Why do Recruiting Agencies hire other Recruiting Agencies to Recruit Recruiters?
This is a baffling question the answer to which I have not been able to figure out in the last 4 years. Why would a fully functional recruiting agency with all the tools and skills that another agency has hire another agency to find recruiters for itself?
Specialization and competitive advantage? I think not.
Today I was browsing through the regular craigslist job postings and lo and behold! A posting that describes a client like this:
“IT Staffing Recruiters - Base/TOP commission % on contractors (South Shore/Boston )
________________________________________
Reply to: salesjobs@affiliated-search.com [?]
Date: 2009-02-09, 3:47PM EST
We are seeking motivated IT Recruiters for our 100Mil $$ IT consulting client!
Our client has been providing Information Technology solutions and enterprise staffing services to Fortune 1000 and mid to small sized corporations, as well as Federal, state, and local governments for over 29 years.
Requirements
MUST have 5 + years recruiting IT consultants for a STAFFING COMPANY. Must prove a track record of success
NO CORPORATE RECRUITERS WILL BE CONSIDERED.
MUST have a strong motivation to win and be very organized.
Location: South Shore/Boston
• Compensation: 40,000 - 60,000 Base + Top Commissions = six figures at plan”
Aside from blatantly and illegally discriminating against corporate recruiters, who may very well be better sources then agency recruiters, the ad all but gives away the name of the company that has hired affiliated search services. It took me about 2 minutes to find a south shore agency in Norwell that is looking for recruiters. Another 3 minutes to know the names of most of their recruiters and their recruiting manager. And another 3 minutes to know the names of some of their clients and consultants.
Anyhow, back to my original point. Why could the recruiters of the client company not have sourced me directly? What prevented them from posting the ad on craigslist directly or, an even more novel idea… how about finding me on LinkedIn, MySpace, Facebook, or for gods sake on Google!? I am probably one of the most visible technical recruiters in the Boston area. Just search for “Boston Technical Recruiter” and you will find me! Sounds easy right? Yeah..
I first observed this ridiculous trend at Softworld where my recruiting manager used HireAlliance to staff the team. To give him credit he also posted on Monster at $400 a pop, but no matter how I tried to convince him, he would not use Craigslist. Not even after I had made the company hundreds of thousands off CL postings.
So I had this strange unoriginal idea back in 2006, why not source Facebook for recruiters? I compiled a list of 45 recruiters from the best staffing agencies in Boston and gave it to him. Did he call them? Nope.
Did he have a classic case of call reluctance or did he just not care to raise a finger to recruit the best team possible? I don’t really care.
What I know, is that I will burst before I use an agency to staff my recruiting team. Using LinkedIn alone I could probably source dozens of recruiters in a day.
Why pay a 20-25% fee for something that should come so naturally to a recruiter? A recruiting cold call is all it takes.
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