What does ‘good’ look like in recruiting?

An un-rant

It’s easy to complain about hiring or recruiting “being broken.” But what does good really look like?

More specifically, in my realm of external recruiting, what should you expect in the ‘modern’ age?

The core hang up with recruiting firms: it’s an industry that comes from a transactional nature that’s out of place with today’s buyer expectations.

“There’s an opening? Cool maybe we’ll fill it. You’ll hear from us if we have someone.”

That doesn’t fly anymore. Look at any aspect of the modern B2B customer experience. We expect our consulting firms to be comprehensive in their approach. Every detail accounted for. And SaaS firms make the entire Customer Success function a priority. People fully dedicated to ensure things go right.

But most recruiting firms – both good and bad – are still transactional by nature. It’s all about the position. But not the process used to ensure a positive outcome. Especially when things go sideways in a search. (Which we know, they frequently do.)

What are the most common complaints you hear about bad previous experiences?

❌Lack of communication and updates.

❌Poor candidate vetting.

❌Lack of insights & knowledge of the skill sets.

❌No plan to adjust a difficult search.

❌Didn’t understand our company and message.

Again, what does good look like? It really is as simple as doing the opposite. But also articulating your ability to do so up front.

If I was hiring a recruiter, I’d expect:

✔️Regular status updates. Live. Weekly or even daily if needed. And them driving it. Not me chasing them.

✔️A strong vetting process. That they’re able to articulate to me so I know that they know what they’re doing. Soup to nuts, granular detail. If they can’t tell you how they do it, why should you believe they can?

✔️Teach me something I don’t know. Not just salary recommendations or how hard a skill set is. But a deeper knowledge of the candidate landscape within a particular skill set. How are other companies evaluating these types of people? What can we learn from that?

✔️How do you ensure this will be a success, no matter what? I’m coming to you because it’s hard. I don’t need you to tell me that.  I need to know the path to finding someone who can do the job and say yes.

✔️Tell me our story better than I can. Put our “pitch” into words that will be more compelling to candidates…because you know that better than I do.

Now, a lot of good firms have this. But what they miss:

✔️Outline all this up front. Make me feel good about buying from you. Don’t make me dig or feel like I’m taking a huge risk on you.

James Hornick

Partner at Hirewell. #3 Ranked Sarcastic Commenter on LinkedIn.