HR and internal recruiters, YOU need to lift your game too

There has been a great deal of criticism of Agency recruiters lately, quite a bit of it from me.

But a recent theme is emerging where Corporate HR managers and internal recruiters have launched some scathing attacks on the process followed by recruiters. A recent blog, Dear John, from Katie McNab being a case in point – albeit a very constructive and fair one.

Truthfully, many of these criticisms are valid. As an industry we are guilty of shortcuts, shoddy service and overselling. It’s not true of all recruiters, but it does happen… a lot.

But, as with most contentious issues in life, there are two sides to this debate. And in the case of the relationship between third-party recruiters and internal HR, it is time for a little clarity on how the HR side of this uneasy relationship can improve, for the greater good.

These observations are my own, based on decades of dealing with HR through countless economic cycles. But to make sure I was taking the pulse of the current Zeitgeist on this, I asked for input from 40 recruiters I know across the globe. And they were very keen to have their say, and much of what they said cannot be reproduced here! But I have summarised their perspective in the 8 points below.

HR and internal recruiters, bring it in tight, I have a secret to share. Recruiters want to make you happy. We really do. We know that some of our number are a pain in the butt for you. But please don’t tar us all with the same brush. In fact some of your number are as bad as the worst of ours. Seriously.

So we promise to lift our game. But we need you to make some changes too.

Please don’t be so defensive when dealing with recruiters. We are not the enemy. We are not even bad people. We know you were once an Agency recruiter yourself, (and we will take your word for it that you were “really, really good” at it), or maybe you have an honours degree in HR, but please don’t lord your ‘power’ over recruiters, who should be your partners and not your ‘vendors’, as you so often call us. Arrogance is not an attractive trait, and it’s not a great foundation for a working relationship.
Please understand that we are not competing with you. We are offering to support your talent acquisition endeavors. Yes, we get that your job includes cutting the cost of outside recruitment, but we are pretty sure your CEO did not mean doing that at the expense of missing out on the best talent. Help us to help you.
Please appreciate the need for urgency in talent acquisition. Requesting candidates, and then not responding to a short-list for six weeks is not in the interests of your employer. And when you do finally ask to see those candidates, please don’t be shocked, even angry, with us, that they are not available any more. Good candidates have options, and they will exercise those options, to your detriment. Please work with us to secure the very best talent available. For you.
Please don’t see yourself as the gatekeeper between the recruiter and your hiring managers. We understand you are managing the process. You are in charge. We respect that. But please, accept you will seldom have the depth of understanding of the role that your line managers will. So let us speak to that manager, to refine and calibrate the search criteria. You lose none of your control by doing this. But you increase the chance of your organisation making a great hire. Keeping us from talking to line mangers is counterproductive. Your company does not need you to be a gatekeeper. They need you to be a conduit.
Please invest time in us. This might mean you need to work with far fewer recruiters than you currently do. And that’s a good thing. For everyone. Don’t make us compete on speed. Make us compete on quality and access to talent. We can only do quality work if you take the time to fully brief us on your hiring needs. In detail. And preferably face to face. In recruiting, as in life, you get what you give.
Please don’t delegate your most junior internal recruiters to brief us on your senior roles. We are not snobby. We will deal with anyone you require us to. But please make sure the person we work with has enough knowledge to communicate all the job requirements, and enough clout to ensure line managers respond quickly.
Please, oh please, communicate with us. Return our calls and emails, not just out of common courtesy, but also because we are representing your employer brand to the talent market. Keep us hanging, you keep the talent hanging. They don’t like it, and they wont like your brand as a result. Be upfront with us about the status of each role. If it’s likely to be filled internally, tell us. If it’s about to be put on hold for a month, tell us. When you interview our candidates, make the time to provide detailed feedback – so we can service out talent, but also so we can refine the search.
Please, take our advice. We understand you have been burned by less scrupulous operators, but please don’t lump us all together. Actually, it’s your responsibility to find a good recruiter and build a strong relationship with them. Sure, set your expectations of us very high, but apply those same expectations to yourself. You want us to listen and understand. You need to do the same. Listen to what we have to say on salaries, on urgency, on market trends and on which candidate to interview. If we get it wrong, warn us, and if we get it wrong too often, fire us. But remember if you treat your recruiter like a transactional drone, chances are, that’s what you will end up with.

The truth is that many of the very best business relationships I have had in my recruiting career have been with smart, demanding, Corporate HR professionals. I love dealing with those people. But they are rare, like good recruiters, I suppose.

It works best when the communications is open and the expectations are clear. But always built on a platform of mutual respect and understanding.

So, recruiters reading this, lets go and fix our processes. Listen to the voice of HR clients, unhappy with what we do. Let’s get our house in order.

But please HR and internal recruiters heed my call. Invest in your relationship with a great recruiter, or a small set of quality, specialised recruiters.

The rewards will astound you.

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Comment by sbarbour on May 26, 2011 at 7:03pm: PS. Chaser please don't ever call me...I do work with agencies "preferred agencies" that I have worked with for years and view them as partners as I also believe they see me that way as well.

Comment by Greg Savage on May 27, 2011 at 2:17am: @sbarbour

It still bemuses me that people can be so offensive when the encounter a different point of view.

I took pains in my post to make it clear that I know that many recruiters do a very bad job. I admit that, and abhor some of the tactics they employ. I also explicitly said that the very best people I work with are Corporate recruiters.

I am simply putting a low key and collaborative point of view as to how we can work together better.

You disagree with me, sbarbour. Fair enough. Thats your right and I am sure you have a very valid perspective.

But is it necessary to describe my post as "Bullshit"? Would you say that if I was sitting right next to you and we were discussing this over a coffee?

Don't worry, I am a big, ugly, battle-hardened veteran in this business and it would be very hard to offend me. I just find it puzzling and faintly amusing why people need to be so rude - especially from behind a computer screen.

Comment by Leela Densa on May 27, 2011 at 12:26pm: Great read-but I think the frustrations are two sided.
Below is one of post I have read awhile back. It's call One thing [Overloaded] Corporate Recruiters value in Recruitment Agencies (posted by Mauricio on March 9, 2011) I like this posted and have read often [to reminded myself whenever I am dealing with Non Happy Camper HR or Corp Recruiters:) ]

One thing [Overloaded] Corporate Recruiters value in Recruitment Agencies...

I was a "Head-hunter" (on contingency basis) for over 11yrs and have been on the "other side of the desk" for over 5yrs. Having worked on both sides, I can understand the frustrations both agency recruiters and corporate recruiters feel when dealing with each other.

Ironically, some of the frustrations are similiar such as response time, communication, content of requested information, etc. We both have the same complaints in many cases, the difference is from which side it comes and who has it first. Either way, it can develop into a real quagmire of frustrating issues that eventually get resolved either by Agency pouching from their client (because they decided that it was more valuable taking out of them than working with them), or Corporate Recruiters black-listing the agency (usually done discretely by consistantly telling them that they don't have any job orders to give them until they fade away...and probably end up pouching from them anyway).

Just as a gentle reminder, Corporate Recruiters have more than just sourcing, qualifying and placing the candidate. We also have to deal with Compliance issues (internal/external), Corporate Initiatives (e.g. Diversity), Constant Meetings with Stakeholders, Training, Posting jobs and documentation on ATS', "special projects"--lovely term for "more work, more hours, zero reward", etc. , etc, ETC!

Because we (Corporate Recruiters) are over-worked beyond belief (especially with downsizing recruitment depts to bare bone), this creates a need for what I call, "Recruitment PARTNERS", not "Vendors".

So as my Post Title suggestions, I'd like to let all the Agency Recruiters know a particular area that can "set-you-apart" from "Head-hunters".

The primary value is information. Since our days are spent (including but not limited to) handling 100+emails, managing the recruitment process, creating and explaining endless spreadsheets for each of our 40+Hiring Managers, the last thing we want to have to do is spend hours qualifying ONE candidate for ONE position (of +40 positions we have to fill YESTERDAY)...especially when the candidate comes from an Agency!

"Head-hunters" to me is defined as a recruiter that sends a SANITIZED CV with little to no extra information other than the typical 4-5 bullets such as availability to interview, salary expectations, etc. and doesn’t do any more work except when requested (piece-mealed!).

What a “Recruitment Partner” will do is send their INTERVIEW NOTES TO THE CORPORATE RECRUITER! When you’ve invested the time to FULLY INTERVIEW YOUR (I REPEAT, YOUR) candidate, AND SENDS THOSE INTERVIEW NOTES to the Corporate Recruiter, it saves us:

1) Time
2) Gives us a wealth of information to process in little to no time, and
3) We can then make an informed decision (collectively with the Hiring Manager or with the Recruitment Partner themselves) as to which direction we want to go in with THEIR candidate.

Notice I mention that the candidate is the Recruitment Partner’s candidate? Because the Candidate is YOUR ASSET, not the Corporate Recruiters. And some of you have experienced “Credit-Junkie” Corporate Recruiters but regardless if they want to take an ego trip and claim the candidate as their own, at the end of the day, it shouldn’t matter to you because it all comes out in the open. Did you forget that the candidate knows who placed them?? So don’t get caught-up in that mess. It’s a waste of time. Your stock will go up in the eyes of the Hiring Manager/Stakeholders no matter how political the Corporate Recruiter gets.

You see, the value of information is priceless to a Corporate Recruiter. The more you can do for us, the less we have to do, and the less we have to do, the more valuable you become, and the more valuable you become, the more we want to use you. So just because you work on a contingency basis, or you fear loss, the worst you can do is give limited information. You limit your ability to make a placement and build your relationship when you work with limitations. Don't worry about the limitations the Corporate Recruiter places on you (e.g. gate-keeper to Hiring Manager), go with blind faith and SET EXPECTATIONS UP FRONT with them! AND REMIND THEM WHEN THEY DON'T MEET YOUR EXPECATION...gently (as you are probably aware that Corporate Recruiters can sometimes have "attitudes" with "HEAD-HUNTERS"). Its up to your savy ways to find a way to connect with your client.

I suggest that the main reason why Recruiters don’t divulge Candidates' contact information up front, and hold information back is due to trust. My suggestion to you is:

IF YOU DON’T TRUST YOUR CLIENT ENOUGH TO DIVULGE ALL THE INFORMATION UP FRONT, THEN YOU HAVE A TRUST ISSUE. AND IF YOU HAVE A TRUST ISSUE, WHY DO YOU EVEN WANT TO ENGAGE IN A BUSINESS RELATIONSHIP WITH THEM? THE SAME PHILOSOPHY APPLIES IN PERSONAL RELATIONSHIPS APPLIES IN BUSINESS RELATIONSHIPS. ESTABLISH TRUST FIRST, BUILD ON IT WITH SOME AMOUNT OF BLIND FAITH, AND GO FROM THERE. I can certainly assure you that if a Corporate Recruiter doesn’t trust an Agency Recruiter, believe me, you are of no value to them nor yourself. And at the cost of contingency, what dice do you want to roll?

Comment by sbarbour on May 27, 2011 at 12:32pm: yes greg, i would tell you over coffee...i work honestly and don't hide behind my computer. like i mentioned...there are good and bad on both sides (external and internal)...when you blog, you are going to get responses, part of the deal...i was not so offended nor did i lose sleep...just responding and sharing my personal point of view...

Comment by Sandra McCartt on May 27, 2011 at 2:32pm: What i find interesting about all this is that as third party recruiters we are probably more vocal about the bad apples on our side of the fence than HR and Internal recruiters are, but when we mention there are bad apples on the other side of the fence those who know we are not talking about them have to rise up in righteous wrath.

As Greg has stated, we know and experience the incompetant on the internal side we know it's not bullshit. I have no desire to rise up in my helmet with horns and my spear if an HR internal person makes a valid point about crappy, paranoid recruiters who can't write a presentation, won't release candidate contact info, go around HR and cold call until your eyes roll back in your head. I know it's not bullshit when an internal person voices those kind of complaints. I've been apologizing for so called recruiters for over 30 years and beating the drum any time i can as well as pinning their ears back in the market place to make it more difficult for them to survive to try and clean up our side of the fence.

When i talk to savy Sr. Internal recruiters about the problems i am having with their jr. recruiters who don't know how to work with a recruiter or having discoverd a little power to block the process to justify their existance i am often told something like. "I'm sorry, i know she is immature and inexperienced but she's all i've got".

All i know from a recruiting firm owner's viewpoint is that if i have an immature and inexperienced recruiter i do not put them on the phone with a sr. executive or a hiring manager or an internal recruiter. If i can't get them trained by letting them cut their teeth on lower level positions, monitor their calls and coach them then they are not "all i've got", they are on their way out the door. If they do anything obnoxious they are off the phone. If they do anything shifty ..gone!

Why is it that immature and inexperienced internal recruiters are allowed to "phone screen" doctors, PhD's, sr. executives, play games with recruiters and are allowed to tarnish the employers reputation, screw up with candidates and couldn't present shelled corn to a goose when a top candidate is put in their hands to present to a hiring manager. Why are they allowed to knock out top candidates in preference to a lesser candidate that they have found when the recruiter has been asked to assist in a search. I have had it happen over and over and have had to go to Sr. Internal or HR VP's with a candidate then had to deal with the crappy attitude of some kid because i went around them to their boss when they blocked candidates or made an idiot out of themselves on the phone with a candidate.

It is very difficult to partner with an immature and inexperienced internal recruiter. If i don't let my bimbo trainees on the phone or give them any power why does internal do it?

If sbarbour is right and there are good and bad on boths sides what would sbarbour suggest to her colleagues on her side of the fence to clean up the mess on her side. Would she suggest some of the same things that Greg has mentioned?

Comment by David Kimmelman on August 8, 2011 at 12:19pm: As is with most challenges and issues in life and business, the answer usually lies somewhere in the middle. The problems outlined by both sides here has been plaguing the staffing industry for years, and what makes it worse today for agency recruiters is that internal recruiters now have access to so many more people than we did years ago which makes agencies less relevant (not totally irrelevant) than ever before.

When I was an agency recruiter in the early 1990's and before I went internal, I was taught by some phenomenal recruiters how to find the best talent and recruit them. I'm talking about finding people we never before and enticing them to a relationship with me and my firm, and eventually placing them. This was without the use of any internet tools because they really didn't exist yet.

Then the internet blossomed and more and more agency recruiters became lazy, using job boards etc to recruit the same type of people internal recruiters were going after. Where an agency has always been affective for me was when I assigned/asked them to target a specific company that I wanted to pull people from. As an internal recruiter I have never been comfortable targeting another employer, but as a Headhunter (and I will boldly say I was very good) I relished the challenge of finding candidates for those most challenging jobs without the use of the internet.

Today however, we all have LinkedIn, FB, Twitter etc, and it has made internal recruiters much more productive and effective in recruiting than ever before, and therefore making the need for agencies less important. In addition to our own efforts, I will hazard a guess that most companies today hire 50-70% of their new hires through employee referrals. My company is at 67%. The last two years we have hired almost 40 people and only two (2) were through agencies.

Having worked in my market for over 20 years I have built wonderful relationships with a handful of recruiters that I trust and will call upon if I need help. When I post a job today, within 24 hours I will receive at least 1 dozen calls and/or emails from agencies all saying the same thing, so honestly I will not call them back. That said, if I get a voice mail or email from someone that doesn't sound like every other recruiter as happened just the other day, I will respond.

Final note where I will get a bit pissy, and here's where many of you agency recruiters just don't get it; Don't assume you know more than I do about a specific type of role where you will get so much more out of one of my hiring managers than I will. You go down that road with that assumption that you are better suited to work with our hiring managers than me or my staff, you're dead to me! If I feel that my company and hiring manager will be better served by working directly with you, then I will make that happen and have done that before. But again, don't be so arrogant to assume that you must work directly with hiring managers to ensure success.

I've run on long enough. As I said, a debate that will continue I'm sure.

Comment by Kirby Cole on August 9, 2011 at 5:37pm: I have worked on both sides of this conversation and can say without a doubt MOST agency recruiting companies don't live up to the hype, the promise, or the "seven step" process to deliver only the best. While I agree it is extremely important to partner with agencies, the challenge is knowing which agencies to partner with. More often than not I spend a couple hours with an account manager who misses the point and asks to have another call with their recruiter involved. The recruiter then typically asks a couple questions to sound smart, ie "do you want object oriented programming"? Then, they ask the best questions...well, if they don't have OOP will you take someone with just procedural code? Or, if they have to have VB6, will you take someone with VB4 or VB.net? NO, I said VB6. After that the typical process is a couple resumes slammed over quickly to impress with speed(see run to monster, search VB6, call, and submit) If those don't cut the mustard, which they typically don't, the recruiter is out of ideas and we are a difficult client to partner with. Now, after all that, I am asked to spend more time coaching the recruiter and account manager to help them do their job. Case and point, I actually had a recruiter tell me that it was MY fault they hadn't done any business with our company. Really, your candidates were bad and that is my fault, ok. This, my friends, is the challenge. How do I know who to partner with? And how do you, the truly good agencies, separate yourselves from the rest of the pack? I know there are some good recruiters out there who know their stuff, but 80-90% don't. I tend to work with the same one or two friends I have met along the way that do it right, do it well, and don't waste my time. But if I am not your friend, how am I gonna find you? Good corporate recruiting pro's should know the value of this partnership, its just a tough one to build.

Comment by Brendon Booth on August 10, 2011 at 3:23am: Greg, a really good article. It surprises me that there have been a number of negative responses to this, which is basically just saying that as in Agency recruitment, there are some practices within corporate recruitment that could be refined to achieve a better outcome for the business.

A couple of comments from the corporate recruiters surprised me.

a) "I've known a bunch of recruiters for a few years and I only use them. I hate when people contact me without being solicited."

Um, how did you build that network of recruiters? Maybe some were your friends in Agency land, but more likely they've approached you - maybe via a float originally?

b) "I've worked in Agency land and I know what it's like." If you know what it's like, why do you hate that people try to develop a relationship with you? Recruitment is sales, a client-facing position, and one of the key drivers is to grow and develop your own practice.

I know that a fair portion of recruiters don't approach that in the right way - that's fine, they're the recruiters you don't use. But to tar all with the same brush is a narrow-minded approach that serves no one in the long run.

End of rant, nice post Greg!

Comment by Greg Savage on August 10, 2011 at 9:07am: Thanks Brendon

The voice of reason!

Best, Greg

Comment by corry prohens on August 11, 2011 at 9:12am: Thank you for this post Greg. I have read your blog in the past and usually enjoy (and agree with) your viewpoint.

The anger in these comments shows that your post is correct on many fronts... this is a forced and unhappy partnership between HR and Agency. Your attempts to improve the relationship, like a session of marriage therapy, has resulted in a lot of screaming and yelling.

I have never been on the corporate side. I am sure that I don't have the skill set to be successful there.

When I read your points they seem self evident and well stated. When a corporate HR Manager reads them he gets infuriated and calls you names. If we can't agree on the problems there is zero hope of fixing them. Good try though.