Dinosaurs: even your clients are over this crap
Old school agency recruiting metrics are garbage. They prevent recruiters from building effective hiring solutions for clients.
For instance:
- 100 calls a day
- 5 hours of phone time
- Any other nonsense they track in micromanagement hell
These are still the norm in a lot of the large, boiler room recruiting shops. (Read: the places that contacts say “I’ll never use them again” when we first meet.)
A funny thing happens when a noob recruiter becomes an experienced recruiter and then a great recruiter:
They achieve better results with less activity.
Efficiency skyrockets. Domain knowledge builds. You need less time and effort to fill a job.
Less busy work. Better results.
Except some orgs still view lower activity as the problem to address.
“I don’t care that you’re making placements, you still need to hit your call numbers.”
They don’t want effective recruiters, they want low-skill operators who stick to the script.
They don’t have to pay them much and they’ll make up the revenue in volume.
It’s a proven formula that works, as long as their clients are, well, dumb.
But that’s the shift: hiring companies are getting smarter. Because job seekers are getting more sophisticated.
Candidate experience. Employer brand. Transparency. Seamless process. Leadership involvement. Candidates expect it now. So they’re table stakes for hiring companies.
They don’t want a pile of poorly vetted resumes anymore. They want specialized experts who can handle the full workload. Partners who can reliably fill roles with the fewest candidates in the shortest time.
They want the workload taken off their plate. Not added to it.
You can’t build actual hiring solutions when you’re playing silly numbers games. You never let your recruiters advance enough.
I don’t expect any recruiting agencies to change their thinking with this post. The boiler room mentality runs too deep. And I don’t care if they ever do.
But I do want recruiters who are sick of working in these place to hit me up. There’s a better life waiting for you at Hirewell.
(Yes that’s a shameless plug).
