Why DO clients give out job-orders in competition?

The key to successful selling is understanding the buyers motivations.

And why do clients give out orders in competition, and expect professional recruiters to do great work on a contingent, multi-listed basis?

This is why;

 

 

  • Sadly the clients perceive us a ‘resume-flickers‘, which, while not true in many cases, leads clients to believe that the more recruiters they contact, the better candidates they will get. They will get more candidates, but probably not better candidates.
  • Clients do not understand what we actually do to come up with that shortlist. They think we dip into a data-base and refer candidates on, not understanding we need time to do quality work.
  • Naively clients think, recruiters work harder when they are in competition on a job. Totally untrue. Good recruiters put effort where clients are working in partnership and show commitment.
  • They think they will get a better spread of candidates. Mostly, they won’t. They will get more inappropriate candidates and recruiters competing on speed, taking shortcuts, and flinging resumes at the order. One quality recruiter, with time to do a proper job, will unearth unique hidden talent.
  • They don’t understand that dealing with many recruiters is time consuming, frustrating and costly. If they worked that out, they would see the benefit of getting one recruiter to do all the work.
  • We, the recruiters, are not articulate enough, or brave enough, to tell clients why it’s not in their interests to multi-list job orders. We must.

 

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  • Posted by Greg Savage
  • On March 6, 2018
  • 8 Comments
Tags: client skills, recruitment

8 Comments

Georgi
I completely understand your point Greg, but I work on a large PSA client where the client has decided to divvy up the roles and release each role to only one or two agencies so that they are being fair and diplomatic to all (as well as saving themselves time by dealing with multiple suppliers). In this instance I would rather the opportunity to work on all the roles as I back my ability to deliver. Thoughts?
    Greg Savage
    In most cases PSAs work for no one, becuase they are price-driven, not outcome driven. In this case the waters are muddied further by the client trying to be 'fair'. The client should give the job, exclusively to the recruiter best equipped to deliver. If they fail, give it another one, and recruiter number one goes down the pecking order If the client acted in this way, and assuming you are that "best equipped" recruiter Georgi, you will get a big slice of orders on offer, and not need to fling resumes at jobs that are also given to multiple agencies. You 'back your ability to deliver'. If thats true, (and I am sure it is) and the client saw the light regaridng exclusivity, you would be flooded with roles. That's how we should compete. On ability to recruit and deliver quality outcomes. Not the fastest to attach a resume to an email
Mark Pearce
Looking forward to Friday, Greg. I think another reason employers ask agencies to work in competition is that agencies lack the courage to nail their colours to the mast and guarantee they'll fill jobs. From the last 4 vacancies employers have requested assistance with, we've turned down 2 because we didn't think the employer was realistic. The roles couldn't be filled unless they were. The remaining two were taken on a retained basis and are looking positive.
Terry Edwards
Greg Spot on as usual It is estimated that the average contingency recruiter will fill between 10% and 30% of the job orders, they work on. That means at best 70% of the work they do they will not get paid for. As you rightly say it’s not in the client interests. And I would also add it is not in the recruiter's interest.
Scott Quinn
Excellent piece. I would add that, as counter-intuitive as this may appear, companies actually diminish the pool of quality candidates by using multiple agencies to work on a requirement. How? Because the quality of the search firms will vary. If you have a hiring manager provide the details of a requirement to ten recruiters, all in the same room at the same time, at least two or three will miss the point or otherwise not "get it." But it goes further than the requirement. How many recruiters know enough about the company or the team or the city to tell an intriguing and compelling story to attract the attention of a candidate? Not many at all. Now take your available pool of candidates and divide by five or seven or whatever number of the original ten recruiters who you think will get it wrong. These poor recruiters have essentially poisoned the well. Even if a good recruiter were to call a candidate after a poor recruiter blew it by giving a bad description of what is compelling about the position, company, etc., it's unlikely he'd want to hear him out. The client loses out as a result of a false premise. Give one recruiter the mandate to deliver and you'll maintain quality control and get the candidate you'll be delighted with.
Alex Brooke
Great point Greg - I think the fact that many client's do not understand exactly what recruiters do can be detrimental to the perception of value - if they don't understand exactly what has to be done, sometimes they aren't fully convinced by the fee you charge.

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