After 24 years of day to day work in the recruiting space, I sold my recruiting and staffing business and joined the forces of the Talent Management consulting world. One of my main ambitions is to elevate the quality and reputation of the 3rd party staffing and recruiting industry. Educated guesses from several HR and Recruiting industry leaders is that at this time less than 20% of the recruiting population even cares about selection. Maybe that is why my reputation in the field was so strong…I cared about selection from day one.
When choosing to work with a 3rd party recruiting firm, there are several good questions you can ask; here they are:
How many placements have you made in our field/niche/industry/position level?
What is your passive candidate strategy? Please outline it.
How many other recruiting partners are you aligned with when searching for candidates? How do you manage their quality of submittals?
What system are you utilizing to evaluate your candidates strengths, behaviors, and competencies as they compare to our immediate and long term needs for the role?
What is your due diligence process? Who pays for that?
What is the average tenure of your placements?
Will you consider a fee arrangement with a percentage weighted on retention?
Filling the Recruiting Pipeline
KeenAlignment specializes in training hiring managers, in-house and 3rd party recruiters in the capacity to “Choose their Talent Wisely”. One puts as many applicants in the pool as possible and the other sorts and selects the best fit for the fulfillment of the positions’ key objectives. Given there is a War for Talent many companies fear that they can not afford to be highly selective in their recruitment efforts. The reality is while there is a war, there is also a recession which means certain industries are dying and with that is the emergence of talent from hidden sectors.
If you strategize effectively you will easily attract solid ‘core’ talent from industries that are highly compatible to yours. Yes, you may have to train the candidate to your company, products and services. However if you conduct the hiring process with thoroughness and integrity you hire ONLY the best suitable talent – rather hiring the best suitable experience (which we all know backfires when it’s the wrong ‘fit’). Either way you have to train a newcomer to your firm, so it is your choice whether you want to train and fix bad behaviors or invest in up front industry, product and service training.
To attract, hire and retain the “right” talent, keep in mind there are now a multitude of cost effective options and alternatives. If you are choosing to pay a fee; ensure your recruiter is highly skilled in both search and selection, or consider outsourcing pieces of the processes to firms or people who are highly skilled in a specific area, or make certain that your internal resources have all the tools & training they need to improve their hiring batting average. Contact us today if you need support in your recruitment efforts and in training your hiring managers.
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