“Why should I pay a recruiter before I have hired one of their candidates?” “Doesn’t it make more sense to give this search out to several recruiters and have them compete for the hire?” “What if we pay an agency and they never deliver what we are asking for?” “We paid an agency a retainer on our last position and they never found us the right candidate.”
These are just some of the concerns many companies have when trying to decide whether to do a retained or contingent search. While it is true that some retained searches are never completed, the one question that most companies fail to ask before doing a search is this: “How will the best candidates for this position feel about our company and how serious we are about this hire if the search is not retained?”
While candidates for non executive level positions could care less about whether a search is retained, most of the best executives do care. Before they spend their valuable time with a recruiter they want to know; 1- is the search retained, 2- is the recruiter I am speaking with in control?
If the search is not retained many senior level executives simply will not want to get involved as they feel the agency is not completely in charge of an effective and efficient search process. The other thing to consider is the seriousness of the hire. If the search is not retained a top candidate may feel that the company is just “measuring the field” against internal candidates and not really serious about hiring at all.
Ever wonder how many candidates have a public profile that might fit your job description? Between the established networks like LinkedIn, resumes that are posted as part of personal websites/ blogs, and profiles that are published as part of a publication or conference, more and more people that used to be hard to find, now have a public profile.
BUT YOUR BEST CANDIDATES ARE TOO BUSY TO BE CHECKING THE JOB BOARDS OR EVEN RESPONDING TO LINKEDIN GROUP LISTINGS.
Posting your opportunity on a job board or community is always an option. Problem is, everyone is doing that. Candidates that respond to opportunities that are posted, are actively looking. Most likely they are responding to a number of postings/ opportunities. So your posting will have to compete against those other opportunities.
When you hire Sanderson McLeod, we will utilize the networks that are available but more importantly, we are your evangelist. So when a passive candidate states that they are not looking, we don’t say thank you and goodbye. Instead, we find a way to get that candidate interested. Here is how we do it ( link to how do we attract passive candidates)
Your most important asset is your people. When you hire a new employee it is crucial that they fit in with the company culture. If not, you will most likely be getting rid of them and in the process may find others leaving the company as well. Every company will make bad hiring decisions. At Sanderson McLeod we spend the time necessary to check on candidates before they get too deep into the recruiting process. Most of our clients are young companies that are looking to either build their core team or enter the market. Our process insures that candidates understand what it is like to work in a more entrepreneurial environment.
In a digital world, finding great talent can be easy. With the myriad of social and business networks today, it is beginning to look like everyone knows everyone. When you are looking to hire great talent however the challenges can be greater than they were before we were so “connected”. More connections means more interruptions and great candidates are now more frequently contacted than ever before.
How you establish credibility in this highly networked market is extremely important. As your company seeks new talent you will want to go to market with a consistent message on who you are, what makes you different, and why a very busy “possible hire” should want to take time out of their day to speak about you and the opportunity you have.
Our process involves a number of techniques that allow us access to these people but most importantly is highly geared towards gaining trust early on in the process. Some of this trust is gained with interpersonal skills however much of it is by knowing the industry and knowing your clients in such a way as to be able to articulate a clear, intelligent and concise message.
What we will not do however can be just as important as what we do:
We introduce ourselves to new contacts as headhunters, not as “executive recruiters”. While we do recruit executives, we find a more direct approach to what we actually do as refreshing to candidates that are often put through a litany of processes and procedures in the recruiting process that usually begin with an overvalued sense of who the recruiter really is. While we handle the search from beginning to end, and more often than not are more hands on than some of our competitors, we believe that we are first and foremost, facilitators. This approach means that we get our clients and candidates more involved early on with the success of the search, and has resulted in a search to fill ratio of 95%.
