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OK, here's a question: why do companies use recruitment consultants? I've never heard a nice word said about them, certainly not in the tech/IT field. Not by pe

by chris_j 16y ago

OK, here's a question: why do companies use recruitment consultants? I've never heard a nice word said about them, certainly not in the tech/IT field. Not by people who work for companies hiring, not by jobs applicants. What value do they add, other than going through a big pile of CVs/resumes and turning it into a smaller pile of CVs/resumes (and, by the sounds of things, likely tossing out a whole load of excellent candidates in many cases)?

iuguy 16y ago
A recruiter would be better positioned to add value than I. I've dealt with recruiters on an employer and employee basis and it generally varies massively as to what you get. Out of all the recruiters I've known, there's only one that I have a long term relationship and would consider a friend. That's not a positive note for an industry, given that I've led recruitment in about 4 different jobs across two industries. If you imagine a pre-Internet world, recruiters would provide employers value by having a large potential labour pool, searching that pool for 'talent', then (allegedly) doing some sort of screening so that HR gets CVs that are relevant to the post. In the modern age, much of this could be bypassed but some companies (most notably larger companies) have exclusive contracts with large recruiters, meaning that if you want to work there you have to go through a specific recruiter. Madness, I know, and an industry ripe for disruption but full of people that would fight tooth and nail against it (and not just the recruiters but the employers in some cases).
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- chris_j 16y ago
  I like it when you say "an industry ripe for disruption". Could you expend on why employers would fight tooth and nail against it in some cases? For example, are there employers that really are getting good value for money out of recruiters in this industry right now?
ig1 16y ago
The value recruiters provide isn't in filtering, it's in sourcing. It's very hard to source candidates. Job boards are more or less useless for companies advertising direct, as they're dominated by recruiters (who pay less for job adverts as they're bulk buying and can afford to spend more). Recruiters are also good at getting passive candidates by cold calling candidates whose details they've obtained through slightly iffy routes. For example a company won't buy the phone book of a competitor from a disgruntled employee and then start cold calling their staff to hire them away, but a third party recruiter will. I'm trying to raise financing at the moment to build a startup that will provide an alternative solution (a job site with intelligent candidate/job matching using the kind of techniques dating sites use). If anyone wants to see my pitch deck feel free to email me (even if you're not an investor, happy to share with anyone who's not a direct competitor).
- chris_j 16y ago
  Thanks for the explanation. It makes a lot of sense that sourcing candidates is hard and that's where recruiters add value. I do it slightly ironic that you say that job boards are more or less useless and then you go on to say that it's recruiters that make them useless by clogging them up. I sent you an email regarding your startup since it interests me on an academic level and I'd love to learn a little more.
larsberg 16y ago
You can't imagine how large that pile of junk CVs/resumes is. When I was doing hiring (MSFT), having full-time recruiters working for me was key to getting the load down to something that was even remotely manageable. I can imagine that if your company was small enough that you didn't have the money to hire a full-time recruiter to source candidates, relying on third-party referrals would be a reasonable alternative. That said, almost 100% of the non-college hires I made were either personal recommendations from other members on the team or people whom I directly contacted after seeing their name pop up repeatedly in the context of interesting things.
acdha 16y ago
I think some of it is simply a lag in market adjustment: older managers/corporate culture tend to have pre-internet habits about hiring like the assumption that recruiters are necessary to find good candidates and frequently the system is structured in a way which complicates getting people without going through a recruiter. The root problem is that many places don't measure performance and so you get the same problems which are endemic in marketing where successes are credited to people but failures are seen as systemic. At the last few places, our recruiters literally failed to provide a single qualified candidate (or even strong resume) but this was usually excused as a tough market - and while good people are always in short supply, taking the 30% cut which normally goes to the recruiter and giving it to the person would certainly help.

by chris_j 16y ago

iuguy 16y ago

A recruiter would be better positioned to add value than I. I've dealt with recruiters on an employer and employee basis and it generally varies massively as to what you get. Out of all the recruiters I've known, there's only one that I have a long term relationship and would consider a friend. That's not a positive note for an industry, given that I've led recruitment in about 4 different jobs across two industries. If you imagine a pre-Internet world, recruiters would provide employers value by having a large potential labour pool, searching that pool for 'talent', then (allegedly) doing some sort of screening so that HR gets CVs that are relevant to the post. In the modern age, much of this could be bypassed but some companies (most notably larger companies) have exclusive contracts with large recruiters, meaning that if you want to work there you have to go through a specific recruiter. Madness, I know, and an industry ripe for disruption but full of people that would fight tooth and nail against it (and not just the recruiters but the employers in some cases).

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chris_j 16y ago
I like it when you say "an industry ripe for disruption". Could you expend on why employers would fight tooth and nail against it in some cases? For example, are there employers that really are getting good value for money out of recruiters in this industry right now?

ig1 16y ago

The value recruiters provide isn't in filtering, it's in sourcing. It's very hard to source candidates. Job boards are more or less useless for companies advertising direct, as they're dominated by recruiters (who pay less for job adverts as they're bulk buying and can afford to spend more). Recruiters are also good at getting passive candidates by cold calling candidates whose details they've obtained through slightly iffy routes. For example a company won't buy the phone book of a competitor from a disgruntled employee and then start cold calling their staff to hire them away, but a third party recruiter will. I'm trying to raise financing at the moment to build a startup that will provide an alternative solution (a job site with intelligent candidate/job matching using the kind of techniques dating sites use). If anyone wants to see my pitch deck feel free to email me (even if you're not an investor, happy to share with anyone who's not a direct competitor).

chris_j 16y ago
Thanks for the explanation. It makes a lot of sense that sourcing candidates is hard and that's where recruiters add value. I do it slightly ironic that you say that job boards are more or less useless and then you go on to say that it's recruiters that make them useless by clogging them up. I sent you an email regarding your startup since it interests me on an academic level and I'd love to learn a little more.

larsberg 16y ago

You can't imagine how large that pile of junk CVs/resumes is. When I was doing hiring (MSFT), having full-time recruiters working for me was key to getting the load down to something that was even remotely manageable. I can imagine that if your company was small enough that you didn't have the money to hire a full-time recruiter to source candidates, relying on third-party referrals would be a reasonable alternative. That said, almost 100% of the non-college hires I made were either personal recommendations from other members on the team or people whom I directly contacted after seeing their name pop up repeatedly in the context of interesting things.

acdha 16y ago

I think some of it is simply a lag in market adjustment: older managers/corporate culture tend to have pre-internet habits about hiring like the assumption that recruiters are necessary to find good candidates and frequently the system is structured in a way which complicates getting people without going through a recruiter. The root problem is that many places don't measure performance and so you get the same problems which are endemic in marketing where successes are credited to people but failures are seen as systemic. At the last few places, our recruiters literally failed to provide a single qualified candidate (or even strong resume) but this was usually excused as a tough market - and while good people are always in short supply, taking the 30% cut which normally goes to the recruiter and giving it to the person would certainly help.