Some people (recruiters especially) would tell you that you should use a recruiter first thing. I would say try to tap into your own network first for people you know would be good possible job candidates for the job. If you don’t have success with that then you should use a recruiter. I’m not talking about your company’s internal recruiter either. They are good at the more general positions, but unless they have experience specifically finding, attracting, and hiring Regulatory, Clinical and Quality professionals, their success is usually pretty limited.
When we are told we can only talk to HR about helping in a search, they almost always tell us they are finding some good job candidates on their own and don’t need my help, but when we talk to the actual hiring manager they tell us a very different story. They are either seeing a lot of resumes – most of which are pretty lousy, or they are getting very few resumes and they are still not very good. Let’s face it, good Regulatory, Clinical, and Quality people are hard to find no matter what the employment market is like and rarely have the time to go scouring the internet to find your opportunity.
WHY SHOULD YOU USE A RECRUITER?
There are 6 reasons you may want to consider using a recruiter to fill a critical position on your team:
Reason 1: A good recruiter will take the time to get to know what problems you are trying to solve by filling an open position. In order for them to do their job and find the right person for you, they have to focus on the true needs you have and the requirements the successful job candidate MUST have to do the job. This makes the company really focus and helps them make better hiring decisions. Some of the multi-page job descriptions that contain things like “Must be able to sit at a computer for extended periods of time and occasionally lift up to 25 pounds” are pretty worthless and do not help you find or identify the right person for the job.
Reason 2: A good recruiter (especially if they specialize) can access a broader range of qualified and interested job candidates than you can. Only 30% of the qualified talent pool is either actively or semi-actively in job changing mode. These are the ones that respond to ads. The other 70% are busy working and not looking. But a specialized recruiter can access that other 70% to find the person you need.
Reason 3: A good recruiter can drastically reduce the chance of a job candidate withdrawing from contention before an offer is made. Since we establish a rapport with the job candidates we submit, we can tell you of other companies they are talking to, or offers they may be getting. We can keep in touch with the job candidates when the interviewing process breaks down so they are not left wondering what’s going on, and moving on to other opportunities.
Reason 4: A good recruiter can greatly increase the likelihood that your offer gets accepted, and the job candidate shows up on the first day. Since we don’t work directly for our client companies, job candidates are more willing to talk freely about what they are looking for in a job, and what concerns them about a possible opportunity. With that knowledge, and by constantly re-affirming their interest in a possible offer from you, and re-qualifying them on why this opportunity is a good fit for them, we get the people you want over 90% of the time (that’s our success rate, not for recruiters in general).
Reason 5: A good recruiter can greatly reduce the chance of a job candidate accepting a counter offer from their current employer – leaving you without a new hire and having to start the whole process over again. By constructing a good transition strategy including helping the job candidate navigate the resignation and exit process from their current employer, and arming them with how to handle a counter offer situation, you won’t be left with any unwelcomed surprises at the end of the process. This alone will save you a tremendous amount of time, money and frustration; because if a counter offer is accepted you not only lose that job candidate, but most likely lose any runner-up job candidates as well.
Reason 6: Establishing a good relationship with a recruiter offers you a few other benefits that most people don’t think about. For one, you no longer have to settle for mediocre performance from your staff. If someone is underperforming, you can discreetly contact your recruiter and have them find a few alternative job candidates for you to replace the underperformer. The recruiter can also quickly find the right people for you when you need to add to your team because they already know your company, your team, and you. And another benefit is that you can have the right of first refusal on some of the best talent out there. Since we are talking to top performers all the time, when one decides they are ready to look for a new opportunity you can be informed of their availability before anyone else knows about them.
Our client companies are friends and partners in solving critical staffing problems. We like to know what they do, how the team works, what the company is like to work for, and how we can help them achieve their goals. We want them to know how we work, what to expect, and have confidence that we can do what we say. It’s not a transactional type of relationship, but more of a partnership, and both sides benefit from it.
