There is tremendous variety in the quality of recruiting firms, but a lot of the success of a firm depends on the interactions between company and the agency. By utilizing the below recommendations, you’ll see far better results and ultimately achieve faster, more high-quality hires. 

Sell Us on Your Company

When you partner with a recruiting firm, it’s their job to market and sell the opportunity to the candidate community. In order for them to be successful in attracting top-quality candidates, it’s important that they have the same level of excitement about the company as the internal team. The easiest way to gain this alignment is to sell the firm on why you love the organization and why others should also be excited to explore the opportunity. If your team comes across as passionate, likable, reasonable and inspiring, it’s easy for the firm to translate that sentiment to prospects. On the other hand, if you’re having a hard time communicating the appeal, the agency team is also likely to struggle. 

Kickoff Calls

One of the most essential factors during the search process is the depth and quality of the initial kickoff call. This is often the most detailed discussion about the company, the team, and the specific role criteria, so it’s important to be as thorough as possible in sharing insider information. When we are searching for and evaluating candidates, the more information you provide ensures that the candidates presented are perfectly suited for the company and role. Share as much information as possible about the company culture, org structure & team makeup, role scope, success metrics & KPI’s, benefits, compensation (cash, commission plans, and equity), and the qualities you desire in a candidate.

Transparency

It’s not uncommon for companies to have certain issues that make recruiting more difficult. Things like unfavorable Glassdoor reviews, recent layoffs, high employee churn, and leadership changeouts can negatively impact your employer brand. One perk of working with an agency is that if we have the right messaging, we can often talk through those issues with candidates before they decline the opportunity. Just as it’s important to share all of the great aspects of your company, it’s also helpful to know the less-than-desirable elements, along with the talking points on how to address them, so that we can get ahead of them. 

Efficient Process 

In addition to no surprises, it’s important to be responsive and do what you can to prevent delays. For certain roles, the search cycle can be quick. If communication between company & recruiter and company & candidate slows down or halts, you might miss out on the high-quality candidates that are looking to make a decision as soon as possible. Additionally, if the candidate market changes or something changes within your company, being responsive with your recruiter allows us to keep each other up to date to adjust the process to align with your needs. 

Some of the best recruiting firms incorporate weekly cadence calls to keep the line of communication open. Responsiveness not only keeps your company engaged in the process, but your recruiting firm and the candidates engaged as well. Delays will only reduce engagement and increase the chances of missing out on the perfect candidate.

Share Feedback 

In conjunction with active communication, sharing detailed feedback on candidates with your recruiters allows us to iterate and pivot on searches faster. Following every interview, it’s helpful to hear exactly what you did and did not like, so that we can incorporate the criteria into future sourcing and candidate vettings. When decisions to pass are communicated with no context there is no way for us to know how you’d like to see future submissions be different. 

Be Realistic

With the job market constantly changing, sometimes there’s an abundance of high-quality candidates, but other times there are very few high-quality people on the market. In the latter conditions, we try our best to identify high-quality candidates, but it’s important to be realistic with your expectations in conjunction with what you are offering. 

Furthermore, you might have your mind set on a certain set of qualities you want in a candidate, but the chances are that there’s not a candidate that checks every single one of those boxes. Being too firm with your list of criteria can cause you to miss out on other candidates that may be close enough and within grasp. There is also value in considering flexibility with things like title, level, job scope, path to management, and perks in order to attract someone who may be otherwise out of reach.