knows you, the more they can help sell your company and make it stand out in a competitive job market to candidates.

Ultimately, the job of a professional staffing agency is to act as an extension of your company while attracting and screening the best talent. Regardless of the size of your business, working with a recruiter who is the right fit for your business can help you attract and hire the best talent in a tight job market.

Work with a Recruiter Who Is the Right Fit for Your Company

Don’t hire just any recruiting and staffing firm — make sure that the company is working with a job recruiter who is the right fit for your business.

4 Corner Resources (4CR) continually ranks among the top Orlando staffing agencies. We also are a nationally-renowned staffing agency that works with businesses around the United States.

We hope this information helps you get the most out of working with a professional recruiter to help you meet all of your company’s staffing and hiring needs.

To learn more about working with a professional recruiting and staffing agency, contact our team of experts today.