Let the Experts Do the Job

Any person who works in sales, recruitment or executive search knows we get our fair share of "no's". No matter how much industry intelligence and experience you put out there we know that not everyone will use it. So when people come direct to us for our expert advice, we feel it's well deserved.

Me and my colleague Mark Neilan (@marconeilano5) met a client at a rapidly growing IT services and communications company, however they're having problems getting the right team in to continue the growth (sound familiar?).

They've been using a couple of generalist recruiters, and are getting frustrated with the lack of quality and quantity.

Just some of the things we were hearing from them were:

I'm getting resumes through who have no sales achievements
These candidates do not know the industry
They do not match the briefs
They don't really suit our culture
They're underprepared
They hop from job to job
They aren't right for our roles

All of this sound familiar?

This is from a recruitment manager with 10+ years of industry experience, growing a business from 500 to 2000 employees. And a sales director who has a proven track record of multinational business growth and success. Sadly it’s a very familiar story and one we choose not to be part of. We aim to offer a different experience, which is why we were talking to them.

They had made the decision to start saving some time and in the end money by engaging with experts who could streamline the process and make sure only the best talent was being put forward. They wanted to work with someone who understood their industry and their culture so the candidates that got put through to interview were the highest quality.

Don't get me wrong, not every candidate that we send is going to be perfect. We need feedback, we need communication, and we need trust. It's a partnership that we will develop over time. However no matter how much you do not like recruiting, or even recruiters, your best option is always to use industry experts or else the pain of hiring will always remain.

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Comment by Keith D. Halperin on February 11, 2014 at 3:36pm: Thanks, Richard. Well-said. If a company is looking for more than 1-2 of a given specialty, it makes great economic sense to hire a specialist contract recruiter. You'll get better results than the inhouse generalist, and will save great sums of money over using a 3PR for more than 1-2 positions. If you' ARE looking for just 1-2 hires in a given specialty that are really hard to get (so that using a sourcer to provide you with a good candidate lis/set of proper resumes isn't feasible), then it makes good economic sense to use a 3PR, and you should be willing to pay 30% fees (in the US)- don't expect excellence on the cheap.

-kh