Job Search Solution Blog by Tony Beshara

Types of Recruiters

Traditionally recruiters have been defined in two broad camps.  The retained recruiter, who is just that, “retained,” to find an employee which was one group and the other was the “contingency group” that received their compensation only if they were responsible for causing a candidate to be hired.  There is, however, a broad range of even contingency firms that you need to be aware of so that you can decide if they can actually help you find a job.

Understanding the various types of recruiters is important, so that you can seek out proper help.

What Recruiter Professionals Do for You

What you should expect and how you should deal with a “recruiter” totally depends on your understanding of the kind of recruiter that you’re dealing with.  When you know the kind of recruiter that you were dealing with and his or her relationship to the employer, you will know how to manage your own expectations.

In general, here is what recruiters can do for you:

• Provide access and knowledge of opportunities with the firm’s before they are “broadcast” to the world.
• For the most part, (we will see in the exceptions to this below) we have a much more in-depth knowledge about an opportunity than an individual could gain on his own.
• We will “coach” you and sell you and your attributes, as well as sell around your shortcomings, better than you can for yourself.
• Because a recruiter knows how you compare with your competition for positions, they can provide for you the advantage. They know their market.
• We will help you “manage” the process of interviewing and negotiating. Because a recruiter deals with this process daily, we know how to do it better than an individual even if they change jobs often.
• We are going to help a candidate maximize their compensation possibilities. Most of the time the recruiter is compensated based on the salary package the candidate receives.  It is in their best interest to help you reach your compensation potential.
• We can provide you more job interview opportunities quicker than you can do for yourself. Most people don’t deal with the job opportunities, career moves etc. on a daily basis.  A recruiter does.
• The help of a recruiter implies most top professionals do not want their job search to be “floating around” the Internet or anywhere else for that matter.
• A recruiter, many times, has an intimate but objective view of the hiring company, the hiring authorities and the “politics” of the specific hiring process.
• We are comfortable with all of the steps in the process of getting hired.
• We know what to do when things “go wrong” in the hiring process.

Recruiters help job seekers by providing advice and connections to employers.

What this all means to you is simply this: a recruiter most likely can assist you with job placement but, it takes a team. Candidates need to manage their expectations of what a recruiter can do for them, and help the job search process. There are many types of recruiters and each one has their own specialties. You should be able to identify which type of recruiter is best for your particular situation, and then be proactive with the recruiter in the job search process.

If we’re in a recession and I’m not sure yet, it will be the seventh one that I have seen in my experience. I got into this profession in 1973 in the middle of a recession and just didn’t know any better. I remember coming out of higher education and just plain not knowing any better. I was unaware that it may not be a ‘smart move’ to get into the, what was then called, “the employment agency business.”

Our profession is always on the tail end of whatever the economy is experiencing. The people we placed this month started interviewing in the latter part of 2022. Just recalling the last four recessions, 1986, when real estate, banking and oil and gas all went on their butt at the same time in Dallas Texas, the dot bomb, 9/11 and 2008, I realize that kind of hiring we’ve seen up until recently won’t pick up again until companies out there have more confidence in themselves. Expansion and hiring are not things that companies do unless they feel the economy is stable and growing. Let’s face it, we’ve had 10 years of pretty excellent growth in the economy and we all knew that it was bound to get “corrected” somewhere along the line. That’s free enterprise. We just didn’t think something like a virus would cause it.

Life is uncertain!  Plan for the best but prepare for the worst.

So, this is all nice theory to talk about, but even understanding it doesn’t help the 68-year-old engineer who got laid off today and called us, not having any idea what to do. I don’t know if understanding this helps the administrative assistant that we placed four weeks ago who got laid off yesterday. I know it’s really easy, but rather glib to simply say “well, just hang in there things will get better.” We all know that things are going to get better…we just don’t know when. And that’s the problem.

The people who are actively looking for a job full-time must take action, by following key principles of Prayer, Planning, and Performance.

Prayer

Even if you don’t believe in it… start now.  Don’t bemoan the fact that you got laid off and call 10 other people to complain about it.

Plan

Update your resume, LinkedIn account, and make sure you’re going to be able to get a good reference from the people you have most recently been working for/with.

Perform

Volunteer in your industry, network, and set-up interviews in search of the next job opportunity.

One bit of good news. . . .an assistant controller we placed with the company about seven months ago got laid off from that company two or three months ago.  The controller called her last week and said that laying her off was one of the biggest mistakes he had ever made and he hired her back! Good things do happen! She was ecstatic but her hard work and good attitude kept the door open for re-hire.

Have faith/believe and keep a good attitude, this too will pass and you will be better for it in the end.

My client wanted to interview my candidate. He always does a phone interview first and then if he likes what he hears, he interviews them face-to-face. My client is an IT staffing firm and they are used to hiring salespeople and recruiters and have been for 20 years. He really knows what he’s doing, and he’s a very reasonable guy,

He has been looking for recruiters for at least six months and really needs to hire somebody…yesterday! So, he was anxious to speak with her because she had some really solid experience and really looked good on paper.

He interviewed her and reported back that she didn’t do very well at all. Some of the highlights of her interview were:

Failed to be Prepared

• • She didn’t have her resume in front of her when she interviewed

Did not Review Resume prior to Interview

• • She got her dates mixed up about  when and where she was at different years

No Specific Examples of Success

• • She kept saying that she was a “hard worker” but could never give exact, specific instances or a track record of where she was a “hard worker”

Unable to Explain Previous Job Departures

• • She was vague about why she left two of her jobs and gave the reason of “toxic environment” (without being specific about what that meant).

Obviously, my candidate did not get hired.

What’s so crazy about this is that my candidate has been a recruiter for 10 years. You would think that she knows how to interview, answer questions, and understand the importance of having her resume in front of her when interviewing.

Moral of the story, take the time to prepare prior to interviewing.

About 18 months ago I worked with a candidate who had three jobs in three years. Most every client I presented him to refused to give him the time of day. It failed to matter why the candidate had so many jobs, they simply assumed that the candidate was unstable and would only be with them for one year.

Hiring authorities cover a variety of duties, from appointing personnel to directing and on-boarding new hires, therefore they very little time.  That said, when hiring authorities are presented candidates with questionable work history they rarely give such applicants the time of day.

Now, I know much can be said about a candidate having bad judgment etc. but, the average job in United States only lasts 2.5 years and the average company in the United States only lasts 6.8 years (when I got in this profession in 1973 the average company was 59 years old).

If the hiring authorities inquired further or allowed me to explain they would have come to understand that my candidate, with multiple jobs in short amount of time, worked for two companies that went out of business shortly after being hired.

Importance of Knowing the Right People/Building Relationships

Having been in this business for so long, I’ve developed some relationships with hiring authorities who will see my candidates without a resume, simply on my word.  Therefore, I was able to get the candidate an interview opportunity, in which he was hired.

Did the hiring gamble pay off?

Recently, the candidate called me right before Christmas to wish me a Merry Christmas and let me know, along with his Christmas wishes, that during his employment, 18 months earlier, he had been promoted.  Not only that, he was also the #1 salesperson out of 22 in the company and making more money than he ever had, with another promotion in line!  I would say, the hire gamble not only paid off but was less of a gamble and more of a guaranteed employee who needed a chance.

Moral of the Story: Give People the Benefit of a Doubt

Now, I am not saying that this is going to happen every time. But I do want to remind hiring authorities that dismissing candidates for too many jobs without taking the time to find out why, is both biased towards the candidate and creates a imbalance to your business.

New Normal: Today’s Candidates

Understanding the shortage of quality candidates and managing complicated hiring practices, in a talent pool deficit, it is important to overcome traditional hiring mindsets to maintain a competitive edge.

Three tips to uncover diamonds in the rough:

• Discover exactly why candidates have left their jobs
• Perform a thorough job of interview
• Conduct an in-depth reference check

If you are a hiring authority, take the time to do your due diligence, doing so makes you look like a talent acquisition king/queen, as well as allows for a competitive edge in a crowded market.

Last week one of our candidates that was hired two weeks ago and was supposed to start their new job this Monday, but was called and told that the position had been eliminated and they no longer had an opening within the department. The candidate was devastated and then furious.

When sudden job elimination occurs, we have nothing but empathy given the stress and the disappointment experienced.

But like my five-year-old granddaughter told us this weekend, “life isn’t fair” (not bad for a five-year-old). Given a search for a job, like life, is not fair no one can prevent this kind of thing from happening.  Therefore, when given an extended start date, candidates must be the more cautious.

One thing a job seeker can do is to continue to interview, even after accepting a job, until the actual start date.

I’d like to say this kind of thing never used to happen, but it always has. It doesn’t happen all that often, but it is devastating when it does. Businesses expand and contract more these days than ever before. For instance, when I got in this profession in 1973 the average company in the United States was 59 years old. Today the average company is 6.8 years old.

It’s not that a person can’t “trust” other people. It has nothing to do with trust. Most times, hiring authorities are sincere about offers extended to candidates.   Who would go to the trouble of interviewing and trying to hire someone knowing that the job really isn’t going to come through?  Many hiring authorities are caught off guard when a position is eliminated, in which they just filled.  However, they obviously do not have a choice in the matter must face the embarrassment of informing the applicant.

The message is clear. Keep on interviewing until you actually show up for the job, while not ideal it is the best practice in such a turbulent market.

Chad is a good kid. I will admit that he does not have much experience as a recruiter, two years to be exact.  However, as a recruiter, for goodness sakes he ought to know better than to make the following mistake. Here is what happened.

For three days we arranged a telephone interview for 2pm on Friday. The hiring authority was going to call him and they were supposed to speak for a half-hour.  I do not believe half-hour interviews are sufficient, inevitably people get down to the end of the interview and they need to cut the meeting short.  Half hour interviews do not allow for enough time to gather detailed information for both the candidate and the client.

I normally instruct candidates to allow at least 45 minutes for the interview, even if it is scheduled for thirty minutes. I’m going to take responsibility for this incident I’m about to explain, because I did not cover this with Chad. Now, it’s easy to say, “He should know better” and he should, but it’s still my job to cover all the details.

So, guess what happens? Unbelievably, Chad schedules another interview at 2:30 PM. My hiring authority was 10 minutes late to the interview, so didn’t get on the phone with Chad until 2:10 PM and Chad tells him that he has a hard stop at 2:30 PM for another interview. I couldn’t believe it. And Chad is a recruiter. He should know to never schedule back-to-back interviews for half-hour.

When I asked him about what happened, he said that when the hiring authority heard they had a hard stop at 2:30 PM he mumbled something like, “Well, I’ll just get back with Tony and maybe we will reschedule.”

My dad used to say, “A wise man learns by mistakes, but are wiser person learns by others mistakes.” Please learn by this mistake. Do not schedule video or telephone interviews back to back, especially 30 minute sessions. It hardly ever works out and you risk the chance of losing a client.