Why Hire a Recruiter?

The perception and importance accorded to the Human Resource department has undergone a sea change as technology is continuously evolving to re-define work. Especially now when most firms nurse global ambitions and relative start-ups are exploring newer markets each quarter to fuel growth owing to the rise of internet economy.  Matching skill and talent with the Organisational Need still poses a challenge. Organisations require to balance the short-term and long-term talent management where HR Consultant come to the aid in helping them create a talent pipeline, manage relationships and look for people management gaps such as high attrition rate, benefits management etc. Retaining talent has emerged as a key factor for maintaining growth for companies, especially in the knowledge economy. Given this background, recruitment and talent acquisition have evolved into being the most dynamic HR function with a tangible and quantifiable impact.

Recruitment is a priority activity that can forecast the direction in which the top-line or bottom-line of a company is headed. Recruiters carry the onus of identifying and facilitating the cultural assimilation of suitable talent across the business canvas of an organization not only for the immediate recruitment need but also long-term talent acquisition for positions that may arise as per evolving business challenges.

Owing to the critical impact and losses incurred due to incorrect hiring, it is essential for recruiters and companies to have clear and concise expectations set from the beginning. The key to successful working relationship and effectiveness lies in appreciating how each party works.

While selecting a recruiter the Rule of Three must be borne in mind:

1. Proven track records matters within your industry. The odds are stacked in your favour while working with recruiters who have been veterans in the industry and critically analysed the sweeping changes in the last two decades to identify the right fit for your organization.
2. The traits of a good recruiter are speed, integrity, creativity, honesty, persistence, organizational skills and a sense of corporate maturity
3. An innate ability to “read” people and their motivations (personal and professional) with enviable listening skills

When to call a Recruiter

Calling a recruiter to rescue will serve you well under following circumstances: -

1. Filling a position is urgent and is hampering the delivery of work. With a ready database of eligible candidates, time and resources at their end, recruiters can accomplish this task with efficiency and speed.
2. You have a “difficult” position to fill. You have placed ads, checked with competitors, consulted colleagues for references and extensively interviewed with no success. In this scenario, the recruiter offers the company a window of opportunity - a "court of last resort".
3. You wish to be kept informed of top-notch talent as those talented people surface, regardless of whether there is an opening.

Contrary to popular belief, or myth, recruiters do not "steal" people but match demand with supply. Recruiters do not actively recruit from their client companies as it is unethical.

What the Recruiter Needs from You

Contact Information: This should include the recruiting manager's phone numbers including cell phone in the event of an emergency arising regarding time-sensitive information or requests. It is also important to return the recruiter's phone calls in a timely manner.

Duties and Responsibilities: Include a basic description of your expectation from a candidate. The recruiter may ask you to divide the description into percentages for what is required in terms of administrative, technical and supervisory types of tasks and to what degree.

Selection Process: Determine who interviews, where the interview takes place and within what time parameters. Provide a deadline and then allocate time as needed to ensure that the recruiter has enough time to find the ideal candidate.

Recruitment Information: A recruiter will ask whom the hiring manager wants for this position - in other words, a prospect's name. If this is unknown, consider which companies you respect, including your competitors that you may want someone from. This, then, becomes the recruiter's target 'extraction' or ‘headhunting’ marketplace.

Workplace Culture: This may be the most critical of the six pieces of job order information because all good hires are based finding a right cultural match. People hire those people with whom they develop rapport, i.e., people they like, believe, trust and understand. Provide opportunities for the recruiter to speak to key corporate people and conduct company visits.

Fees: A service charge will be required if a placement occurs. There should be a clear an transparent documentation of the service rendered by the recruiter, including financial terms from all the approving authorities to ensure any misconception or confusion arising at the end the process.

 How a Recruiter "Sells" Your Opportunity

Recruiters process and package Job Description to motivate their candidate base to consider the offered position as their ideal career move or opportunity. The recruiter has to act as the client’s brand ambassador and must constantly be prepared to answer the prospect's often non-verbalised question, "What's in it for me?”

In this regard, recruiters find candidates’ motivations on the below mentioned themes and help the candidates articulate their concerns. Recruiters are also required to help their candidate pool figure the fit and match with the prospective firm and their career goals.

1. Challenge
2. Location
3. Designation
4. Growth Prospects
5. Compensation
6. Stability of the company

In Conclusion

Remember that recruiters do not work in the marketplace of 'applicants' i.e. who we consider job hoppers, job shoppers or rejects. A recruiter's marketplace consists of 80% of the working population who are happy, well-appreciated, making good money and who do not have a readymade resume. They attract professionals of uncommon ability - individuals to whom companies might not otherwise have access. Experienced recruiters, through their talent, skill and training, motivate candidates to seek better opportunities.

For candidates not active on the job market, the recruiter will not have current resumes or CVs. Asking a professional recruiter for a resume for this type of individual will often only slow down the process and possibly lead to loss of opportunity of meeting a prospective top caliber employee. Resumes can always be secured at a later date.

The HR consultant and the client are working with the same objective and end result. Hence it is critical to keep constant communication and work towards building trust to achieve people management goals. Without enough trust, it will be a waste of time, energy and resources of the consultant and the company. Even worse, it can translate into loss of business. Quality recruiters would always do everything possible to cement a strong working relationship with their clients and anticipating their business need and requirements. If clients are not happy with the quality of the recruiter’s output then given the fierce competition in this market space losing business is very easy. The good ones are always in demand, actively helping firms achieve a competitive edge, recruitment targets and be their partner in the whole process.

10 Resume mistakes to avoid...

TOP TEN RESUME MISTAKES

 

Your resume has many functions, but the primary and first function is that it must attract attention, stimulate interest and prompt your potential employer to call you for an interview. Shabbily presented, incomplete resumes only serve as irritants to recruiters, and guaranteed to be simply ignored.

Here are top 10 mistakes that you must avoid while preparing your CV:

1.   Unqualified Candidates - You may want a job, but if you don't have the certification / qualification, skills and experience needed, employers will feel you're wasting their time. Be sure to look at the job description for specific criteria such as qualifications to teach or professional certifications. Make sure to highlight the skills they are looking for with a bulleted list of your related qualifications at the top of the document.

2.   Spelling Errors & Poor Grammar - This directly reflects on your reputation and image; writing skills are something you should already possess as a "professional".

Of course, you want to use spell check, but that won't catch every mistake. “Quite” is a correctly spelled word, but it means something very different from “Quiet.”

3.   Too Tailor-made - If you’re simply tailoring your resume to fit into what the potential employer has outlined as job description in the advertisement, you're missing the point of your resume. HR departments already know what the job is; your resume should highlight your accomplishments and how you are best suited for that position.

Be sure to show what you've really done by outlining the process, outcomes and results that are specific to your own work experience.

4.   Inaccurate Dates or None at all - Employers need to know when you worked & where, in order to get a better understanding of your working history and to use the dates for background / reference checks. Missing dates, especially for long periods of time, could send up a red flag, and the resume may be discarded.

Include specific ranges in months and years for every position. If you have gaps, explain them either in your cover letter or introduction, but not in your resume. It always helps to list any continuing education and training that you have taken and to list any volunteer / project-based work during a slow period or summer months. Listing these under education or volunteer work should explain some of the gaps.

5.   Inaccurate or Missing Contact Information - You create a resume to get a phone call or interview. How can someone contact you if the phone number is missing a digit or your email (even hyperlink) address is incorrect? Be sure every resume you send out has your correct contact information, including name, phone number, email address and detailed postal address. Employers WILL NOT look you up; they'll move on to the next candidate.

6.   Poor / Bad Formatting – The Internet has changed the focus of recruitment, with more and more companies going in for paperless and e-recruitment. In this new context, it is essential to know that a resume that looks good on paper may not necessarily have the same effect when viewed on the computer.

Different typefaces and boxes may look nice on paper, but if the resume needs to be scanned, they can cause confusion. Keeping your resume in plain text (Size 11/12 Arial or Times Roman fonts) is advisable.

7.   Confusing timelines - Avoid confusing your recruiter with information that jumps up and down your career path. Whenever possible, go with a chronological resume and focus on the skills and accomplishments that pertain to the position you're seeking. If you're concerned about a layoff period that you have had to face within a company, be assured that nowadays, unemployment or being laid off is quite prevalent. Most people do something to keep their work skills going. Use that information to fill in the gaps.

8.   Long Resumes and Paragraphs - Employers simply don't have the time to read them!! Focus on the skills and accomplishments that directly apply to the position you're trying to get. Every word counts so don't dwell on the specifics of each job, but rather the highlights specific to you.

9.   Personal Information Unrelated to the Job - With the limited time employers spend on your resume (40-60 seconds), you don't want to distract them with your height, weight, nationality, passport number, and interests unless they're directly related to the work you want to do.

You need to make the link between what an employer needs and what you bring to the table. Anything personal that is not directly linked to the position takes away from the point of the resume.

10.      Inability to Apply Online - If you don't take advantage of this component, you're about two weeks behind other creative and aggressive job seekers! This is now the way of the future and employers are adapting to this process at lightning speed.

Remember: A resume is an ingenious device that turns a human being into an object (an A4 size paper). This transformation device is then used to try and convince people we have never met to invest lakhs of rupees in us, by hiring us for a job we have not specifically identified!

So, your resume simply has to talk and walk for you!

Aman Rajabali

A graduate in Psychology, he holds a Diploma in Human Resource Management and Masters Degree in Personnel Management. Aman has had twelve years of extensive experience in the field of Human Resources Management; he specializes in Executive Recruitment, Organization Development and Coaching. He currently heads Kabir Profile Solutions, Pune. He is also active in various management schools, conducting sessions on interviews, group discussions and job search coaching workshops. He has coached more than a 1500 participants. He can be contact on amanrajabali@gmail.com