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I disagree with recruitment not adding value. Imagine a recruiter that sent you 5 qualified candidates who were all interested in your job. You would spend a li

I disagree with recruitment not adding value. Imagine a recruiter that sent you 5 qualified candidates who were all interested in your job. You would spend a little bit of time in the interview to verify they were qualified, but mainly you just have to decide who is the best fit for your team. Compare that to hours of reviewing resumes, tens of hours of interviews on unqualified candidates, etc. A recruiter could offer a lot of value, the problem is that it's difficult to show that you're a useful recruiter. This is an econ problem[1], where you have people offering something valuable and people offering something not very valuable and you can't tell the difference. What's needed is a way of signaling that they're going to be a good recruiter. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Market_for_Lemons http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Market_for_Lemons

lsc 15y ago
Sure, if a good recruiter was better at sorting resumes than one of your developers, they'd add value. hell, even if they were only slightly worse, they'd add some value. The thing is, to justify current prices, a recruiter would need to be rather a lot better at picking good prospects than your in-house hiring manager, and many times better at sorting resumes than someone who actually does the job you are hiring for. My understanding is that the fee charged is in the tens of thousands of dollars; for that, you had better save me a lot of employee hours, or get me a dramatically better candidate.
- Symmetry 15y ago
  In theory, recruiters can save a lot of work by sorting resumes once and then using that sort to give some subset to companies A, B, and C - rather than the sort being repeated at each company.
  - lsc 15y ago
    I agree that it is possible for a recruiter who knew the job well enough and that had multiple clients looking for people in the same field to more efficiently sort the resumes, but even if you could find a sufficiently skilled recruiter, I don't think there is 1/3rd of a year's salary worth of value in that alone. I mean, maybe if the recruiter charged me a week's salary, it'd be worth it for the time I'm saving, but 1/3rd of a year is a lot of money; that's a lot of time I or my people could spend sorting resumes. I mean, if the recruiter knew more about the position than I did, that'd be different. I mean, this would be very unlikely if I was hiring someone in my own field, but hey, sometimes you need to hire outside your field. I can see using a consulting recruiter for that, but most of that value is teaching me what to look for in an accountant (or whatever I'm hiring for) and they'd need to sit in on the interview. Really, in that case, I'd be looking more for a consultant than a recruiter.

lsc 15y ago

Sure, if a good recruiter was better at sorting resumes than one of your developers, they'd add value. hell, even if they were only slightly worse, they'd add some value. The thing is, to justify current prices, a recruiter would need to be rather a lot better at picking good prospects than your in-house hiring manager, and many times better at sorting resumes than someone who actually does the job you are hiring for. My understanding is that the fee charged is in the tens of thousands of dollars; for that, you had better save me a lot of employee hours, or get me a dramatically better candidate.

Symmetry 15y ago
In theory, recruiters can save a lot of work by sorting resumes once and then using that sort to give some subset to companies A, B, and C - rather than the sort being repeated at each company.
- lsc 15y ago
  I agree that it is possible for a recruiter who knew the job well enough and that had multiple clients looking for people in the same field to more efficiently sort the resumes, but even if you could find a sufficiently skilled recruiter, I don't think there is 1/3rd of a year's salary worth of value in that alone. I mean, maybe if the recruiter charged me a week's salary, it'd be worth it for the time I'm saving, but 1/3rd of a year is a lot of money; that's a lot of time I or my people could spend sorting resumes. I mean, if the recruiter knew more about the position than I did, that'd be different. I mean, this would be very unlikely if I was hiring someone in my own field, but hey, sometimes you need to hire outside your field. I can see using a consulting recruiter for that, but most of that value is teaching me what to look for in an accountant (or whatever I'm hiring for) and they'd need to sit in on the interview. Really, in that case, I'd be looking more for a consultant than a recruiter.