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Given that:

• Corporate recruiters have access to tens of thousands of active candidates via job boards and specialized career sites.
• Corporate recruiters have access to information about tens of thousands of inactive candidates via a variety of Web tools ranging from Google to ZoomInfo to LinkedIn.
• Thousands of corporate recruiters have been certified in advanced sourcing techniques from firms like AIRS and the Adler Group.
• ATS and hiring management systems not only house customized resume databases, but they also enable recruitment processes to be streamlined so that recruiters are able to spend less time on operational details and more time delivering value-added services to hiring managers.
• Once the sole resource of search firms, research, and sourcing firms provide rapid candidate generation services to corporate recruiters at affordable prices.

…Why aren’t search firms out of business?

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I am keeping the Seven Wonders of the Week alive but I need your help! I picked out six of the top discussions and wanted to ask what you think #7 should be. What discussion should I add to the list? Let me know what you think by posting a comment below.

Monster and CareerBuilder- Do You Need Both?

Interesting…this was actually a topic of discussion at this month’s ERE happy hour in Atlanta. Matt Faskamp wants to know if his company can save costs by using only one job board subscription instead of two. Do Monster and CareerBuilder really have unique visitors? Mike Jenkins says you only need one but not to forget to add Yahoo! Hot Jobs to that list. He recommends looking at your companies’ specific needs (i.e., international capabilities, board that provides more candidates for critical positions, user feedback, and capabilities of your ATS). Chandra Bodapati is the first to recommend Internet search instead. Kristin Gissaro and Sam Morse agree that Matt might want to take a different approach and turn toward niche boards and social networking sites. Kelly Dingee wisely advises Matt to run stats from his ATS and ask candidates what they use. She has personally had success with all three big boards…it depends on the reqs. She agrees with others that Matt should consider niche boards, Internet search, and social networking sites. Good luck, Matt. Let us know what you decide to do!

Is Outsourcing Outrageous or the Natural Way of Things?

This topic first posted by Maureen Sharib on July 15 continues to dominate the ERE discussion boards a week later. Maureen addresses the “biggest boogeyman” in today’s campaigns…outsourcing. More specifically Maureen argues that U.S. companies are motivated to outsource their call centers because of worker productivity and efficiency not necessarily lower costs. One reason might be that these employees receive a defined career path with opportunities not available for U.S. call centers. T Tallis believes that “part of the problem is unions.” Charles Hillman disagrees, defending unions, and focusing on the negative impact outsourcing has on American workers, families, and the economy. Amanda Blazo can sympathize with both sides having managed operations for two offshore Internet research centers. Whether offshoring or not, Amanda says it boils down to the fact that “some companies do certain jobs better than others.” I am not sure Jeff Weidner would agree; he believes these efficiencies are a result of the low cost-to-hire allowing for more employees to work on one job. Mike Johnson refers to a study by Booz Allen Hamilton and Duke University reminding us that “off-shoring high-skilled functions does not replace jobs offshore.” Joshua Letourneau also refers to an article he wrote that “takes a deeper dive into the globalization and commoditization of names sourcing today,” including issues with telephone name generation training and competition. Deborah Jones agrees with Amanda that outsourcing is not outrageous but natural since these centers in the Philippines and India offer more opportunitites and agrees with T Tallis that unions are to blame. She draws a parallel to the automotive industry. Maureen Sharib shares the news the GM has cut health care benefits for its employees. Joshua Letourneau and Paul Davenport empathize with employees but defend GM’s position. Joshua reminds us that “the point of a publicly traded company is to create shareholder value — nothing more, nothing less.”

The conversation has continued to heat up this week…you might want to check it out!

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Each week, ERE discussion group members share ideas, voice concerns, and work together on similar recruiting challenges. After a year or so of feeling a little reluctant to participate, I recently started to post comments and messages in some of these groups. I think part of what made me hesitant to contribute was the fact that there is so much information. It was hard to spend the time picking out the most relevant discussions. I thought I would make it a little easier by giving everyone a weekly update — a summary of the top seven most interesting discussions of the previous week.

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How is it possible that some companies’ human resources departments can act with such indifference that they actually behave in a manner that is inhumane and unresourceful?

In some circles and industries, an increasing trend is taking hold where recruiting departments have resorted to crafting lengthy recruiting contracts issued by newly centralized recruiting departments. In these examples, the departments have gone well beyond centralization and have engaged in a practice and approach best described as militarization.

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The decision of whether or not to hire additional recruiters can be a struggle. During hectic times, the workload can be overwhelming. It can seem like an easy solution to increase the flow of resumes by opening up positions to numerous agencies. However, it is important to educate these staffing firms on the details of the job, the process, and the environment. Without this knowledge, they won’t have the information they need to deliver quality candidates. Using third parties can be a valuable strategy. But, being proactive and communicating with them every step of the way takes time. Without these extra conversations, positions won’t necessarily be filled more quickly.

Traditional Staffing Firms

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This article originally appeared January 17, 2007.

Agency folks tend to see the corporate world as bureaucratic and slow to make decisions; more specifically, they see most corporate recruiters as lacking the requisite skills and bare-knuckle tactics required to make things happen.

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Two recruiters called me last month to offer recruiting assistance on a particular project they heard my company was working on. This was a routine search in the $50,000 to $60,000 range that we had filled hundreds of times before. In this particular instance, however, we were caught in a backlog.

The recruiters were right about the period of time being longer than usual. Since both were esteemed individuals I’ve known and respected for well over 10 years, I decided to invest about a half hour with each to fully explain the search.

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It has been debated many times, but the question of whether recruitment is best done with internal or external resources can only be answered at an organizational level, based upon a cost-benefit analysis.

When doing this analysis, consider which method of recruitment scores higher on the following metrics:

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Not only is this a great career, but it saves me lots of money on cable movie-channel subscriptions, as nothing can be as entertaining as the fits and starts, about-faces, shenanigans, internal conflicts, behavior irregularities, lies, deceit, and manipulation our sometimes prospective clients and candidates endear us with.

Here are three of my most notable stories, which are funny looking back 10 years later, but they were not quite so funny at the time:

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How have third-party agencies fared over the past five years with the rise of Internet recruiting? Are there more of them or fewer? Are they doing what they did five years ago? How have they changed? What is going to happen to employment agencies over the next few years?

Agency owners and users, from Europe to Australia, constantly ask me such questions during my travels. Everyone agrees that times are changing and the role of agencies along with them. While there will always be a handful of agencies that remain similar to those we have today, most will undergo major evolution.

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Some years back I was made to realize that even the highest-level corporate chieftains can find themselves at a loss when it comes to knowing which questions they should ask a recruiting firm.

There I was, sitting face to face with a well-known chairman of a significant public corporation seated behind his expensive mahogany desk. The CFO was to my right; the HR executive vice president to my left. The conversation was going well until I was thrown a curve ball.

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Recruiters should be truthful, resourceful, and trustworthy. Employers should be reasonable and accessible. Read on for invaluable advice for both sides.

For Employers

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The great thing about being a third-party recruiter is that there are no firm rules on how to recruit well. Every client differs, every position differs, and every candidate differs. There are plenty of rules on how not to do it well and we have seen some good examples of that recently.

There is also a lot of online material on how some people think you should recruit, either because they do it that way themselves or because they think you should do it that way, even though they don’t actually recruit at all.

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We just closed our annual hiring challenges survey, with a few hundred participants describing their perspective on the state of the recruiting industry. From a preliminary review it’s not comforting, especially if you’re a corporate recruiter or recruiting manager. Most alarming is that things haven’t gotten better since we took the survey last year. In fact, the situation has deteriorated. For example:

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In this article, I’m going to make the case that the underlying organization and structure of most U.S. corporate recruiting departments are fundamentally flawed. In fact, in many ways they resembles the worst performing business model of them all - a not-for-profit, government-funded, bureaucratic monopoly. Worse, unless big changes are made, companies who use this outdated model will never find enough top people to meet their business needs. As a starting point, let’s use this definition of a business model from investorsdictionary.com:

A business model (also called a business design) is the mechanism by which a business intends to generate revenue and profits. It is a summary of how a company plans to serve its customers. It involves both strategy and implementation. It is the totality of:

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Whether to use internal corporate recruiters or a third-party recruiter is a decision a lot of companies are faced with making. The primary reason for this decision is always bound to be about cost, followed by quality and control. It’s also about what value-added service a good third-party recruiter can bring, over and above simply presenting candidates.

As third-party recruiters, we need to give companies many good reasons to use us and pay our fees for the service we provide. Before companies make any final decision about whether to go internal or external, there’s one big factor that often gets overlooked - and it is probably the most important factor to consider: the candidates. Who is the candidate better off dealing with and more likely to respond positively to? The hiring company or third-party recruiters? Does a third-party recruiter have a better chance of getting the best candidate to be interested in the opportunity and to accept the position, should it get offered?

For the purpose of clarity, I’m talking about passive candidates who are currently being successful elsewhere and not necessarily looking to change jobs. I am, of course, also only talking about good third-party recruiters who act professionally and do their jobs well. Here are some good reasons why the candidate is better off dealing with a third-party recruiter, and why companies could increase their chances of getting candidates by using a third-party recruiter.

Confidentiality

The approach is 100% confidential. When the headhunter calls, no one else knows, especially the hiring company. With this level of confidentiality, the candidates will speak more openly and honestly and feel less pressured into not being themselves.

Not Compromised By the Call

Candidates can listen to the headhunter and say “no,” or “not right now,” to the opportunity without blowing any future opportunities with that company. The candidate is not exposed to having to make an immediate decision whether or not to show an interest. Candidates are free to speak their minds about the company, good or bad, without risk of commitment.

Unbiased Advice

Being independent, a headhunter can give true, unbiased advice on the hiring company’s position in the market. Most well-known companies in today’s market have both good and bad reputations, depending on who you speak to, and everyone has a different opinion. I’ve spoken to a lot of candidates whose initial reactions to working for a particular company would certainly put the company off from hiring them if they knew the candidates’ comments. As third-party recruiters, we are in a better position to soften that opinion and change their views because we are not the company in question.

Interview Preparation

Any candidate, however senior, should be prepared for an interview. It’s the headhunter’s job to make sure that candidates know everything there is to know about the person and the company they will be meeting, what the interviewer will be looking for, and how to best sell themselves in the interview. Many candidates, when approached, have not been on interviews for a while and appreciate the help. A headhunter’s guidance will improve their chances of getting through the interview maze. Without this guidance, a great candidate could interview badly and be rejected based upon a lack of interview skill, rather than a lack of ability to do the job.

Good Feedback

Interview feedback is essential to both the candidate and client. It’s the headhunter’s job to make sure that both parties truly know how the interview went. Too many bad interviewers provide one sort of feedback but mean another. You will know where you stand with a headhunter. If we did not give feedback, no one would. We hear too many horror stories of candidates attending interviews with no feedback from the companies they meet.

Stronger Position to Negotiate a Better Package

If the client wants to offer the candidate a position, the headhunter will offer the best advice on what the position is worth and what the client is likely to accept. If the first offer is too low, the headhunter can reject it without compromising the candidate with the client. The headhunter can also advise the candidate when the offer is a good one. In other words, the candidate can discuss the package openly with a headhunter and agree what is acceptable and what isn’t acceptable without losing the opportunity. When the candidate deals directly with the company, his position to negotiate is weaker because there is less room to maneuver. If he rejects the first offer, he could lose the opportunity. If he sounds disappointed with the first offer, his feelings have been aired, and this could go against him if he ever did join the company.

Headhunters want to get the candidate the best possible package, since we are paid on a percentage of the salary. Employers want to get the candidates as cheaply as possible, trying to save the company money. If you were the candidate, who would you rather have representing you? Before anyone responds by saying, “That’s why I would not use a third-party recruiter,” please remember the point that I’m making is from the candidate’s perspective.

Room for Error

Throughout the whole process, the headhunter wants the candidate to be successful and thus will give a lot of advice on how to get the job. The candidate can and will ask many questions, however daft they might seem, without risking his reputation with the company. We work with candidates who will often pull out of the process along the way only to change their minds a bit later. The client will not even know, the candidate’s opportunity is not lost, and the client has not lost a good candidate. We all know that recruiting is the most important part of any company’s business, and yet many still overlook using third-party recruiters because they are more focused on cost than quality. The next time there is a decision to be made on the best way to find the right candidates, consider the candidate’s position and the conditions that would make him or her more likely to accept the job.

Before you begin reading this article, write down all of the reasons your candidates and hiring manager clients give you for not moving forward. Here’s my list. How does your own compare?

• Don’t have time to talk.

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In a recent discussion on ERE, one commentator felt that great third-party recruiters would become corporate recruiters if they could make the same level of money as a third-party recruiter. I suspect, however, that most corporate recruiters do their jobs well for reasons other than money, and it is the same for many third-party recruiters. I’ve been in sales since the early 1980s, and yes, the money attracted me to it.

During the early 1990s, however, I found my way into headhunting and surely what must be the most difficult sales job going. I no longer do it just for the money and I cannot imagine being in any other profession. The money for me has become a by-product of doing a good job. The quality of the job I do must come first. My golden rule is this: “You’re only ever as good as your last assignment.” If money is your main motivation, you will eventually fail, because this recruitment game takes a lot more than financial greed to drive you to be good at it. It needs passion, commitment, patience, tenacity, and above all professionalism.

Money cannot buy these things. It comes from within. This business, more than any other I have been involved in, has its good times and bad times, its up and downs. These ups and downs are more likely to put an independent recruiter out of business than any other reason. They not only test your own strength of character, but they also have a major effect on cash flow. With bills to pay, it’s not always easy. That uncertainty is a good reason perhaps to consider working as a corporate recruiter, along with job security, a package that includes benefits, and a chance to work for an established employer. So what is it about being a third-party recruiter that makes me get up early in the morning to talk to people in Europe and sit up late into the evening working and talking with colleagues from the United States? Here’s why I do it.

Passion

I’m passionate about doing a great job, and the biggest kick for me is when a new client gets a candidate who turns out to be a great success, and the client uses me again. It’s also just as satisfying to put the candidate in a position that takes their career forward by matching their expectations with the best company and opportunity for them. One word of warning: If you’re not passionate about this job, whether as a third-party or corporate recruiter, it’s not for you. Without passion you will not succeed; with it, you cannot fail.

Variety

I’m talking about working with different clients on different opportunities in different countries at different levels with different benefit schemes and so on. No two days are the same. Today, as I write this, I have visited one client in person and spoke to four others on the phone. I have pitched a number of candidates about four different companies in three different countries.

Flexibility and Knowledge

I work in the telecommunications industry, and represent several global companies in this field. Over the last 10 years, I have probably recruited for most of the leading players in this sector. As a third-party recruiter, I get access to the inner minds of many companies, meaning that when I talk to a candidate, I can talk knowledgeably about the whole industry in an unbiased and independent way. I can give the candidates different options in different companies. Only by being independent can I truly gain this inside information of all the companies, be in the position to offer the candidate the best option for them, and advise my clients of what else is going on in the industry. If I dislike working for any one client, I can easily find another. If I disagree with how any of my clients operate, I can find another the next day.

Sales

Finally, I return to my sales profession. Being a third-party recruiter is a 100% sales job. We carry sales targets and we produce revenue for our company, against which we are paid commission. We are sales professionals by way of the recruiting industry. Corporate recruiting is a recruiting profession that might use sales techniques, but I have met many corporate recruiters on ERE who do not have a sales background, don’t consider themselves to be in a sales profession, and have no wish to be in sales. They are professional recruiters. Our purpose might be the same, but the journey is very different. The two professions are different. Rather than compete, one should serve as a valuable tool to the other. To do that, we must first understand the differences rather than trying to find any similarities. With any sales profession, you expect a value-added service, and the good third-party recruiters can offer this. I know I do and that’s why I do it.

Someone once said that in this life, suffering is mandatory but misery is optional. I concur; but so many of us live day to day with more frustration, anxiety, and stress than is really necessary. We try to never lose a resume, to get back to every candidate and to attempt to close each and every deal. Often we try this all in the same day, and we wonder why we are half nuts by the time Friday rolls around. As recruiters, we build great businesses, and that is an awesome responsibility. As such, there are times when things simply do not go the way we would like them to go. That’s just how life works.

As a result, it is best to remember that we will ultimately be judged by the greater part of what we have accomplished as opposed to the alternative fragment where we have fallen short. The objective of recruiting, as in life, is to do the best you can and move on. Despite what you or anyone else might think, the future of western civilization will not depend on a given metric, the fleeting approval of an otherwise hysterical hiring manager, or on closing one particular deal. You do the best you can and then it is history. This is the only sane and sensible way in which to live. (If you want unconditional love, might I suggest you get a dog?) For those of you who have yet to understand that you can’t win them all and that being a great recruiter is not the same as being a martyr, I have put together a brief but comprehensive guide to being miserable. If you want to continue being miserable in this profession, then I urge you to consider the following.

Keep Searching for the Perfect Candidate

This one is my personal favorite, so I put it first. If ever there was a fool’s errand, this one is a shining star. Honestly now, do you really think that there is a perfect candidate? (Are you a perfect employee? Be honest. Shoot me an email; it will be our little secret.) Business needs change, management changes, projects change, and people change. Looking for the perfect candidate is the holy grail of so many recruiters, but in the end, all candidates, like us, are human. H. Jackson Brown, Jr., author of the bestseller Life’s Little Instruction Book, says, “Strive for excellence, not perfection.” This is an excellent way to think. Can you even imagine if every candidate you found was excellent, and therefore turned into an excellent employee? If you’re tired of the chase for the perfect candidate, just find and present excellent candidates and call it a day. The perfect candidate, like the perfect mate (John Sullivan?) is just an illusion, so let it be someone else’s obsession, not yours.

Beat Yourself Up Over the Deals That Did Not Close

I like this almost as much as the first one. I once asked an audience I was speaking to if they wanted to close every single deal. They said, “No.” My next question was to ask, “Which deals do you want to lose?” No one had an answer and no one spoke. Let’s face it: We want to close every deal! This is okay ó I feel the same way ó but it’s just not going to happen. Losing a deal, putting it behind you, and moving forward takes guts, but sometimes it is all you can do. The famous philosopher, lawyer and orator Robert Ingersoll said, “The greatest test of courage on earth is to bear defeat without losing heart.” This is what we as recruiters must do. Simply stated, we must move on, close the next deal, and be glad for that.

Expect All Hiring Managers to Take Your Advice

Perhaps this happens in recruiter heaven, but to those of us anchored on Planet Earth, this is simply not one of life’s realities. Hiring managers come with all of the baggage and blemishes that you and I have (all right, sometimes more). The bottom line is there are some hiring managers who will take your advice, and others who seem to have the need to do it their way and hope for the best. This will never change with some of them, despite your great track record or their abysmal one. Have you ever noticed that hiring managers who tell you things like, “I have been hiring for 60 years,” are usually the worst at making things happen, and then when things fall apart, they tell you they didn’t really want the candidate in the first place? I suggest that you focus your time, expertise, and emotional energy on those who will make you a partner and let you do your job. For further information on dealing with hiring managers, see my articles 8 Secrets to Dealing with Non-Responsive Hiring Managers and 12 Ways Hiring Managers Can Get More from Their Recruiting Partners.

Assume That Recruiting Passive Candidates Will Be Easy

This is probably the godfather of all bad assumptions. We have learned how to find candidates on the Internet. We then call with a big smile in our voice, a song in our heart, and a great opportunity that we can present. We expect the candidate we found to say, “Would I be open to hearing about a better situation? Of course I would!” and to come right down and interview. Instead, the candidate never even calls back. You call again, and the candidate still does not call back. You finally get the candidate on the phone and they are not interested. Now what? Don’t get me wrong; recruiting passive candidates is not optional. It’s mandatory, and it’s a great thing to do because it presents your organization with a totally different pool of candidates. I am sure that you will even manage to hire some great employees by doing this. On the other hand, recruiting passive candidates it is not easy for a host of different reasons.

Never Try Anything New

Recruiting is both art and science; some days more art, some days more science. Given that, I urge you to consider the following:

• Great artists are constantly reaching out for the new and the different in the hope of reinventing what they do and how they do it. If you always say the same things, use the same approaches, and employ the same solutions, you will never develop the edge that separates good recruiters from great ones.

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In this Sarbanes-Oxley environment, I’m going to start with full disclosure and hope you will keep reading: I am not a recruiter. I’m not married to a recruiter. My children are not recruiters. I don’t even have any close friends who are recruiters. But I know a lot of former recruiters who’ve used what they learned starting out in recruiting to build successful careers in something else. Some of them even asked my advice somewhere along the line or took one of my company’s assessments — and, interestingly enough, most of that happened after we ran into each other at a holiday party.

So here it is: A hot job market for recruiters again, and young recruiters’ hearts lightly turn towards thoughts of career progression. But the problem with assessing your career in recruiting is that recruiting is a very complex function. Rarely does someone perform all the aspects of it by themselves. In fact, there are ten distinct facets in recruiting which interlock to get the job done. Even if you are a sole proprietorship recruiter working from your laptop and cell phone, you aren’t likely to be doing it all. (I am referring to strictly recruiting tasks — not making coffee, which, quite properly, belongs to the barista at the local coffee purveyor/wireless network emporium where you probably spend some work research time.) Here they are, one to ten, in no particular order. Start by checking the one, or ones, you really like to do and crossing out the ones you don’t. The ones you feel lukewarm about can stay for now, but really, do you want to do something you aren’t passionate about for the rest of your life? If you don’t want to spend the rest of your life at it, why waste the next year or so?

1. Networking. This is something that people either love or hate. If you are neutral about networking, you haven’t really tried it. This could be due to not knowing where to go to find people to network with. There are professional networks (including recruiter and HR organizations), social networking sites such as LinkedIn and Ryze, and some organizations that provide both. ERE is one with both: Between the networking opportunities on the website and at conferences, everyone’s covered, even the very shy.

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