What is a “Good Recruiter” anyhow? Advice to new recruiters..
This is a response to a post on RicruitingBlog.com by Rick Deare
http://www.recruitingblogs.com/
Here are some comments, although a recruiter possessing of all these traits is often a purple squirrel.
Evangelistic
What happens if your company is engaged in unethical behavior but whistle blowing will get you fired? You can’t always be an evangelist for an organization that does not look after your interests. A recruiting company must never place its profit margin so far ahead of the needs of its recruiters as to alienate them. And at the same time you do not always have the option of leaving. So just keep your head down and do your job. A good recruiter can leave evangelism to someone else.
Competitive
You can be competitive, but you must also be a teacher. Recruiters on these boards follow the teacher code. We share our knowledge and experience freely. These are tools you can examine and discard or adopt. We don’t hoard them, we share them. And great recruiters always teach sometimes for profit and sometimes for the sheer pleasure of telling someone how they would do it.
I find it disturbing when recruiters on LinkedIn block their connections because of the paranoid competitive fear that someone else will steal a candidate. Go right ahead! If you have a better opportunity for a candidate I have nothing for, go for it!
Why would you hide your connections and block my ability to bring them opportunities that you cannot? I call that greed. And good recruiters are not greedy.
Computer literate
I don’t have a headset. But I use Excel and Outlook to create a more effective ATS then many proprietary ATS systems I have encountered. Managing your information systems and knowing how to use them is more important then you own memory.
Skilled in Recruiting Process
This is not necessarily true. The recruiting process has many steps. Large companies separate the process into many segments, from sourcers, to recruiters, to relationship managers, to administrators. This depends on the company and really has nothing to do with the ability or a recruiter. A good recruiter leverages the system to become an even better recruiter.
Entrepreneurial Spirit
You are running your own desk. You must have the courage to take risks, to experiment, to think outside the box even if doing so can put you at odds with management. Management does not always subscribe to your ideas and that’s ok. But a true entrepreneur will find ways around this obstacle.
Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff!
This plays into a point Rick made about accepting change. Recruiters, especially inexperienced ones, get hung up on deals. Every close is a celebration; every small failure is a disaster. I used to run around the office doing cartwheels after closing a deal, while a kicked offer would kill my productivity for a day. Not anymore.
If a candidate kicks an offer, it is not the end of the world! If he does not show up for an interview, it is not your fault. Don’t constantly kick yourself over it since there is nothing you can do about it. And do not under any circumstances allow your recruiting manager to guilt trip you about it (they do it constantly). Don’t try to control candidates!!
This may sound like anathema to the “Candidate Control” mantra, but I’ve never been very fond of that mantra anyhow. Your candidate will do what is in his best interest, not yours. Accept it. Present/Sell the opportunity but be empathetic like Rick pointed out. The fact that you did this and that and marched 100 miles through snow and wind to get that offer does not obligate the candidate to do anything for you. You were doing your job.
Agency Recruiting
As a recruiter, you own a very small part of the process. Here is how it breaks down:
1. Recruiter(you)
2. Sales Executive
3. Client
4. Candidate
5. Competition
6. Luck
If you assume an equal distribution of labor… you own 18% of the process.
So don’t try to control the other factors because you will burn out! Please don’t burn out!
This was fun!
