Surveys have shown the best candidates rarely respond to job postings. To attract top talent, opportunities must be individually presented to “cherry picked” candidates from the hidden talent pool. It is extremely important for an employer to approach these candidates the right way.
We welcome the opportunity to assist you in acquiring top talent. Put our recruiting services to the test today!
There is enormous potential for companies to benefit by turning to a search firm to help them with, what many consider to be the lifeblood of an organization, talent acquisition. Yet, a recruiter’s value isn’t always clear. Whether you have worked with a search firm before or you are currently considering using a search firm for the first time and have landed on our website, we welcome this opportunity to clarify the many advantages of using a search firm and overall return on your investment.
Recruiters specialize in human capital. They have tested and utilize the very best in human capital data and software and have access to a much deeper pool of candidates that can ever be tapped through advertising or job boards. Recruiters network and strategize every day to build relationships with the best candidates, with the kind of people who have made a difference for the companies they work for. These are the kind of people who aren’t looking for a job or circulating their resumes; these are passive candidates and most often, the best candidate for your position.
The best candidates need not only be found, but then also attracted to your company and to the career opportunity. It is important that this initial contact with the candidate is handled in the right way. Traditional recruiters are specifically trained to confidentially approach these candidates, pique their interest and then evaluate them for the position. If qualified, the recruiter will add them to the short list and then prepare them for presentation to a client. An excellent, but otherwise uninterested, candidate may become highly motivated to pursue an opportunity when it is presented and guided by a trusted, specialized search consultant.
Asearch firm’s mission is to bring an outstanding candidate to their client’s attention, one that the client could not have found on their own. While they won’t force a square peg into a round hole, they will help a client to understand how a potential candidate’s background and personal qualities, which are often a better predictor of performance than merely experience alone, are a potential perfect fit. A skilled recruiter knows the right questions to ask on both sides to connect talented professionals to great opportunities.
Also, serious recruiters aim to solve their client’s problem and earn repeat business rather than just performing a one-off search (filling just one position). With their reputation at stake, they will focus their efforts on realistic outcomes. This means it is sometimes necessary to advise clients on potential unrealistic expectations or any other misconceptions regarding the search parameters. Recruiters can talk to hiring authorities in a way that an internal recruiter may not be so inclined to do. This includes advising on issues such as the skills required and the salary range being offered, or even as to the type of person sought. A search firm’s unbiased approach helps clients to avoid costly mistakes in the hiring process.
Recruiters are a powerful ally of both client and candidate during the negotiation process. Once at the negotiation stage, the recruiter should be well aware of what it is going to take for a candidate to accept an offer, and in-turn what a client is willing to offer to get the candidate on board. If following the process correctly, a good recruiter will have foreseen any road blocks and cleared them out of the way. They would have not been afraid to probe both sides to find out, sooner rather than later, if a candidate or position is not a top priority for either side. With that said, recruiters are people brokers and people are human. When issues do arise during the negotiation process, recruiters act as a powerful intermediary between the client and candidate helping to avoid sticky points that result in an abrupt end to the process or hard feelings that linger after a candidate is hired.
Additionally, recruiters will help avoid a counter-offer and ensure smooth on-boarding by maintaining contact with both employer and employee after the offer is accepted. Specifically, they assist and counsel candidates through the resignation process with their current employer, and they advise clients on steps they can take to minimize the risk of a candidate accepting a counter-offer.
Rrecruiters are experts in anonymity because their business is built on trust and confidentiality. They typically do not publicize who they are working for, and they won’t reveal who an employer is until they are confident the candidate is motivated, for the right reasons, to seriously pursue the opportunity. This allows clients to search the top candidate pool without alerting competitors or the client’s current employees.
The return on a company’s investment in hiring a search firm is three dimensional:
First, the sum of the advantages listed above vs. your true to cost to hire.
Second, hiring a qualified search firm gives you immediate access to best candidates for your position and speeds up the process considerably.
Third, consider how much work has been turned away or lost as a result of handling the search on your own:
When you make the decision to hire a search firm, it’s important to select the right one. Not all search firms are alike. Below we have listed the advantages of working with our firm, which we believe make us your best option for retaining or engaging a search firm.
With over 20 years of experience placing professionals exclusively within the insurance and financial sectors, we maintain a keen perspective on the market. With that said, we also understand that no two clients are exactly alike. To uncover the ideal candidate for a client’s particular position, it is imperative that we thoroughly understand the parameters of the assignment, as well as our client’s culture and company goals.
With each new search assignment, we follow a time-tested process that begins with a thorough position analysis. We probe the hiring authority with questions uniquely designed to “flush out” information that will help us qualify and attract candidates to the position, and eventually whittle the list down to the best candidates we believe will meet the client’s requirements and needs.
We are continually educating ourselves in the field of Psychology, particularly in the field of Human Resources. We have the skills required to gauge the emotional intelligence (an attribute in the human psyche that is central to many aspects of life, especially job success) of candidates, i.e., self-awareness, social awareness, adaptability and other emotional competencies.
Also, many of our successful placements involve candidates that have been with their current employer for a long time, on average 7+ years. Our background in Psychology has helped us to work through any hesitations these candidates were having, successfully moving them forward in the process (interview) and eventually a career move (offer acceptance).
It is important that your company be professionally represented and properly branded in the market. With your best foot forward, you’ll be able to attract top candidates to your position. We believe our experience and reputation in the industry (award winning and national billing leaders) has contributed greatly to candidates being familiar with our name. Should we feel an opportunity fits their interests and skills, they always take our calls promptly and respond to our emails with enthusiasm.
To quickly uncover candidates, our office utilizes one of the best human capital software resources in the industry. This powerful resource tool provides the most accurate and detailed information on potential candidates and allows us to track their career objectives.
Also, much like detectives, we have been professionally trained to “deep-dive” the internet (social media outlets) for any additional information on candidates that will help us qualify them, and if appropriate, attract them to a position.
Most importantly, we are traditional recruiters recruiting directly from your competitors. We have the skills to cold call and approach a passive candidate and attract them to your opportunity.
We cannot stress how important it is to follow a process when sourcing, qualifying and hiring top-talent. From thoroughly assessing a client’s unique needs to the interview/offer stage and then effective follow through, we have made it our core philosophy to never falter from our unique and effective process. For a detailed breakdown of our process, click here.
While we would love to assist you in finding top talent for your current opportunity, in most instances we also strive to become your strategic partner in talent acquisition. When compared to other low-cost hiring methods, our cost per hire is in many cases the same or lower, but more importantly, much more effective.
We bring to the table skills and resources that you may not possess or have the time to employ, that will enable you to attract, hire and retain the best people in your industry.
As a boutique firm, we have the time it takes to provide hands-on personal service to gain a good perspective and understanding of your company, it’s culture, structure, products and services and overall goals. During the entire process, our clients always have direct access to the managing recruiter heading up their search.
We work with clients of all sizes, those with 2 employees up to over 10,000. However, because we only work with a few select clients at a time, there aren’t too many candidate pools in which we are restricted from approaching.
Recruiters will have a higher chance of finding the right candidate and finding them much faster if their client avoids being vague about the parameters of the search. When a client fully invests their time in our initial collaboration process, we gain a clear picture of not just the skills and qualifications needed, but the type of candidate that will be a cultural fit for the company and ultimately more successful in the position.
Good recruiters focus their attention on realistic outcomes. That means it is sometimes necessary to advise clients on potential unrealistic expectations or any other mistaken issue regarding the search parameters. Be prepared to re-evaluate and make adjustments when appropriate.
There are several reasons why a company should avoid working with multiple recruiters. In our opinion, here are the top three:
Often a hiring authority will work with recruiters through HR. We believe it’s important to work with HR, but limited access to hiring authorities most often results in unclear search parameters and slow, or no, feedback on candidates, which ultimately makes it impossible to find and hire the right candidate.
Asearch firm’s job is not over when an employer is ready to make an offer to a candidate. A good recruiter will be informed on both sides, making it easy to mediate an offer to a mutually beneficial and successful outcome.
When a client takes more than a few months to interview and hire a candidate, they run the risk of losing the candidate to another opportunity.