The Care Factor: Choosing a Recruiter Who Truly Serves

Recently I had a conversation with someone who said they could throw a rock and hit 4 recruiters—they are just that plentiful. Low employment, changing tech, Covid (and all the employee changes associated with it), the difference in generations and colleges not changing fast enough to teach the soft skills needed in management in the workplace. I could go on and on. These things have created a need for recruiters and a guide to help with recruiting. So many new firms have popped up and many new people have started calling on potential clients to help them recruit. 

So with all these recruiters calling you—how do you discern how to pick?  

Care—unselfish service. If you engage with a recruiter, wouldn’t you want to interview them? And if you are interviewing them, what are you looking for? I suggest care and unselfish service. To care, a recruiter has to do a very difficult thing, which we work hard to hire for and teach all of our people at CEG. Your recruiter has to take a project (working on a position) where the recruiter (or recruiting firm) only gets paid if you hire someone. Imagine how difficult that would be to completely ignore Maslow’s hierarchy of needs (the need to support one’s family), serve you and serve the candidate in an unselfish way. If a recruiter can do this successfully, this is one of the elements required to move them from recruiter to consultant/trusted partner.

Here is an example of what I mean. The recruiter interviews a candidate and something in their interview doesn’t feel right, but they don’t dig anymore because on paper, the candidate looks perfect and they feel like the candidate will get hired. They don’t transmit any negative or con type of information at all. Malcolm Gladwell talks about 10,000 hours to be an expert at something and recruiters who have this experience can often pick up on body language, tone, a few words, etc. that can be an important clue to uncover what is in your best interest as a client and in the candidate‘s best interest long term. 

In our experience, it is rare or just does not exist for a recruiting firm to think, hire or train in this way. We believe there are people out there who can bring in more candidates, or have tricks or technology we do not have. If we are truly looking out for our clients’ best interest, we are trying to always figure out how to contract with those people and remain in your consultant/guide seat so that the deepest, more important parts of your service remain consistent.

Ask yourself—what will my firm still need in 100 years? I would suggest it will still be the need to help discover people’s calling. What about them is special? Align that with people and roles who can bring out the best in that person and help them flourish and grow because then you will help an organization flourish and grow. And align managers with people who they want to do work and life with—people who give them energy, not take energy away. The values associated with this work will never change, which is where CEG will work diligently to be experts. The technology, tools and methods will change which is where CEG will partner with others who are experts on your behalf.

Trust—this is your part as a client. Many of you amazing business leaders reading this are going to say that we will go out of business financially operating like this on a contingent basis. Perhaps you are correct. It is our belief, however, that we must interview our clients just as they interview us. We must know we can trust that when they engage with us, they will hire from us. We must know that they have a level of care for us and our success. And ultimately, we want to be their consultant, guide and valued partner. This is what gives our team fulfillment. If this is not what a client is looking for, we will not be a fit for them long term. We are not looking to do business with every client, and we suspect we will go through 1000 clients to find the 100 that fit this level of service. So, care has to work both ways to create trust and this then creates an alignment of rocket fuel for hiring A players.  

Most contingent recruiting firms will take nearly any opening and the dirty secret in recruiting is that does not mean they actually work on those openings. They are going to prioritize your opening and if they do not deem it to be the most profitable piece of business that day, week, month or quarter, they will not devote resources to that opening. So the challenge companies face is a million recruiters calling on them who have amazing sales people. Most often, it is the best salesperson who gets the business, not necessarily the best company to service your needs. This is why having clear standards and investing your time interviewing recruiting firms and only engaging with those who can rise to your standards is so important. If your standards are such that you want a firm that is a trusted partner, consultant, guide and focuses their blood, sweat and treasure on making themselves the best in the world at the processes, screenings, trainings, hiring, tools, techniquest, partnerships and associated with helping to bring people to a better place (people in this case meaning our clients, our candidates and ourselves) then we would love to serve you and start your interview of us.