Recruiters Need to Get in Step with the Appeal Factor

There’s a cutesy blog on Recruiting.com from a few days ago. It seems to be an attempt at excusing recruiters in general for being slipshod and rude. But it was precursored by an entire edition of BusinessWeek’s Careers Insider about Mistakes Recruiters Make along with Inc.com’s August 16 issue on hiring.

The BusinessWeek article shows 13 — yes, ladies and gentlemen, 13 — different factors that turn off the average candidate. All the way from the “I’m too busy,” to “I’m so great,” to taking too long to get back to the candidate about anything in relation to the process. Recruiters prefer to think of it as their having so much on their plate that they are simply torn in twain while trying to keep the ship going. This isn’t the impression they’re giving two very important people in their lives — the candidate and the client.

Actually, it’s probably more than two. The recruiter may have more than one candidate they’ve presented. There may be two or even three who have been presented as prime candidates and options. And the client may consist of the contact person in Human Resources, the hiring manager, and some additional authority with input on the decision. To keep this many people waiting while the recruiter tosses [virtual] paper in the air and making noises in order to appear consumed in activity is not impressive to anyone except the recruiter.

On the Other Side of the Question
It almost seems as though that story is an accompaniment to this week’s Inc.com magazine’s discussion of hiring practices. There, the issue looks at the complement of the recruiter’s lack of skill in engaging and representing to focusing on the need to do better hiring through improved interviewing, confirming references compared with our gut instincts, and administering the right tests — the ones that really are determinative of the type of employee being sought, the ones that will reveal the characteristics needed.

The recruiting industry has many who talk, and some who preach, that this type of evaluation, and that type of measure is the way to go. It’s all conversation if it doesn’t net what’s really sought — the right fit for the company and the position. It’s important that the recruiter be more than familiar with the requirements of the position to be filled so that they can act as a consultant to the client. This will aid the client in knowing the candidates who are presented have been properly screened and truly do have the skills and personality that are a fit for the position. Likewise, the client will be confident that qualified talent has not been screened out because the recruiter just nixed this one and that one because the lateral experience didn’t leap off the page during a peremptory scan of the resume. And because that experience didn’t stand out, there was not conversation to produce the hidden qualification and ability.

And when it’s all said and done, all of this is just rhetoric if the recruiter is busy being self important while pushing all that qualified talent out the door or into the waiting pile of resumes while they say, “Don’t bother me. I’m busy.”

Errata: “accompanyment” corrected. August 19, 2006, 6:47 AM