I’d add one major exception to the list, make friends with a recruiter you trust.
So the question is: How do you know if a recruiter is trustworthy? There are two parts to the answer, and I’m assuming we’re talking about external recruiters here, not people who are part of your company.
Part 1: Looking for trustworthiness if you’re a hiring manager:
Is your recruiter willing to work with you on your hiring strategy and job description? You might not know exactly what you’re looking for at the beginning of a search, and a good recruiter is, at least partially, a consultant.
Does your recruiter trust you to do your own phone screens? I stopped working with a recruiter who tried to assure me he knew best. BS.
If the recruiter offers the job to the candidate, does he or she offer exactly what you explained the offer was? I’ve never let a recruiter offer a job to one of my potential hires, but some hiring managers do.
Part 2: Looking for trustworthiness if you’re a candidate:
Does your recruiter want a blank check to send your resume to his/her client companies? If you’ve been working for more than three or four years, you know a bunch of the local people in your field. (Ok, I hope you do.) You and the recruiter should expect to talk about places to send your resume.
Does your recruiter blast your resume to “everyone who’s hiring” without considering whether you would be right for the organization or the hiring manager? If so, run away.
Does your recruiter not want to show you your resume on his/her letterhead? I stopped working with certain recruiters when I was a candidate and a hiring manager, when I realized they just *lied* about me or their candidates.
What other actions help you know if a recruiter is trustworthy?
In response to my first recruiter interview, a colleague wrote in with the reasons he stays in touch with recruiters:
Some of the best jobs / candidates are rarely advertised
If you refer people to your friend the recruiter, there is the possibility of a finders fee
They can keep you aware of trends in the local market
You might be able to get a free lunch every so often
I still keep in touch with recruiters I’ve known for over 30 years. When I refer someone to these people, my referral means something. I’ve even sold books and landed one consulting engagement based on meeting someone through a recruiter.
Think about it and make friends with a recruiter today!
I have a lot of recruiter contacts, especially through recruitingblogs.com. I’m planning a Q&A series with recruiters, and would like to know from you: what do you want to learn from recruiters? Email me or leave your questions in the comments here.
Recruiters are people, too. But when they do something not-so-bright, candidates tend to flip the bozo bit–not just on the recruiter, but on the company also.
A colleague is looking for a job. His resume clearly states 5 years at BigCompany. Recruiter from BigCompany sends him email in response to his resume posted on a job site. Email says in part, “Have you ever heard of us before?”
Ouch. That recruiter doesn’t inspire a candidate to call back. If the recruiter can’t read the resume, why would a hiring manager?
Be careful with form emails. They can easily backfire.
At the Better Software tutorial yesterday, several managers said their hardest problem was finding good people. If you haven’t started continuous recruiting yet, it’s time to start.Continuous recruiting is not just the “keeping your eyes open” part of recruiting, it requires your (and possibly your team’s) active participation. It means you bring a couple of hundred business cards with you to conferences, professional group meetings, they gym–anywhere you might meet people. When you attend conferences or meetings, you always carry job description flyers. You ask where you can post them, or have them announced. And that’s just the beginning.Continuous recruiting is a form of marketing. You’re marketing your company and yourself.Ask yourself why people would find it valuable to work for your company in your group. Have a good story to tell? Write an article. Give a talk (local or at a conference). The more visibility you have, the more likely you are to attract the passive candidates, the ones who are already employed. And the more you provide exposure to your team and company, the more likely you are to help people screen themselves in or out for cultural fit.
On my recent trip to NZ and AU (to speak about project management), I had some informal conversations with people who could not find enough people for their projects.From my non-scientific survey, it appears that we have started a technical hiring crunch (not enough candidates for positions). Consider people you might not have considered before:
Part-time workers
People over 40. Yes, we can still see and hear. Development is not just a young person’s job.
People over 65. Not everyone enjoys retirement.
People who may not have a degree, but have an avocation for software.
I’ll be thinking about this for a while, because if we really are headed for a hiring crunch, it will be global this time.
So you’ve got a job description that offers an opportunity, not a job. You’ve come to terms with how you see the value of the job. Now it’s time to start looking for people–candidates–to help fill that job.One way to make a job highly attractive is if you, the hiring manager, actively participates in the recruiting. There are several ways you can actively participate:
Write the ad for the job so it sounds like you.
Spruce up the ad on your company’s web site so it sounds attractive.
Make sure you’ve let everyone in your group know you’re looking. Your employee referral system might be your best ally here.
Attend professional group meetings where your candidates are likely to be.
Perform phone screens for every resume you think is a “yes” or even a “maybe” if you’re having trouble finding candidates.
Attend job fairs.
The more active you are in the recruiting, the more likely you are to find someone quickly who will find the job attractive–because you’re involved.
