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A Right Recruiting Newsletter, 7/2006
More and more often, companies are turning to recruiting firms like Right Recruiting to help them with staffing. This might be a good time to explain how we work.
Right Recruiting does both contingency and retained searches, with retained searches being about 25% of our business. The process for both is similar but the retained work is always our first priority. So far, in four years, there has been only one retained search that we have not brought to a successful conclusion and that one is currently on-going. FYI, we also charge less for retained work than for contingency because with retained work we have a high degree of certainty we will fill the job.
As most of you know, we work with small and mid-sized companies. The positions we fill range from $40,000/year to $140,000 - junior people to the C-level executive at $10,000,000+ companies.
Let’s begin with our database. I am a packrat for information. Everyone goes into our database. Currently there are 26,000+ names and skills of professionals in our region. Of course, not every one of them has a resume and of course not all are looking. But, we know that Sarah Smith is a Tax Accountant and John Brown is a Design Engineer. We know where they work and how to reach them. To augment our database we continuously run ads for specific jobs and buy on-line resume databases. It’s nice when we can use these tools to fill a particular job, but that is rare. Usually it’s someone who responded to an ad 3 months ago or we pulled from an on-line web site a year ago that is the successful candidate. We use our database as a primary candidate source because these people are correctly skilled and evaluated. We are constantly investing to add to our database. It’s our biggest expense, both time and money.
I think its candidate evaluation that sets Right Recruiting apart from other firms. I’ve always thought I was a lousy salesman, which meant that I had to find someone who really wants the position I am trying to fill based on it’s own merits, not because I talked them into it. In other words, the best candidate is the candidate with the right skills who actually wants the job, not just the person with the best credentials!! In my 25 years of recruiting, I have seen too many recruiters and companies chase the "perfect candidate" who lives 50 miles away and who doesn’t want to move or who makes $5,000 more than the salary limit or who is just plain happy where he is. Many firms expect the recruiter to be such a good salesperson that they can talk the unwilling candidate into the job. When you signal that is what you want, you are opening up a Pandora’s box that leads to hard-sell and pressure tactics that, at best, turn off a candidate or, at worst lead to a bad placement and high turnover.
Here is where we differ from other recruiting firms. I want my candidates to start jobs they have accepted and to stay in jobs I found for them. I think the professionals I speak with daily are some of the smartest people I know and have a better understanding of their personal, professional and financial needs than I ever will. I have never seen a strong, intelligent candidate talked into or sold on a job that they did not want. Never. Sometimes, very sales-oriented recruiters can "beat up" a candidate to the point they say yes just to get off the phone. Those candidates are likely to accept counters or won’t last in a new job. The best candidate is the one that wants the job, not the one that has to be talked into the job. In a large company where employment is managed by a corporate staffing entity, acceptances are just numbers and statistics. The internal recruiter has moved on before the acceptances are ever evaluated as to whether they are good, long-term employees. My clients are smaller and each hire is important.
Does that mean that we can’t influence a decision? Of course not. We evaluate a candidate continuously and make a note of every contact over years. I am looking at a record of someone I first spoke to 6 years ago. It has 15 contact notations. Initial notes say he wanted a management track but no relo. I rated him B+ in his field. His salary was average. I thought he was slightly overvaluing himself but that is not unusual.
Six months later we had something that fit. I called and emailed but never heard back. We noted that info too. We even keep records of whether the spouse/children seem polite and eager to take our message or do so grudgingly. Guess what, polite motivated people have polite, motivated families.
Maybe the person had found another job or wasn’t looking anymore. We focused on other candidates. I was a little surprised when, 3 months later, he answered an ad for a different job, one greatly above his level. We had a 15-minute discussion about why he wasn’t ready for that job. I also asked why he never called/emailed me back about the earlier message. Interesting response - the message I left said the job was in a town 30 minutes away. He didn’t call back because he did not want to drive that far.
At that point I downgraded the person. It looked like he overvalued his skills, had ambitions towards management but wasn’t motivated to drive very far or to even return a message. Yet, he was still looking at web sites and responding to jobs he was 10 years away from in experience.
Over the next few years he continued to respond to VP level jobs and we had a few conversations. The tone of the discussions improved, with no bitterness on his part when I told him why he wasn’t a fit for the jobs he saw. Sometimes, we get a lot of anger from candidates when we tell them they aren’t right for a specific job. We keep that info in our files too. I hoped I was hearing someone who was maturing. Life beats us all up eventually.
About a year ago a job appeared that fit his skill set. It was a planned replacement for a supervisor who was retiring in 3 years and about 40 minutes from his home. I called and left a message with his wife. I made a note that she knew who I was when I called, very rare and a good sign. It’s not good because I am so memorable. It’s good because a wife who is aware of and supportive of a job search is a sign of a serious and ambitious candidate.
When I spoke to the candidate he had a little skepticism but an eagerness to interview. It wasn’t an immediate promotion to management and was a little farther commute but there was enough there to spark interest. We set up the interview.
The interview went well. There was interest on both sides. Salary was a little disappointing but not prohibitive. The candidate saw enough to consider the opportunity but he wasn’t sure. Our approach was educational. I needed him to look at himself. I explained that we had been talking about jobs for 5 years. Some were too high a reach for him or a little too far drive. I said he had to decide how badly he wanted a management track. The market had shown us that, based upon where he lived and other variables, a move into VP role would not just happen. He would have to work up to that level. The candidate needed to decide what he wanted to do, either work a little harder and drive a little farther or stay where he was in a comfortable situation.
I think he was surprised when I asked him think about it and discuss it with his wife. He expected a "sell" from me. However, here is what I knew and thought. From my notes, I felt his wife would be supportive. I knew that if he backed into the job for the wrong reasons he would hate the drive in the winter and go back to his old company. The last thing I wanted was a weak acceptance and then a no-start. I told him that neither choice made him a bad person but that he had to be honest with himself. I thought it was a good move for him but he had to go into it with open eyes.
As you can guess, he accepted and seems happy with his choice. My point, however, is that if he had said no to the job, it would have been a good thing for my client too. Sometimes, our approach draws a candidate to a conclusion that is not in Right Recruiting’s short-term best interest and leads to a turndown. I am convinced that those are placements we don’t want to make because they won’t stick or last very long. Our approach with candidates is to educate and help them impact on the right situation. Not to manhandle them, or our client, into an ill-fated match because it’s the only one we can make today.
We evaluate the candidate from initial contact and throughout the process. Do they call back when they say they will? Are their stated motivations consistent with their actions? Does the process seem to have their attention or is it just a game to them? By maintaining objectivity about the candidate throughout the process we are better able to provide advice about the candidate to our client, both about their final suitability for the job and the best strategy to hire them. Two weeks ago I told a client that I didn’t think someone in whom they were interested was right for a job based upon their actions and comments after the interview. I knew that we had a better chance of filling the job with the right person if we kept looking. We are NOT advocates for our candidates throughout the process. If something troubles us about the candidate, our clients hear about it. Not everyone is the sharpest person in the world, as other recruiters may have you believe.
Our approach with candidates is different. If you are still reading this it may mean you agree with us. Our approach with clients is different too. Hopefully, the explanation won’t end our relationship.
There is a difference between a client and a company where we just happen to make a sale. Clients call us, tell us about a job and expect us to fill it. Fortunately, this happens a lot. One of the things I think we do well is to work with small to mid-sized firms to define new positions. Often, we will get a call telling us what the person will do for them. We are expected to turn that conversation into a living, breathing person. Obviously, those arrangements are the key to our business.
In addition to long-term clients, there are companies where we make a placement because we have the right candidate at the right time. After all we are Right Recruiting and our motto is the Right resume on the Right desk at the Right time. Some of you may have gotten calls or e-mails from us about specific candidates even though we have never spoken. Someone appears who has good skills, understandable goals and who we like. A database search can lead to 10, 20 or 200 companies that might fit and it’s Recruiting 101 to check with those companies about their needs. Sometimes that leads to a placement and sometimes to a client. However, not every placement leads to a client. Sometimes it was just having the right person at the right time. That’s OK too.
We work best with companies that personalize their hiring. They don’t just collect resumes from a jumble of sources. They hire people. The hiring manager is engaged and not on Mount Olympus somewhere expecting a recruiter/HR to do the dirty work of actually talking to people. The owner, President, Vice-President, Manager, whoever is hiring, want to get a feel for the person and don’t see the hiring decision as just a skill set checklist. If there is HR involvement it is to facilitate an information flow, not control it. It is impossible to explain the frustrations of emailing HR/Administrative intermediary a question about a job or important info about a candidate only to find out that the question/info never got to the manager. All parties should be committed to working together to find the best person for that job and company. Experience has shown us that some companies have employment processes that don’t work well. Maybe it’s us, maybe it’s them. You need to care about who you hire for Right Recruiting to do a good job.
Lastly, our fees. We are cheap. The cheapest boys on the block. That’s good. But you need to know why we are cheap. First, we are successful. I have been doing this for 25 years. You don’t survive in a commission intensive business for that long without being successful. Most contingency recruiters fill 10% of the jobs they hear about. We fill 70%. The confidence that success brings gives us an economy of scale. We don’t need to maximize today’s fee because we are afraid there will be no fee tomorrow. We’ve had 25 years of tomorrows.
The second reason we can remain cheap is that we are small and want to stay that way. Before starting Right Recruiting I managed a large, large group located in 2 cities. That experience taught me growth only does one thing - it ads overhead. Training, recruiter turnover and the dreaded increase in fixed costs are the consequences of growth in my industry. Our expenses are purely focused on tools that make us more effective, not more administrative. As a potential vendor to you or your company, I am sure you will agree, cheaper is better. Let us know if we can help you and enjoy the summer. Thanks for your time. Jeff
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