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.

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Comment by Amber on June 20, 2013 at 4:10pm: Certainly agree, Will! Even as a sales manager, the "metrics" were really only focused on by the company for the low performer. If I had an Acct. Exec. exceeding their sales goal, no one griped and asked how many dials they made/how many applications they submitted/ etc. But if they slipped below goal it MUST have been because they only made 149 dials, not 150. Not because maybe the assessment they scored so well on wasn't the be all end all reason to hire them (even if I didn't want to), or because our region had no underwriters for 3 weeks, yadda yadda yadda.

RESULTS are what matters. Phone calls, emails, SM - whatever works for you! If you are achieving the results you want, then you're doing it the right way and metrics don't matter.

Comment by Derdiver on June 20, 2013 at 4:13pm: ...and that is why I am a 49rs fan!!! Nice one Mr. Feature!!!

Comment by Will Thomson on June 20, 2013 at 4:29pm: 100% Agree- Just get it done, right?! At the end of the day, that is what really matters! Did you or didn't you hire the guy you wanted!

Comment by Amy Ala Miller on June 20, 2013 at 6:03pm: Many moons ago working for a staffing agency I was constantly getting dinged for not meeting temp GM goals. I had very few temps on assignment and therefore very little revenue coming in on the gross margin side. At the same time, I was #1 in the entire company month after month for perm dollars. My boss just threw up her hands and said "forget it just do perm". LOL I eventually left for a "real" headhunting firm but came back later to start a perm division. I'll never forget though there were a couple of crazies (not my boss, she was great) that thought I was a terrible recruiter because I couldn't meet my temp revenue goals. Wow.

Comment by Ryan Harding on June 20, 2013 at 6:05pm: Every minute that I worked on the agency side, I wanted to say exactly what you just said. The company I worked for had metrics in place for Jr. Recruiters, and then held their Sr. recruiters to these same standards. At the end of the day they still wondered why the Sr. people were leaving. Thanks for sharing Will! This is a great post.

Comment by Will Thomson on June 20, 2013 at 6:11pm: Thanks Amy & Ryan for responding. You know this stuff happens in the agency world, but I am seeing it on the corporate world also, and it just isn't right. Great recruiters know how to get the job done and worry less about the ridiculous metric expectations. I feel half of a managers job is to look at a spreadsheet.

Comment by Ryan Harding on June 20, 2013 at 6:14pm: You are right! I am lucky and I have an employer (Intuit) who is great about having metrics, but not letting the metrics determine everything.

Comment by Amy Ala Miller on June 20, 2013 at 7:14pm: Same here Ryan! I am pretty lucky - both my corporate gigs there has been a numbers/metrics focus but always with a grain of salt. The important question is "are we filling positions!" that's it. Sad to hear some corporations are picking up bad habits, Will...

Comment by Will Thomson on June 21, 2013 at 9:22am: I asked Greg Savage his thoughts on Metrics and recruiting and he gave me this article. I wanted to share. The more interviews, the better chance for hires. http://bit.ly/wCci3V . Thanks Greg.

Comment by Derdiver on June 21, 2013 at 10:08am: Will, Greg's article makes sense to me from a TPR point of view. Corporate is different for me. I actually look at length of hire, i.e. how long has the person I brought in stayed. Did they make it past the ninety day probation period? Did they fit in the way I knew they would?

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