Jeremy Johnson has a new guest blog post this week on two important things a recruiter must provide in a candidate.
Jeremy is a recruiter in Kansas City for EHD Technologies, a recruiting, staffing and managed services company serving the IT, Engineering and Automotive industries.
You can also follow him on Twitter at jkjohnson72
The Two Things a Recruiter Must Provide in a Candidate
I think there is probably one single biggest frustration with job seekers who work with recruiters or apply to a recruiter’s job posting. And that frustration is the seeming lack of interest on the recruiter’s part regarding a position the candidate is confident they can do. Believe me, I’ve been there. I’ve been a job seeker, too. And I’ve worked with recruiters when I was on the other side of the fence.
And here’s what I’ve done, and you’ve probably done, too. I saw a job posting I was interested in. I read the description and compared it to my skills and experience, and I said, “Hey, I can do that job!” So, I applied, anticipated the call I knew I was going to get and rehearsed in my mind the conversation I’d have with that recruiter. Then, reality hit me between the eyes. I waited….and waited….and waited…..and nothing. So, I got mad. “This person has my resume. What don’t they get?! Why can’t they see I’m a fit?!”
Sound familiar? Here’s the other scenario. You actually have a recruiter on the phone, either from their initial call to you, your initial call to them or just one of the many conversations you’ve had with a recruiter with whom you’ve worked with before. You’re discussing a position with them. They tell you some things about it, maybe ask you a few questions, you say – again – “Hey, I can do that job!” Then, the unthinkable happens. The recruiter just won’t cooperate. He won’t submit you. And again, you say, “What doesn’t he get?! Why can’t he see I’m a fit?!”
How am I doing so far?
Here’s the thing you have to keep in mind: recruiters work for their clients and they have to stay within the bounds of what the client wants if they expect that client to pay them for their services. Harsh? Maybe. But I’ve said this before, that recruiters have a selfish motive to get the right people the right job since we don’t make a penny until someone actually starts a job. Submittals don’t count. Interviews don’t count. Offers don’t count. And even accepted offers don’t count (because people sometimes accept offers and then back out). It only counts when that candidate reports to work the first day. Then it’s a “start.” Anything less, and it’s a “freebie.”
But as a service provider, we have a higher expectation from that client company because they’re paying for it. And if they’re going to pay for it, they expect not just “okay” in what they see on a resume.They rely on our resources, our networks, our industry experience, our search ability and our thorough questioning to result in stellar candidates for them to consider.
So, what does that look like from the recruiter’s perspective? I can summarize it into two things we must provide for the client. Here they are:
We have to provide the right experience as they define it: It doesn’t matter if you think you can do the job or if I think you can do the job. It only matters if yours is the type of background and experience that the company actually wants in that position. So, as a recruiter, I don’t get to define what the right type of experience is. The client gets to do that. And if I don’t provide it, they’ll just go to someone who will. If I don’t submit you to a job that both you and I agree you can do, believe that there’s a good reason. Otherwise, I’m just taking money out of my own pocket. Plus, I’m usually working on more than one position at a time. I would like nothing more for you to be the right person, get hired, and then I can move to the next job. If not, I’m stuck on it til I fill it (or my competition does, which really stinks). Think of the needed experience like a box. I have to stay within the box. Now, maybe the edges of the box are very defined, and I don’t have any flexibility on providing what I’m asked, or maybe the lines are blurred and I have a bit of wiggle room that I just have to present in a relevant way. Regardless, the “right” experience for a given job is still defined by the client company, not me, and not you. Once you realize this, you can begin thinking about a job in terms of what’s important to the company, and you can focus on showing how your experience is relevant from their perspective, their needs.
The right experience that we provide has to be current: I don’t like this part, but it’s still a reality I have to work within. If the experience you have that’s relevant to a job is two years old or older, I probably can’t help you with it. It’s not that you can’t do the job. You may well be more talented than any other candidates, but part of what a client company expects from a recruiter is that they provide someone who can hit the ground running. And part of our providing “stellar candidates” is that the key experience was performed recently. Again, if I don’t provide it, they’ll just go to someone that will. Their perspective will be something like, “Jeremy, I can find someone with outdated experience on my own and I don’t have to pay you knuckleheads to do it!” or “I’m going to pay you guys a fee and you can’t even find me recent experience?” Also, it’s not much of a selling point for us if we can’t provide the value-add of scouring the market to find someone whose relevant experience is several years old. Awhile back, I spoke with an engineer who’d been out of the industry for 12 years but recently completed his Six Sigma Black Belt and was looking to get back in. Several other recruiters just told him they’d keep his resume on file and contact him if anything relevant came up – knowing full-well they couldn’t submit him for any engineering positions. Mostly, though, he just applied to job after job and never heard anything. I was straight with him. I told him that though he may be able to get back into the industry, I wouldn’t be able to help him do it — because I’m required to provide recent relevant experience or my client wouldn’t need to use us. The funny thing is he got really upset with the other recruiters who tried to avoid an uncomfortable conversation, but he respected and appreciated that I leveled with him.
I will talk freely with candidates about these two realities of my world as a recruiter. What I’ve found is people appreciate when they understand what my job is as a recruiter and what my responsibilities are to my clients. Hopefully, this gives you a bit of that insight, too.