3 ms·

It's like real estate. Recruiting looks like easy money, so it attracts many, many entrants. Only a few are successful enough to stick to it as a full-time jo

by hapless 16y ago

It's like real estate. Recruiting looks like easy money, so it attracts many, many entrants. Only a few are successful enough to stick to it as a full-time job. The incentives don't make sense. As a realtor, you get a huge, immediate payoff when the house sells. You don't care about the price. Recruiters are worse. As a recruiter, you get a huge, immediate payoff when your client hires any candidate at any price. You don't actually care how good the fit is, so the rational behaviour is to spray as many candidates at as many clients as possible.

__mharrison__ 16y ago
The real estate analogy is a good one. The incentives for the recruiter don't line up. (Hence many companies refusing to work with recruiters)
gnosis 16y ago
"As a realtor, you get a huge, immediate payoff when the house sells." "immediate", except for the fact that you might have been working to find or sell the house for a year, and months to put the deal together. This is assuming the house ever does sell at all, and you haven't worked for months or years to get absolutely nothing. And it assumes that if the house sells you don't get cheated by your client and actually do get paid. "You don't care about the price." Except that usually real estate agents get a percentage of the sale price as commission. Real estate agents also want to make their client happy so that they'll get recommendations and referrals from them in the future, and want to work with that agent again when they look to buy or sell another home.
- hapless 16y ago
  Exactly, they get a percentage of the sale price as a commission. 1% of a $300,000 house is $3,000. 1% of a $325,000 house is $3,250. The realtor has $250 to gain from holding your house price as high as possible, increasing the amount of work he has to do. He has $3,000 on the line to sell it at the lower price, with less work. The rational behaviour is to sell as fast as possible, and damn the price.

by hapless 16y ago

__mharrison__ 16y ago

The real estate analogy is a good one. The incentives for the recruiter don't line up. (Hence many companies refusing to work with recruiters)

gnosis 16y ago

"As a realtor, you get a huge, immediate payoff when the house sells." "immediate", except for the fact that you might have been working to find or sell the house for a year, and months to put the deal together. This is assuming the house ever does sell at all, and you haven't worked for months or years to get absolutely nothing. And it assumes that if the house sells you don't get cheated by your client and actually do get paid. "You don't care about the price." Except that usually real estate agents get a percentage of the sale price as commission. Real estate agents also want to make their client happy so that they'll get recommendations and referrals from them in the future, and want to work with that agent again when they look to buy or sell another home.

hapless 16y ago
Exactly, they get a percentage of the sale price as a commission. 1% of a $300,000 house is $3,000. 1% of a $325,000 house is $3,250. The realtor has $250 to gain from holding your house price as high as possible, increasing the amount of work he has to do. He has $3,000 on the line to sell it at the lower price, with less work. The rational behaviour is to sell as fast as possible, and damn the price.