5 Signs Your Recruiter Sucks
How happy are you with your recruiter? Do you suspect that the money you spend is being wasted? Take a good look at how the recruiting effort is going. If you see any of these five signs, take that as reason enough to make a change.
The Recruiter Claims to Understand Your Corporate Culture But Doesn’t Have a Clue
You don’t want someone who takes up space. That would be easy to do without any outside help. What you need is an employee who understands and fits right into the way your business operates. If the recruiter doesn’t understand your culture, how can he or she possibly figure out which candidates are worth pursuing?
Be wary of someone who dismisses learning how your company does things. That lack of interest indicates the recruiting effort will be shoddy at best.
You’re Getting Too Many Resumes
The point of having a recruiter is so you don’t have to plow your way through a pile of resumes sent by unqualified candidates. It seems as if anyone who ever worked in any sales capacity gets passed on to your desk.
One of the things your recruiter is failing to do is realize that some job experience doesn’t translate into a new environment with ease. For example, the fact that someone held down an inside sales job in the communications industry for a decade doesn’t mean that person will have an idea of how to conduct a face to face sale with someone who needs the building materials your company sells. A savvy recruiter will know this without being told and only pass on resumes that clearly indicate the person knows the building and construction industries well.
No Understanding of The Type of Sales Professional You Need
This relates back to your corporate structure and the kind of clients that you need. If your recruiter doesn’t grasp the fact that different types of selling involve specialized skill sets, you will end up spending way too much time muddling through a lot of unqualified candidates. For example, your company sells mainly to wholesalers. In other words, you are interested in a salesperson who can close sales with companies that will ultimately sell the materials they buy from you on to their clients. That’s a big difference from direct sales to the customer who will ultimately use them.
If your recruiter is murky on the difference between retail and wholesale activities, the odds of getting qualified candidates are somewhere between slim and none. Your best bet is to replace the recruiter with someone who gets it.
Driving Away Qualified Candidates
Your recruiter should know how to conduct a basic interview. Next to evaluating resumes, this is one of the most important aspects of matching candidates with the positions you have available. If those interview skills are lacking, the recruiter could be driving away people who would do a lot of good for your building materials or construction business.
Word does spread, and if the interview doesn’t stay on track and leaves the candidate with a sense that your company is not one he or she wants to be associated with, you can bet that person will tell other job seekers. The result is people who would be perfect won’t come near the recruiter. If you have reason to think this is happening, it’s time to make a change.
Crickets are Chirping
If there’s anything worse than hearing from your recruiter too often, it’s not hearing anything at all. Do you catch yourself having to call or email every couple of weeks just to find out if there is anything going on? That’s not the way a professional does business.
Even if a dedicated recruiter doesn’t have anything to pass on right this minute, he or she will touch base with you on a regular basis. Perhaps you will get a recap on Fridays that lets you know what the recruiter has done on your behalf this week. Maybe the recruiter is happy to set up a weekly conference call with you and discuss making some changes to improve the recruiting effort. Those are both signs you have someone who really is trying.
When you have to initiate all the contact and get little to no communication in return, you’ve got a dud. The best thing to do is get rid of that recruiter and find someone who knows how to keep you in the loop.
Ready to dump your recruiter and go for someone better? Schedule a discovery session to learn how Building Gurus 4 stage Recruiting Process can help you deliver the candidates you need (fast).
