MYTHS vs. REALITY (Part2)

So, the restless Captain Obvious has prepared yet another handful of spooky stories for an unsophisticated reader. Seasoned professionals and non-lovers of triviality can skim this article 🙂

HOW CAN AN EMPLOYER BENEFIT FROM RECRUITMENT AGENCIES?

First of all, a recruitment agency can save an employer an enormous amount of time and money. An agency has access to a ready-made multi-thousand base of candidates. And this means:

• instant search within the shortest possible time
• access to the best specialists who may not respond to an ordinary ad in the media
• candidate sourcing in other regions and countries
• warranty support for a hired candidate
• search confidentiality, if necessary
• no need to waste time on interview preparation procedures

A good agency knows everything, or pretty much everything, about vacancies and companies, and therefore they can give sensible advice on the market situation and prospects. Add to that many years of headhunting experience and a professional’s keen eyes.

Myth #1 Recruitment agencies are only profit oriented

There is a superstition that recruitment agencies are only money-minded, caring less about the quality of the provided candidates. But every experienced recruiter knows that imposing a low-quality candidate on an employer can easily make their life more difficult. Searching a replacement and the fact that the customer is forced to waste more time to find an employee won’t yield good feedback.

As a rule, employers watch their money and unlikely ever to deal with nonprofessionals again. Therefore, in a competitive environment, agencies always protect their reputation and preserve professional decency.

Myth #2 Recruitment agencies unreasonably require advance payment

In some cases, services of a recruitment agency do include an advance payment. This should come as no surprise as the agency incurs costs at the stage of market research and attracting candidates (for example, placing ads on paid job boards or using expensive methods of vacancy promotion)

In addition, an advance payment helps protect an agency from a client’s dishonesty. For example, a recruiter spends time on research, follows the agreement to the letter and is about ready to produce the final result. At this very moment, a customer sweeps a curtsey, apologizes and says that they no longer require the agency’s services.

In this case, an advance chastens both parties and serves as a guarantee that the agency is not working for nothing.

Myth #3 Using more than one recruitment agency will help solve the staffing issue faster

Some insight for employers. As the saying goes: it’s hard to wear two hats. Same deal is with attempting to solve your staffing issues at the expense of several agencies at once.

Sometimes a client gives the search for a candidate to several agencies at once. Usually without an advance payment. Recruiters rush to hunt, combing the market, interviewing the same applicants, wasting their time and effort. In such a race, a client plays the recruiters against each other, and such a situation always reflects badly on their reputation.

Remember the tale about the shepherd boy and the wolf? Nobody wants to keep company with a mischievous shepherd boy less recommend it to others.

Myth #4 Recruiters are not eager to delve into the corporate culture of the company

In order to find a high-quality specialist, a recruiter needs to understand the corporate culture of the employer’s company. And that is not easy to do with no outside help. Hunting becomes more effective when an employer finds time to tell more about the job, team, business, and even about the reasons for other employees’ dismissal.

Misunderstandings occur between a recruiter and a client from the very beginning. The most common reason is that a provided candidate doesn’t meet the requirements. This problem can be solved by providing feedback to the recruiter after the interview. This will help avoid misunderstandings in the potential employee search process.

A few recommendations:

The following recommendations can help develop successful cooperation in order to solve the staffing issue:

• compose a detailed vacancy description.
• try to mention every, small though it is, detail.
• introduce your company culture to the recruiter.
• give a tour of your office.
• set up a meeting for the recruiter and the manager of the potential candidate.
• always provide immediate feedback after the interview and share your candidate impressions.

All this information will provide a better understanding of who you are looking for and will significantly save search time. Be prepared for the fact that not every recruiter can give an objective assessment of the professional level of candidates. In addition, you may have special requirements for the knowledge and skills of potential employees. In this situation, there are several options:

• You can evaluate candidate’s professional skills yourself in a face-to-face meeting. A consultant will collect recommendations, assessment of personal qualities and applicant’s motivation.
• Prepare a test assignment, which a recruiter will submit to the candidate. You can make a decision based on the results of the test.

Don’t be afraid to go for a snob and formulate the terms of reference for an agency as accurately as possible. This will affect the speed and efficiency of the expected result.

Also, if you want to cooperate with an agency more efficiently, then it’s advisable to document your communication. This way, the chances of distortion or discrepancy of information will be minimal. If you are disappointed with the result of the cooperation, it is better to jointly analyse the situation and find the optimal solution for both parties. It’s much more effective than mutual accusations and conflicts.

Myth #5 Recruiters get into cahoots with candidates

If you are even remotely familiar with recruitment agencies workflow, then you understand that there is no need for a recruiter to force-feed a specific candidate. Every decent agency has a base with CVs of the best specialists — access to hundreds, even thousands of CVs. A recruiter is always interested in offering the best of the best to the employer. After all, the agency’s reputation depends on it. Building such a Ponzi scheme is simply impossible. And even if such a scheme was put in place by some conman, then such an agency would go down the hole pretty soon.

Myth #6 There is a confrontation between internal and external recruiters

There is no enmity. No one is trying to take away anyone’s bread / bonuses / honour / palm of victory. Internal and external recruiters work together towards a common cause, jointly solving common problems, despite the fact that they use slightly different business approaches. It is foolish not to take advantage of such breeding grounds for effective cooperation and knowledge flow. Therefore, let us debunk this myth once and for all.

Myth #7 Recruiting is easy-peasy work. Anyone can become a recruiter

Before work becomes easy, you have to sweat your guts out up to 12 overtime hours over a year. You’ll have to rub through a lot of stupid personal and virtual interviews, write hundreds of letters, get a lovely couple of good old “burn in hell” wishes, lose several clients’ applications or a client himself.

Some believe that recruiting consists solely of easy communication. Well, ok. Let’s assume that you have 5 interviews per day. But the rest of the time you spend on an ordinary information search and analysis — meticulous, urgent and sometimes very monotonous routine.

They say that anyone can become a recruiter. The experience here, of course, is not critical. But there is a set of certain qualities that are absolutely necessary: analytical capability, good communication skills, erudition, sense of purpose, the ability to work at a fast pace and multitasking. And also — basic business knowledge and confident knowledge of English. These skills are needed in practice and in deed.

And in conclusion: don’t be afraid of those scary recruiters. We are not wizards yet. But we are already much closer to the magic of successful employment than ever before.

We appreciate your attention. We look forward to your comments and letters.

And your drawings 🙂