Instead, engage those that charge the higher fees.... and only once you have seen (not just been presented) their recruitment process.
Now that sounds counter-intuitive especially in these times of belt-tightening.
As part of our services, at CxO we mentor many Great Executives that as a result of the Global Meltdown, have found themselves unemployed, fine-tune their CVs and hone-in their recruitment process skills (from a candidate's perspective). We call this service, LeaderRecruit®. Many of them have not been on this side of the recruitment process for years or ever!
We are comitted to these individuals, as many of them are the architects of our future once an organisation recognises their worth, and because this is a basic humane thing to do.
The unfortunate reality is that many would not get their CV's read by a human being, let alone responded-to or called-upon. Why? Well because until we ensure that the right keywords are included, dispersed throughout the text, their CV's would not make it through the electronic filters utilised by these so called recruitment specialists.
Some time ago, I saw that these great CV's were not getting any responses (beyond the automated emails) and so I approached collegues within the recruitment industry to understand what was happening. I was shocked and disgusted that some of these firms have the audacity to charge 20% plus and supply the sort of service they do. Let me explain.
I was told that, in most cases, when CVs are received by the firms, they are first-up automatically scanned and searched for key-words and only the top 10 or so that qualify get reviewed by a human being. The rest (based on candidate's approval) end-up stored for future reference, which seems a waste of time when it is the same software that re-scans them. So forward the clock to today and the higher unemployment; recruiters are inundated by great CVs and the number of "inappropriate" rejects is even higher.
This is not good enough, not for the candidates and especially not for the clients.
The appropriate recruitment process is an expensive one and requires the appropriate funding and it is your responsibility as a client to ensure that your money is spent wisely by these firms. Let's say that you are recruiting a $150k role. At 20% this is a cost of $30k, before expenses such as advertising in the papers, etc. I imagine that you would like the best candidate for your money and that you do not want the best candidates screened out of the process before they get viewed by a specialist recruiter.
Ensure that your next recruit is the best recruitment decision you ever made, ask for an unsupervised walk-through to understand the recruitment process at your chosen firm. Make it your business to find-out first hand from the candidate interviewers within the firm as to how they get the CVs they recruit from; and if they electronically screen most of the CVs out, sack them. I would expect that if I was paying $30k, that the Job Ad would be professionally written to only attract the appropriate candidates and that in any case all the ones that meet the basic criteria, (namely CV and Intro letter), are studied by the recruitment specialist. If there were 200 of these, then this would cost an estimated reading and rating time of $4,000.00. I would certainly expect that.
So, be a Leader, you have 3 choices as we see it; go to a cheaper recruiter as in any case you are bound to get a more tailored service; go to a greedy recruitment firm that charges too much for a piece of software that filters your best candidates out; or select the firm that gives you back the value for your money and follows-up on all candidates. In fact at best you have 2 choices, the former and the latter. I would go with the latter as long as I have seen with my own eyes how the process works, rather than finding out about the process from some gong-ho power point presentation that rarely lives-up to the promises.
Now here is an idea! A recruitment firm that does not utilise screening technologies but employs staff instead, to give better service at the right cost to the Client. It's a win-win all the way; Clients get better candidates, candidates feel heard and receive the appropriate respect/advice and we employ more people at the recruitment firms that are now able to maintain their higher fees.
If you or one of the recruitment firms you have utilised, employ this or a similar non-electronic process, then please let us know so we publish them in our next newsletters.
Oh, and by the way, these are indeed tough times; so make sure you do get your discount, afterall.
Happy recruiting.
Aldo Grech - CxO Consulting
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