Why Should Companies Use Recruiters?

Use the Experts, Get the Best

Good management is essential to the health and welfare of all companies; excellent management is the key to success in today’s highly competitive business environment. A company utilizes the services of outside professionals for such things as legal, accounting, and other special needs.

Recruiters should be viewed in the same light: as skilled specialists who can identify the best person to fill an important position on the management team.

Although an in-house human resource department can perform a search assignment for a candidate, employing the services of a search firm ultimately is more expedient, efficient and effective.  Good recruiters understand the true needs of the hiring authority.  They provide value, strict confidentiality, and an extensive network of contacts, objectivity in candidate evaluation, and negotiation experience and expertise.

Good recruiters are cost effective, Period.

The benefit of using a search firm can be weighed against the cost of preparing and executing an advertisement/recruitment campaign, screening and qualifying candidates, operating without a needed employee for an extended length of time, compared to the relative insurance of getting the right person for the job. The use of recruiters is an investment in improving the quality of managerial might. But even beyond that, the risk to not use recruiters is too great.  For smaller companies – in which one hiring mistake can have disastrous results – using recruiters is sometimes more important than for corporate giants. Hiring an incompetent employee who makes bad decisions can cost company large sums of money – or its very existence. More than ever before, talent is at a premium and can make or break the fortunes of a business. Professional recruiters can deliver the best, in both talent and value.

So why are many companies TODAY not using the services of professional recruiters?

Today’s turbulent, non-stable economy and governmental policies is causing “uncertainty” throughout the business community.  As a result, companies have an abundance of applicants for any job posted and to avoid cost impacts from outside fees they have chosen in many cases to simply troll the job boards for candidates.  Company’s hesitancy is further enhanced by not knowing the impact on their business from such new policies as the new Health Care Reform, Cap n Trade, and other programs that have not been fully vetted.  Bottom-line – the Supply (candidates) versus Demand (open jobs) of our economy has been disrupted.  Companies throughout industry are trying to avoid paying the fee to recruiters.  They realize the value they are losing by not using a recruiter but, after they have laid off a number of employees, they don’t want to be criticized for paying a third party to find new people.  Company chieftains know what they are risking/ losing but they aren’t going to take the chance in today’s business/social environment.  

So why haven’t Recruiters taken on the candidates as clients?

For a number of reasons, first and foremost Recruiters are professional and want to be paid for their service and as mentioned earlier – companies have stopped paying.  Second, the fee that a client candidate is capable of paying is small in comparison to what a recruiter is accustomed to from a client company for his/her time and expertise.  And, third Recruiters are accustomed to working within the confines of a company job order that defines the requirements of the company’s open position under a “retainer” agreement with the company, thus eliminating other recruiter’s access to the search.  Bottom-line – does anyone want to work for free with no assurance that their time, effort and expertise will be compensated?

Why use The Executive Headhunter Group as you’re (the candidate’s) recruiter?

Because The Executive Headhunter Group operates, in addition to their executive search business a Senior Executive Talent Program. The Firm accepts only top quality executives into the program.

These client candidates pay the Firm a modest retainer fee at signing to FUND the implementation of a personalized job search program for the candidate.  The program is a hands-on effort from open job identification through interviews to placement.  A specific Recruiter is assigned to each candidate and monitors and controls the total search effort.  The recruiter does NOT just mail out resumes to a sic list of company’s hoping a few stick.  The research department of the Firm and the recruiter searches through numerous sources to identify the job opening to which the candidate’s skills, abilities and personality match to a target match of 95%.  When the matched position is approved by the client candidate, the recruiter quickly moves, using proprietary documentation to present the candidate to the Hiring Authority.  The goal of this effort is to attain an interview for the client candidate.  Then the Firm provides interview preparation and debriefing sessions with the client candidate to ensure the candidate is well prepared for the interview and knowledgeable of the company.  The recruiter pre-sells the candidate to the company but he/she cannot enter the interview room, therefore much of the successful interview is the result of “chemistry” between the two parties.

If the candidate is successful in selling themselves to the company a job offer is imminent.

Thus, the client candidate receives through his recruiter the benefit of: the recruiter’s expertise; the tools used by professional recruiters; and exposure to a defined market for the candidate’s abilities and skills.  The companies to which the recruiter presents the client candidate are provided a “free referral”, thus removing the stigma of any fees for the candidate.

The Executive Headhunter Group recruits only for the Senior Executive market and are very selective in taking a new executive’s assignment. Integrity, confidentiality and quality are personal characteristics that the Firm believes are important for building a long-term relationship with both the client candidate and hiring company.

The building of the long-term relationship is the ultimate goal of the Firm.  Most client candidate alumni call the Firm FIRST when in need of top-quality personnel.  The Firm has, during the last ten years taken in 500 plus new candidates and is proud to say that 78% of these clients have been placed into senior level positions in many industries.  The remaining 22% were not placed for multiple reasons and in most cases did not operate in accordance to the dictates of the Firm’s process.