Recruiters - Friend or Foe?
Another post on recruiters today because I believe we cannot discuss enough their role in the job search. Recruiters are VERY important at most all levels of job searching. Keep in mind though, most hiring manager do not use recruiters to fill their vacancies. There are millions and millions of businesses and only thousands of recruiters. Most company people try to find ways to hire without help from a recruiting firm before they give up the reigns.
Companies pay recruiters to find people for them...right? Companies pay recruiters to find people for them...right? One more time, companies pay recruiters to find people for them right? Ok you should by now get the picture that recruiters get paid by the company. Where do the recruiters loyalties lie? It lies with the companies NOT the job seeker....not the job seeker....NOT THE JOB SEEKER!
This doesn't mean that recruiters don't care about your job search or the challenges you are having or help you with a resume or what to say at an interview. I have met many recruiters and most if not all of them genuinely like to work with people. They are not trying to s***w anyone. What they sometimes are guilty of is leading candidates on. This is definitely not right and I struggle with them on this.
The "leading on" comes from the delicate balance a recruiter has with a company. Let me explain...recruiters are hired by a company to find people to fill a job opening. The recruiter is usually not under any contract with a company so the company can hire three or four recruiters to find people to interview for the same job opening. Recruiters try to keep a good relationship with the company's human resources staff to anticipate when a company is ready to start interviewing. This anticipation is where many of the job seekers fall in.
When a recruiter is vague on the job description or when a company plans to interview is because the recruiter probably doesn't know. Recruiters are waiting and waiting and many times still waiting for their connections at the company to give them the green light to start sending them people to consider. The recruiter doesn't necessarily want you to find a job before the company they are courting becomes ready to hire. In addition, many times a recruiter will send resumes to a company's HR team who they have worked with in the past. These resumes are not the ownership of the recruiter and if a company is interested in a candidate, the recruiting fee has to be paid.
Now on the company side, they don't really care about this dance a recruiter has with a job seeker. They are evaluating candidates they have in their database or from referrals they receive internally before they are ready to "commit" to the recruiter. The company dances for many reasons but the primary one is money. The company usually has to pay 25% to 33% of a persons first year salary to a recruiter. So if the company is trying to hire a manager or sales person at $60,000, the "price tag" on a recruiter's pick is about $18,000. If the company doesn't have to pay that amount, they won't.
So the dance goes on...companies not wanting to pay for hiring and the recruiter wanting to get paid. So in the end the recruiters will make the company happy some times at a candidates expense of "leading them on". Now remember not all recruiter conduct themselves this way. Most of the good ones do not play this game as they have been in the industry for a solid amount of time. The challenge is to find a recruiter who is going to respect you.
We will discuss this topic in more detail next week...until then.
Let's Get Started!
Jeff
Companies pay recruiters to find people for them...right? Companies pay recruiters to find people for them...right? One more time, companies pay recruiters to find people for them right? Ok you should by now get the picture that recruiters get paid by the company. Where do the recruiters loyalties lie? It lies with the companies NOT the job seeker....not the job seeker....NOT THE JOB SEEKER!
This doesn't mean that recruiters don't care about your job search or the challenges you are having or help you with a resume or what to say at an interview. I have met many recruiters and most if not all of them genuinely like to work with people. They are not trying to s***w anyone. What they sometimes are guilty of is leading candidates on. This is definitely not right and I struggle with them on this.
The "leading on" comes from the delicate balance a recruiter has with a company. Let me explain...recruiters are hired by a company to find people to fill a job opening. The recruiter is usually not under any contract with a company so the company can hire three or four recruiters to find people to interview for the same job opening. Recruiters try to keep a good relationship with the company's human resources staff to anticipate when a company is ready to start interviewing. This anticipation is where many of the job seekers fall in.
When a recruiter is vague on the job description or when a company plans to interview is because the recruiter probably doesn't know. Recruiters are waiting and waiting and many times still waiting for their connections at the company to give them the green light to start sending them people to consider. The recruiter doesn't necessarily want you to find a job before the company they are courting becomes ready to hire. In addition, many times a recruiter will send resumes to a company's HR team who they have worked with in the past. These resumes are not the ownership of the recruiter and if a company is interested in a candidate, the recruiting fee has to be paid.
Now on the company side, they don't really care about this dance a recruiter has with a job seeker. They are evaluating candidates they have in their database or from referrals they receive internally before they are ready to "commit" to the recruiter. The company dances for many reasons but the primary one is money. The company usually has to pay 25% to 33% of a persons first year salary to a recruiter. So if the company is trying to hire a manager or sales person at $60,000, the "price tag" on a recruiter's pick is about $18,000. If the company doesn't have to pay that amount, they won't.
So the dance goes on...companies not wanting to pay for hiring and the recruiter wanting to get paid. So in the end the recruiters will make the company happy some times at a candidates expense of "leading them on". Now remember not all recruiter conduct themselves this way. Most of the good ones do not play this game as they have been in the industry for a solid amount of time. The challenge is to find a recruiter who is going to respect you.
We will discuss this topic in more detail next week...until then.
Let's Get Started!
Jeff
posted by Jeff at
6:43 AM
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