Smarter Hires

For the most part, executive recruiters have a bad reputation. For the most part, it’s deserved.

That’s not to say that recruiters don’t perform a valuable service (after all, that’s how I make my living!)

• The right recruiter will have an extensive network of contacts in the field in which he or she specializes.
• The right recruiter will be savvy about using the Web and the host of search tools available to source candidates (a development that has eroded the advantage large recruiting firms once had with their proprietary databases).
• The right recruiter will save you time and money by exhaustively sourcing dozens if not hundreds of candidates for a position.
• The right recruiter will use scientifically validated psychological assessment tools to take a peak behind a candidate’s façade and better determine motivation and cultural fit.

But the right recruiter is hard to come by.  Here are some of the problems endemic to the field:

COMPENSATION:  Retained search firms generally charge a fee equal to one-third of the first-year’s compensation that is finally negotiated with the successful candidate. It’s a formula that makes about as much sense as the six percent real estate agent commission  –  which is to say not much sense at all.  But more important than the illogic and expense of that commission is the fact that it doesn’t align the recruiter’s interest with that of his or her client, the hiring company.

I have listened to a recruiter who landed a candidate for a job at a proposed compensation of $180,000 a year hint that the hiring company would go as high as $240,000.  That meant not only an additional $60,000 that the company had to pay in compensation, but another $20,000 that went into the pocket of the recruiter (one-third of $60,000 equals $20,000).

Solution:  If you’re going to engage a recruiter, insist on negotiating a fee upfront. If the recruiter declines, find another recruiter.

EXPERIENCE:  The ideal recruiter will have worked in the field in which he or she recruits.  That’s right – worked, not just recruited. It takes a substantial amount of experience to understand the culture of the pharmaceutial industry, the legal profession, the media business, etc. An especially talented recruiter might be able to suss out the cultural issues that are relevant. But better to hire a recruiter who’s been there and done that. A recruiter with real experience in the field also is more likely to know who’s who and how various figures are seen.

Again, I learned about this problem the hard way. When I stepped down as publisher of a New York City newspaper I was asked by my employer to help recruit a successor. The employer engaged one of the nation’s largest recruiting firms to help. I spent too much of my time explaining to the recruiter why the billionaire owner of a newspaper who carried the honorary title of publisher was unlikely to be responsive to our entreaties to take an actual working position and why the skills learned in running business-to-business magazine weren’t exactly transferable to publication of a free distribution daily.

Solution: Ask the prospective recruiter what experience he or she has working in the field, ideally as a manager, in which you are recruiting. If the recruiter doesn’t have such experience, and can’t convince you that he or she can transcend that, look elsewhere.

INSIGHT:  A good recruiter should have spent more than a few years in psychotherapy. That’s not because clients or candidates are crazy (although God knows some are). It’s because a recruiter needs to be able to recognize his or her own biases and discard them in evaluating a candidate.

One recruiter that I worked with seemed congenitally unable to see beyond the tip of her own upturned nose. A graduate of a not-quite Ivy League school, she placed undue emphasis on the status of a candidate’s alma mater and how he or she dressed.  Brooks Brothers ruled, even if the candidate we were recruiting was headed for a dot com and would never again wear a tie.

Solution: Work only with recruiters who use, and understand the importance of, scientifically validated assessment tools.  I say scientifically validated because the market is full of tools that haven’t passed muster when it comes to ensuring they aren’t biased in terms of race, ethnicity, or gender.

TRANSPARENCY:  Almost all recruiting firms guarantee a client that they will not solicit employees from that client’s firm for a period that generally last twelve months from the end of an engagement with that client.  In the case of a big firm that does lots of work in the media field, for example, such a guarantee may well put most of the best candidates for a job off-limits. A good recruiter will volunteer to share his or her off-limits list with a prospective client.  In any case, you should ask to see it.

Solution: If a recruiter won’t share the list, go elsewhere. If the list is overly restrictive, go elsewhere.

COURTESY: Most candidates hate recruiters because most recruiters aren’t very nice to candidates, at least to the unsuccessful ones. A good recruiter will know that he or she holds, to some degree, your company’s reputation in his or her hands. That recruiter will be responsive and courteous to all candidates, always following up in a timely fashion to let unsuccessful candidates know their status.  There simply is no excuse for not responding to every call and every email. No one, and I repeat no one, is too busy to do that no matter how large the search.

Solution: You should get a recruiter’s commitment to follow up with all candidates and you should consider checking that commitment with a blind call or email during the process.