Your Search Firm Should Also Provide a Great Candidate Experience
Providing a great candidate experience is a team effort. Not only does it require an effort on the part of everybody within your organization (especially those involved in the hiring process), but it also includes your search firm.
Organizations often use search consultants or executive search firms to fill important, top-level positions in a covert fashion. This is especially the case in a candidates’ market. When talent is scarce, the value of a search firm is in its ability to first identify top talent within the marketplace and then recruit that talent to work for your organization.
So first and foremost, below are three tips for selecting a successful and experienced search firm in your industry:
#1—Research various firms.
Do your homework, and don’t just work with the first agency that comes along. You need a firm that has a track record of success in the industry. This means talking with your peers and colleagues and discovering the agencies with which they’ve experienced success. More than likely, they can also tell you which firms to avoid.
#2—Build a relationship with the firm.
Once you select a firm based on recommendations and/or prior experiences, you must make sure the recruiters in that firm really understand your organization. They must know it from top to bottom and inside-out. These are the people who will represent you to top candidates. They should present themselves—and your organization—in the best fashion possible.
#3—Avoid working with multiple agencies.
Yes, you want the position filled, and yes, you want it filled with the best possible candidate in the shortest amount of time. However, using multiple recruiting agencies can backfire in your quest to accomplish this. That’s because they’re all being charged with the task of representing you, and they may not all do so at the highest of standards.
If you follow these three steps when hiring a search firm, then you’ll increase the chances that the firm will contribute positively to the experience of the candidates you want to hire. That’s because in the mind of these candidates, the search firm is an extension of your organization.
If the firm provides a negative experience for a candidate, then that candidate will associate the experience not just with the search firm, but also with your organization. They will NOT distinguish between the two of you.
Make sure that the experience you provide for candidates is an exemplary one, from beginning to end. Select the right recruiting firm to help fill your critical positions, a firm that will brand you in the best ways and ensure that the experience candidates associate with your organization is a great one.
We help support careers in one of two ways: 1. By helping to find the right opportunity when the time is right, and 2. By helping to recruit top talent for the critical needs of organizations. If this is something you would like to explore further, please send an email to stacy@thevetrecruiter.com.