The Changing Role Of The Corporate Recruiter

This weekend in the Globe and Mail on the front of the business section was a small article about the stubborn U.S. jobless rate. If you noticed the article, you would have viewed it as an indicator of the first signs that we are moving out of the “Information Age” and into the “Knowledge Economy”. This could be causing that ever talked about talent shortage we as recruiters have been preaching about for years. Raghuram Rajan (a professor at the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business) has summarized that the candidate pool we all are drawing from clearly lacks the experience for the higher-skilled jobs currently available. The case the Globe and Mail used to demonstrate this theory was that a North Carolina based company has engineering positions that are simply going unfilled because of the lack of qualified applicants. We, as Seasoned Recruiters will find that the way to success in the future will be to develop strategic partnerships with our clients in order to secure them the best talent available.

In the past, organization’s internal Human Resource departments were viewed as the experts, providing ways to secure the top talent that organizations require to be successful. Laws are challenged and interpreted to keep up with what is classified as intellectual property, public domain and employee / employer rights. Organizations will require Human Resources to keep up with these changes, dealing with ‘pure’ HR tasks. To remain competitive and to still provide Human Resources functions, Recruiting would need to be separated as a stand alone department.

As a stand alone specialty, organizations will be turning to the true Recruiting Professional to come in house and provide them with expertise to source, qualify, build and maintain ongoing relationships with prospective talent. Currently, organizations have been hiring Recruiters with a traditional education background in HR combined with limited exposure to recruiting in an agency environment. This creates a hybrid Recruiter that fits under the HR umbrella.

As the competition for talent becomes stronger, organizations are beginning to seek out pure Recruiting professionals that have a strong understanding of client development and management. The ability to diplomatically and steadily push the hiring process from within while securing and maintaining top talent through non-traditional methods will be the key skills organizations will be requiring from their internal recruiters.

The ideal Recruiters that will fit these positions are Recruiters that carry the responsibilities of a 360 desk. A 360 Recruiter has been not only successful sourcing and developing relationships within their candidate pool, but they also have a thorough understanding that a successful partnership with the hiring manager is often a fragile relationship. These relationships do not happen over night and they take significant amount of time to cultivate. They can easily be damaged when a hiring manager perceives they are being pushed to make a decision. 360 Recruiters have already demonstrated their ability to manage the end to end process, with the special care given to managing the candidate’s expectations and moving the client to close.

If you are the Recruiter looking to make the leap from agency environment to corporate side, you will need to round out your experience. Consider searching out opportunities that will allow you to interact with clients, sourcing for very difficult skill sets and learning to close the candidate under any condition. Learning these skills will definitely set you above other Recruiters.

As the Perfect Storm begins to come together, the Recruiters with the ability to manage both the hiring manager and the candidate will be the most sought after asset in the corporate recruiting environment.

Cheers,

Rebecca B. Sargeant

Recruiter's Career Coach

rsargeant@rbs-staffing.com

Comment by Vikas Ruparelia on September 8, 2010 at 10:26am: Hello Rebecca B. Sargeant ,

What you have stated here seems to be extremely true in an economy like India which is growing at a fast pace and where among other challenges surplus of Junior Level Talent and Scaricity of THE TALENT coupled with TALENT DRAIN are some of the major challenges.

It is an interetsing point highlighted by you that of a 360 Recruiter.

Today each and every recruiter to succeed has to provide a complete gamut of services including an end to end delivery structure. Each hiring is dones AS IF the recruiter is the "Hiring Manager".

It is interesting to see that recruiting challenges are same across boundaries...

Regards,

Vikas

Comment by Ron Kubitz on September 9, 2010 at 11:12am: I agree wholeheartedly Rebecca and congrats on a fine article! I worked the agency/retained side of placement for over 15 years and got tired of the travel, executive turnover, battles over bill rates/candidates etc and went in house as a Corporate Recruiter almost 4 years ago!

I negotiated a higher salary, etc based on what I could save the company in terms of no longer having to pay headhunting fees or wasting money on job boards! In a busy construction firm we have averaged over 40 hires per year and have not had to use a headhunter once and I have reduced expenditures on job boards by over 70%.

I do not "post and pray" but rely on sourcing, social media, referrals etc and am now a valued part of the management/decision making team! I made it clear up front that recruiting is a full time gig and that I desired not to spend time on typical HR, benefits, etc.

Today I do handle the training as well and will assist in HR as asked but typically handle a workload of 3-5 openings with limited travel and less headaches! More companies need to go this route to increase recruiting/employee engagement effectiveness while saving $$!

Comment by Allenda Simpson on September 9, 2010 at 11:54am: I think Ron has the perfect profile that you are referrals to, and coming from an agency, it is clear to see that he entered the corporate position with his network of candidates in place, and so kudos that you were able to offer a tremendous savings to your company. While I don’t have a book of business being that I only work internal, I do ask my managers ahead, how much time they have: if you give me a little more time to fill it, I can save you money. And when time permits, they take me up on the offer.

As a corporate recruiter, I don’t post a pray either. I’ve never worked on the agency side, but went from a large company to a smaller one. In the larger company, most of my co-workers only wanted to hire administrative assistants, so they tossed me everything else: accountants, trading assistants, marketing professionals, etc. This gave me the ability to round out my knowledge of many jobs, and make connections with candidates with a wide range of skills. Many of these positions required me to be somewhat creative about how to find the best people, and during my search, created a network of candidates and agencies to pull from.

Even though I’ve always worked corporate, my HR managers had always given me a certain amount of autonomy, so my goal was to “pay for my seat”; if I only use agencies to fill the jobs, then what good am I? However, I would never completely rule out agency recruiters as a choice, as I consider the relationships I have with them to be invaluable to my overall recruiting strategy; they are a key source to not only candidates, but also up-to-the- minute information on salary, skills demands and employment movement in the market.

Lastly, I agree with statements made about building good relationships with managers and candidates, as it really about both sides. So even as an internal recruiter, my negotiations skills have to be extra sharp to get the best for the company, AND ensure that the candidate feels that they are being compensated for the worth of their talent. Not easy, but I love every aspect of my job!

Great posts!

Allenda