Recruiting FAQs: What’s it Like to Work With, Utilize, or Even be a Recruiter!

The recruiting and staffing industry is a fascinating place to work because we provide our clients with their most precious resource – People!

People are unique, people are fascinating, people are awesome, people have amazing and specialized skills. People can also drive us crazy and be challenging to work with. It’s all these dynamics that make a people business, like recruiting, a special place to work.

We get a lot of questions about what it’s like to work in recruiting, including: Why should I use a recruiter to find a job or to fill my open position? How does a recruiter attract talent? What’s it like to be a recruiter? What makes The Alliance Group a special place to work?

At Alliance, our recruiting team has an average of 10 years of experience helping to further the careers of professionals in the accounting & finance and information technology space, so we’ve learned a thing or two about the subject.  While we can’t fit it all the FAQs in one post, here is Part 1 of our hot takes on some Frequently Asked Questions about the world of recruiting.

What Does a Recruiter Do?

Yes, in general terms, we find our clients people and we find our candidates jobs, but that’s really the tip of the iceberg. There’s so much more to doing this job at a high level. The following steps are critical for a recruiter to be successful.

Have a Detailed Intake Call with the Hiring Manager

• An intake call is the initial discussion when a client describes their hiring need. When done properly, this is a long call which provides an opportunity to build a connection between the hiring manager and recruiter. But more than that, it also covers everything from:
  • Must haves and should haves of the ideal candidate
  • Who will the candidate report to and what sort of mentoring will the candidate receive?
  • What’s the compensation range?
  • What is the “stretch” comp range for the perfect candidate?
  • Advising clients on the current job market if comp ranges are not in line
  • What software skills or tools should a candidate bring to the table?
  • Why is the job open?
  • What is the background of the incumbent?
  • What’s the interview process?
  • What’s the “sizzle” on the company and the position (we ask it like this “why should someone quit their job to work in this role at your company”?)
  • What is the career path for someone in this role?
  • What are in the in-office requirements?
  • What are the company’s growth plans?
  • What are annual revenues?
  • What’s the ownership structure?
  • What ERP system is used?
  • What is the makeup of the department in which they’ll be working?
  • What are the key components of the benefits program?
• These are just a few of the many questions asked during an intake call. Armed with this information, we can do a much better job of attracting, screening, and matching candidates to the position.

Attracting Candidates

• The attraction phase is a key component of the recruiting process. While we often have several viable candidates in our network/database, which represents thousands of resumes, external outreach or “headhunting” is a critical part of the process. We need the information from our detailed client intake calls to make an effective and compelling presentation to potential candidates. That presentation is made via a combination of phone and email outreach to candidate profiles who meet the agreed upon criteria.

Screening Candidates

• Part of effective screening simply comes from experience. At Alliance, our recruiters have an average of 10 years’ recruiting experience, so it’s not our first rodeo. We know the tricks bad candidates play to cover up holes in their resumes. Through our detailed interviews we explore gaps in experience, we verify work history, we challenge why certain career moves were made, we utilize our network to validate a candidate’s experience, we ask for detailed examples of actual experience, we verify CPA certifications, we do detailed reference checking, and we look for the intangibles such as work ethic, attitude, the desire to go the extra mile, and other traits we’d look for if we were hiring. We also explore the candidate’s career aspirations to ensure we’re making an effective match for both parties.

Managing the Search

• “Time kills deals” is an often used expression in our business. We’re well aware of that and do everything we can to move the search process along as quickly as reasonably possible while still doing effective screening and ensuring we aren’t rushing the process. It’s also imperative to keep tabs on where our candidates are in any other interviews. We do not want to be surprised when a candidate receives a job offer somewhere else. Regular communication about where they are in their search is critical.

The Offer Stage

• So much can go wrong (and right) here.  It starts with having up front conversations about compensation expectations with both the client and candidate. An inexperienced recruiter is frequently surprised at the offer stage when a candidate asks for more than the client is willing to pay or the client offers less than the candidate needs. This should never happen!  “No surprises” comes from asking the right questions up front and continuing to verify, or “pre-close”, throughout the process so offers made are in line with expectations and acceptance rates are high.

Resignation/Counteroffers

• Congratulations, you got an offer and acceptance. You’re done!  Sorry, but you’re not done – you’re just getting started. A good recruiter will spend at least 30 minutes with a candidate preparing them for their resignation, prepping them up for what is almost always a difficult conversation, discuss how to respond to counteroffers, why counteroffers are bad news, and follow up immediately after their resignation to see how things went.

Onboarding and Quality Control

• A good recruiter makes sure the candidate is in touch with the client during the critical and vulnerable 2-4 week notice process. The last thing you want is an offer and acceptance, then little to no communication between the parties until the start date. There are so many risks to the candidate actually starting (other calls from recruiters, cold feet, a second counteroffer just to name a few) and not only that, it’s a bad look to leave your new hire hanging for those few weeks. Lastly, we follow up with both the client and candidate once they’ve started to make sure everything is going according to expectations for both sides. This often overlooked step has saved many placements over the years where even a small issue, left unresolved, can fester and become a much deeper problem.

Stay tuned in the coming weeks for more Recruiting FAQs. In the meantime, feel free to contact us with more questions.

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