Last week, I gave you 9 Signs You Have a Lame Recruiter. Today, we’ll talk about the positive side of that… how to figure out if a recruiter is any good.
Reputation
Reputation, or as it’s called in our buzz-culture “Personal Branding”, is the first and most important component in identifying whether a recruiter is any good. Actions speak louder than words. When people you respect tell you about the actions of a recruiter, you know how to interpret it.
If you’re evaluating a recruiter or recruiting company, ask around. Chances are someone you know knows them and has experience with them. In technology, so many of us have done contract work or used a recruiter for placement, you’re bound to know someone who knows a given recruiter or recruiting agency.
Experience
LinkedIn is a great tool. You can use it to learn about recruiters’ experience. Recruiters use LinkedIn to figure out who’s who. Recruiters have as good or better an understanding as anyone of the value of a LinkedIn profile. So, if a given recruiter doesn’t have their experience listed, we’d have to wonder “why?”
While a recruiter with a zillion years of experience isn’t necessary, you’d like one that has some experience either in recruiting, hiring, or Human Resources.
Remember, this person is going to represent you to an account manager who will present you to a company. Do you feel like you’d have a better chance being sold by a person with more or less experience?
Connections
In technology, we like to think that we’re judged by our skills and our wizardry in creating “cool” out of ones and zeros. But if I had to define why people are hired, it would be 40% skills and 60% “who you know”.
One of the reasons to pick a recruiter or recruiting company to work with (don’t limit yourself to one, but you don’t have to work with all who call you) is to expand your network. If you had a ton of contacts yourself, would you need a recruiter? So, during an initial call make sure to ask about companies with whom they have relationships. Check to see if they know people you know.
One question that is always good is “how well do you know the hiring manager?” It’s OK to ask these questions. Anyone who has a problem with you asking a few questions (3-4) about them may be someone you want to reconsider.
Professional Image
Would you get your teeth cleaned by someone with dirty hands? Would you buy life insurance from someone on the street? Would you eat at a restaurant with dirty tables, plates and silverware? No, of course you wouldn’t.
So if a recruiter contacted you and their email address was clearly a personal account (gmail, aol, bellsouth, earthlink, msn, live, etc.) would you need to second-guess your decision not to use them? I hope not.
The domain name used in an email from an alleged recruiter should be from a respected recruiting agency and legitimate business. Check out their website. Check out their company profile on LinkedIn. Check out shared connections.
Likewise, how many professionals from reputed companies have no corporate signature on their emails? Or signatures with no contact information or link to their corporate website? Wouldn’t we like to be able to contact the recruiter via multiple avenues?
The barrier to entry for the recruiting world is low. It takes very little money and effort to find a job on the web; a resume that fits it; and to submit it.
Of course, that’s not what good recruiters do.
Good recruiters understand that the value they offer clients is the “fit” of a client with a position, company, and culture. To do that successfully, you have to get down in the weeds and understand a company, a hiring manager, and a culture that company has. You can’t do that from another state or country.
Finally, I’ve seen people posing as recruiters who out themselves with poor grammar, frequent spelling mistakes, and mispronunciation of names and other local vocabulary (like “Raleigh”, “Charlotte”, “C#” or “AJAX”).
Don’t discount professional image in identifying good recruiters.
Office
There are some very good, legitimate, and respected recruiters who work out of their homes. So having an office is not an absolute “must”. But meeting a recruiter is standard. At minimum, we should be talking with a recruiter over the phone.
If you were selling a product, wouldn’t you want to use it first? You’re the product they are selling. If they don’t have an interest in speaking with you over the phone or in person, what does that say about them and their interests? How can they possibly sell you?
A one-time email is not enough for a recruiter to submit you to a position. Recruiters who work this way – submitting you to positions without meeting you – have to make you wonder, how much do they really care about both you and the client?
All the good recruiters I’ve ever worked with when I’ve been in a job hunt, I’ve met face to face.
Make sure the recruiter has a local presence. Like before, recruiters don’t have to have an office if they’re small, but they should at least have a presence in the area you’re targeting. It’s that presence that allows them to get to know the companies in an area, build their reputation and their network.
Focus
Some recruiters have a focus. There are recruiters that are specifically technical recruiters. There are recruiters who focus on Accounting while others focus on the Bio-Pharmaceutical industry.
Focusing on a niche is generally a competitive advantage for these companies. While it’s not a red flag if a company doesn’t focus on a particular industry, there is an advantage for companies who do. One of my favorite recruiting companies doesn’t focus on an industry.
Relationships
Relationships matter. While quality of relationships is much more important than the quantity, a recruiter with less than one hundred connections on LinkedIn undermines his value to you. Consider a recruiter’s number of relationships in deciding whether to work with them.
If recruiters are the only component of your job search or more than 25% of your job search, contact us. You need to learn the other skills your competition already knows. Contact us and learn the rest of the skills you need to land in your next great position.
I totally disagree about meeting with the recruiter. Most of the ones I work with, I have never met unless it was to walk me in to the client interview which is just about the only appropriate and necessary time. I simply don’t have any interest or time in meeting the dozens of recruiters that I speak to regularly. If I establish any type of relationship over time, then sure, it may be worth meeting with them. However, the vast majority are just time wasters, trying to justify their jobs by the ridiculous claim they need to meet every candidate prior to submission. Most are only a few years at best out of college and will ask you a thousand meaningless, standard, patronizing and degrading questions out of a book just to make it look good but are otherwise, usually clueless about your industry. The same applies to many company interviews today which is why I have even requested telephone interviews first rather than waste a few hours on a non-existent or already filled position. Also, in a global economy, the reality is that most of the recruiters are not going to be local so why should I differentiate between the handful of local ones and all the others?