How to Pick a Great Recruiting Agency Question Guide Intro

Recruiting is a time-consuming and complex process. However, hiring a great recruiting agency shouldn’t be.

There’s a tried-and-true formula to finding a great recruiting agency. This guide provides you with not only the questions you should ask before you hire a recruiter or agency, but also the answers to expect.

If you get to the end and we haven’t answered all of your questions, we can answer them personally by email or phone.

ContractRecruiter offers a refreshingly unique approach to RPO. Our hybrid model harnesses the power of an RPO, yet can be described as a more flexible and scalable way of engaging a Contract Recruiter or Sourcer.

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Hire a Great Recruiting Agency | 2 12 Questions to Ask

1. What online tools and platforms do your recruiters use to do their sourcing besides LinkedIn and Job Boards? 2. Do you understand Boolean Syntax? 3. Do you know how to analyze and break-down a resume? 4. Can you show me a couple of Inmails or emails that your recruiters have sent to candidates? 5. Can you show me a couple of write-ups? 6. What is your current req load? 7. Who will be doing the sourcing and screening of candidates? 8. What percentage of your hires are FTE’s vs. Contractors? 9. What is your placement fee? 10. What is your guarantee policy? 11. What is your policy on candidate ownership? 12. Can you provide me with a weekly activity report?

Hire a Great Recruiting Agency | 3 1. What online tools and platforms do your recruiters use to do their sourcing besides LinkedIn and Job Boards?

Sourcing is the single biggest challenge for any recruiter, let alone agencies who don’t have the benefit of candidate flow from employee referrals, internal transfers, corporate job postings, internal sourcing teams, etc.

Agencies that are adept at sourcing will use a variety of other tools and platforms. Here are some examples that you ideally would like to hear when you ask question them:

● Social Recruiting Tools, for example SwoopTalent, TalentBin, Recruitment Edge, and Entelo. ● Social Platforms, such as Facebook, Slideshare, +, Twitter, and MeetUp. ● Chrome Extensions, for example Prophet, Hiretual, Connectifier Social, Capture, Lusha, Hunter and ContactOut. ● Boolean String Generators, for example SourceHub, Hiretual. ● User Communities, such as GitHub and Stack Overflow for software engineers, Behance for Creative, Kaggle for Data Scientists, etc. ● Resume Spiders, for example TalentHook or Infogist.

Back To Hire a Great Recruiting Agency | 4 Questions 2. Do your recruiters understand Boolean Syntax?

Recruiters should be proficient with basic Boolean search syntax to create effective search strings. We’re not talking here about actual X-Ray, Flip, or Peel-Back searching on Google or Bing, but simply knowledge of the basic syntax used to populate a search bar in, for example, LinkedIn or Indeed.

Meaning that you want to know that a recruiter understands the proper use of three basic Boolean operations: AND, OR, and NOT, as well as the proper placement of parentheses “ “ and brackets ( ).

The challenge here is that you can’t really ask an agency whether their recruiters understand general Boolean syntax, because of course they will always say “yes”.

Here at ContractRecruiter, we give every recruiter a quick 15-minute online test that requires them to write a few Boolean search strings. And you can do the same with any recruiting agency that you are considering engaging with. Simply direct the recruiter that you are considering working with to a brief online Boolean test.

If you don’t think that you have the time or experience to do this, talk to us and we’ll gladly either assist you, or we can do it for you and handle the entire process, from set-up to grading of each test.

Back To Hire a Great Recruiting Agency | 5 Questions 3. Do your recruiters know how to analyze and break-down a resume?

Similar to the question about Boolean knowledge, you can’t simply ask this question because the answer that you are always going to hear will be “yes”.

Again, we recommend giving a quick 15 minute test to see whether the recruiter at your proposed agency has this skill. Simply give a job description, along with three sample resumes, and ask them to let you know what they do and don’t like about each resume. You are looking for an understanding of subject matter content, as well as general screening skills in regard to things like job hopping, job gaps, career progression, etc.

Be sure to alter the resumes so that they have plenty of gotchas that any agency recruiter should catch. For example, a resume may have job gaps; or may not have a college degree for a position description that requires one, or may have job titles or descriptions that don’t fit the job description, etc.

As with the Boolean test, if you don’t feel that you have the time or expertise to do this, talk to us at ContractRecruiter and we will with either help you put it together, or we can handle the entire process for you, from set-up to grading.

Back To Questions Hire a Great Recruiting Agency | 6 4. Can you show me a couple of Inmails or emails that your recruiters have sent to candidates?

Unfortunately, the majority of recruiters send generic, non-personalized Inmail/Email templates that basically sounds like this to a candidate:

Hi Robert,

I am a recruiter. Although I have never spoken with you, and thus know absolutely nothing about you, you are a perfect fit for this job. Read my job description below. Or not, it doesn’t matter, just please call me so I can submit you, because I need to keep my client happy by submitting people.

Regards, Yet another recruiter spamming you

Your goal is to find recruiters who how to construct personalized, highly engaging InMails/Emails. Simply ask them to send you some actual InMails/Emails that they have written, and evaluate accordingly. As opposed to the InMail above, you are looking to see something that reads like this:

Back To Questions Hire a Great Recruiting Agency | 7 4. Can you show me a couple of Inmails or emails that your recruiters have sent to candidates? (Continued)

Hi Robert,

I hope you are having a great week.

I'm doing some research for a confidential client in Chicago, and found your profile here on Linkedin.

I am impressed by how much you’ve accomplished since getting your Bachelor’s degree eight years ago at Villanova (great school, by the way, I have a cousin who is applying there right now as her first choice). I’m looking to network with people who are passionate about Project Management, and it’s clear from the progression in your career from your first job at Odell Systems to your current position at that you share that same passion (not to mention your certification from both PMI and Six Sigma).

My client is building a team that is excited about shaping the future of project management for years to come. I have picked a few people with outstanding profiles like yourself to network with, as I search for the next superstar for my client.

Would you be open to a quick 15-20 minute conversation? I'd like to learn more about your background and at the same time talk about the role in more detail.

Kind Regards, Andrew

Back To Questions Hire a Great Recruiting Agency | 8 5. Can you show me a couple of write-ups?

When you engage with a recruiting agency, every resume that they send you is typically accompanied by a write-up. A well-written write-up should not simply be a regurgitation of what is on the resume, but instead should offer information that can’t be gleaned from the resume.

Thoughtfully constructed write-ups are a strong indication that a recruiter has the skills, and takes the time, to thoroughly and meticulously screen candidates.

Here are two write-ups on the same candidate. The first one, shown below, is typical of most recruiters who don’t take the time, or have the skills, to properly screen a candidate:

Hi Kim, I have attached the resume of Emily Bitenhouse. Emily is currently working at ArcNet, and before that worked at AT&T. She is a front-end developer. She is energetic, enthusiastic, and hard-working and is looking for a really good company who will value her.

In addition to not offering any information that you can’t read for yourself on the resume, this write-up, like all too many, concludes with a bit of fluffy gibberish about the candidate’s supposed character. Here is what a write-up on this same candidate should like look – the following is what you are looking for when you ask to see a sample of a write-up:

Back To Questions Hire a Great Recruiting Agency | 9 5. Can you show me a couple of write-ups? (Continued)

CANDIDATE: Emily Bitenhouse

CURRENTLY EMPLOYED: Yes

MOST RECENT EMPLOYMENT STATUS: Contractor

REASON FOR LEAVING: Emily was with AT&T for 9 years. When they went through the downsizing she moved to a government role. There was a downsizing there as well due to the economy and budget cuts. Emily is currently with ArcNet as a consultant – she wants to return to a corporate full-time employee position.

OTHER JOB OFFERS ON THE TABLE, OR LIKELY TO COME IN: Actively interviewing. Possible offer at IBM coming late next week. However, job is not ideal, as the commute would be 2 hours each way.

SALARY HISTORY:

● Most recent Base Salary: $120,000 ● Most Recent Bonus Amount: $10,000 ● Most Recent Bonus - Date Received: 1/15/17

Looking for: $115k base or better; $125 total comp or better

JOB GAPS:

1. 6 month gap – Feb 2009 to Aug 2009 – Maternity Leave

SHORT JOB TENURES: 1. Unisys – 8 months. Entire 65 person team was laid-off, and work was outsourced to Comsys. 2. Motorola – 9 months. Had 4 different managers in the 9 months that she was there. Became frustrated with the constant change of direction and shifting politics.

NOTES: Emily has 14 years of IT experience and feels her core skills are as a front-end developer, and she was able to talk about 5 different projects that she worked on from conception to implementation. She feels her strengths are also as a technical analyst, being able to understand all of the parts and pull them together, as she is usually the “go-to” person for explaining requirements and functionality. Her latest key accomplishment was the development of a webserver interface for wireless products, whereupon she was quickly requested to join the team as a technical lead on the project.

Back To Questions Hire a Great Recruiting Agency | 10 6. What is your current req load?

You want to know that your reqs will be a priority at the agency that you plan on using. But with if the agency is overloaded with business from their other many clients?

Talk to the recruiter who will be working on your reqs, and ask how many other clients and positions they are working on.

Get a sense of their current req load, as well as a feel for how your reqs will be prioritized, and what type of candidate flow you can expect.

Back To Questions Hire a Great Recruiting Agency | 11 7. Who will be doing the sourcing and screening of candidates?

Here’s a surprise: the recruiter that you work with at an agency may not be doing any of the actual recruiting.

Some agencies operate a “split desk”, meaning that responsibilities are divided between business development (aka sales) and recruiting.

In this case, your “recruiter” is actually a salesperson, and is simply acting as a conduit between you and the actual recruiter.

Other agencies operate a “full desk”, whereupon each recruiter is responsible for both sales and recruiting. In this case, it is far more likely that the recruiter you are working with is actually doing the work on the back end, however that is still not a guarantee that other members of the agency are not partially or fully involved in either the sourcing or the screening of candidates.

Back To Questions Hire a Great Recruiting Agency | 12 8. What percentage of your hires are FTE’s vs. Contractors?

Depending upon whether you are looking to hire full-time employees or contractors, you’ll want to make sure that the agency’s hiring focus aligns with the type of hires that you need.

This is especially important if you are looking to hire FTE’s (full-time employees), as you want to avoid agencies who primarily place contractors.

Back To Questions Hire a Great Recruiting Agency |13 9. What is your placement fee?

Agencies typically charge between 15% and 30% of candidates’ first year compensation.

“Compensation” typically means just salary, but be sure to clarify that the agency is not also including potential bonus or commission structure in their fee calculation.

The good news is that is somewhat easy for you to negotiate the fee, as most agencies will be flexible in an attempt to win your business.

However, be aware that there can also be a downside to a low fee agreement, as your recruiter may decide to spend their time and energy on other clients’ reqs that have a higher fee agreement. Recruiting agencies have a saying – “work closest to the money”, meaning that they prioritize their efforts based upon anticipated payback from placement fees.

Back To Hire a Great Recruiting Agency | 14 Questions 10. What is your guarantee policy?

Most agencies offer a 90 day guarantee, meaning that they’ll provide a free replacement if the candidate does not stay employed for 90 days.

However, it may be preferable to ask for a cash-back guarantee, rather than a free replacement. Why? Because when it comes time to find a replacement, many recruiters feel that they will now be working for free, as for them this is now the equivalent of new req.

Remember, they work “closest to the money”, and so finding this replacement is essentially a free search, and thus they make not much of an effort, as there is no financial incentive for them to place another person.

Back To Questions Hire a Great Recruiting Agency | 15 11. What is your policy on candidate ownership?

This tends to vary, but most agencies’ policy is that you will owe them a placement fee if you hire a candidate that they present within six months of submission, regardless of whether you hire the candidate for the position that they were originally presented for, or for any other position in your organization. On the flip side, some organizations have a policy of not paying a placement fee at all to an agency if they present a candidate that is already in the organization’s ATS.

You have a fair amount of negotiating power with policies regarding candidate ownership, as most agencies will follow your rules in order to win your business. However, put careful thought into this, as it is in your best interest to create a mutually beneficial working relationship with your agency, and you don’t want to spoil that relationship by creating a policy that constantly penalizes them.

Back To Hire a Great Recruiting Agency | 16 Questions 12. Can you provide me with a weekly activity report?

One of the biggest challenges to working with agencies is lack of accountability.

Agencies choose how much time and effort they put into each of their clients’ reqs, and their priorities do not necessarily line up with yours. Asking for a weekly activity report will nudge the agency to give your reqs more priority, for the simple reason that they will want to avoid the embarrassment of presenting a sparse activity report week after week.

You can also schedule a weekly sync-up call, which will further increase accountability, as the pressure to explain one’s activity (or lack thereof) is even greater when faced with the inescapability of a live conversation.

Back To Questions Hire a Great Recruiting Agency | 17

For more information on how to hire a great recruiting agency, sign up for our latest webinar, How to Hire a Competent Recruiting Agency.