| September 2007 |
| Things to know before deciding to work with a headhunter |
| By
Leslie Stevens-Huffman |
Time is money. So, should you invest by interviewing with staffing agency recruiters when you're looking for a new opportunity? The answer is yes - if the recruiter has jobs that match your skill set and career goals. While job hunting requires multiple approaches to the marketplace and a lot of effort, many candidates complain about spending long hours testing and interviewing with recruiters, never to hear from them again.
The secret to selecting the right recruiter is to become the interviewer as well as the interviewee during the selection process. After you've presented your qualifications, ask questions that will help you assess your prospective recruiter's ability to place you. Here are some questions to ask.
How long have you been a recruiter?
In the recruitment business, it takes time to establish a base of client companies and contacts. Less-experienced recruiters may want to get hold of your resume so they can try to create a job order by marketing your resume to prospective clients. Tenured recruiters are successful because they have job openings to fill and they make lots of placements.
"Recruiters are all paid on some form of commission, and since the IT job market picked up a couple of years ago, the more seasoned recruiters don't have any incentive to interview candidates they can't place because it's a waste of everybody's time," says Don Palmer, vice president of field operations for Matrix Resources, an Atlanta-based IT placement firm.
Describe a specific opportunity that’s available.
Requesting specific job information is vital because the recruiter's answer will indicate if he has real jobs available. Also, his level of knowledge about the company and the position will correlate to experience with the client. In the absence of detail, the job posting you responded to may just be a way for the agency to fish for resumes.
Specifically, you want to hear from the recruiter about how long the position has been open, what the hiring manager is looking, the recruiter's insights into the hiring manager's performance expectations and the company culture. By establishing the fact he has real jobs to offer, this information will begin to create trust between you and the recruiter. Plus, it will help you evaluate your fit with the opportunity.
Will other recruiters on the staff also submit my resume for positions?
The answer is important because the more recruiters the agency has, the more open job requisitions it's probably dealing with. By time with just one of the firm's recruiters, you can benefit from the entire team's placement efforts.
"The recruiting firm's structure is important because in a teamwork environment the recruiters are more successful and they stay longer," says Renée Yousey, president and owner of Advanced Placement Team, an agency based in Dallas. Though her agency specializes in financial professionals, her point applies to the IT world, as well. "If they offer to introduce you to other team members, that's a sign that multiple recruiters will be considering you for open requisitions."
Will you ask my permission before submitting my resume to a client?
You always want to know when a recruiter plans to submit your resume. First, you don't want to be submitted to the same company by multiple agencies. Second, most companies have a policy which states that once your resume has been submitted for a position, you won't be considered for any other position should you submit it on your own or through another agency for a predetermined period of time - usually six months. The bottom line is you want to have all the facts before you say yes.
"Ask pointed questions about the hiring process and how cooperative the client is before rendering a decision about submitting your resume through a recruiter," says Jared Lubitz, president of Expedient Staffing Solutions, an IT staffing firm based in Boca Raton, Fla. "If you won't be able to submit your resume to that company again for a while, it's important to know about the manager's hiring time frame and how long the job has been open. It's one story if the agency will be just one of 200 firms that will submit candidates through an applicant tracking system for the position. It's another if you will be one of three candidates that the recruiter will present directly to the manager for immediate consideration."
"You want to establish trust with this person, so ask them to put some skin in the game by telling you about a specific job opening," says Palmer. "You need to share information about your background and goals first, but if they have a real job they are looking to fill, the recruiter should be able to tell you right away if you are a good fit, and if not - why."
Leslie Stevens-Huffman is a freelance writer based in Irvine, Calif. who has more than 20 years experience in the staffing industry.
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