Recruiting a Recruiter

Who do you trust with your career? Is the question every job-seeker needs to be asking themselves when working with an external recruiter. Having a great recruiter can truly be life change whilst a crappy recruiter can burn your career with only few sloppy actions. But how can you determine who is good and who is garbage? It’s tough when they all say the right things and make big promises.

Here are some questions you can ask your recruiter to determine if they can represent you to your full potential and as a result, allow you the best possible opportunities. But before you start asking these questions, make sure you’re talking to a successful recruiter first. Here’s what to look out for:

Successful Recruiters…

• Build relationships: building relationships makes good recruiters stand out from the bad. For those candidates they have to reject, a good recruiter can highlight candidates’ strengths and can suggest other jobs they would be suitable because they have built a relationship with the person.
• Play well with hiring managers: To understand a role is one thing, to understand the culture of your clients company is another. Recruiters must understand what a hiring manager is looking for beyond the technical skills that are required. A good recruiter will find a candidate to match the wanted skills and profile of their client.
• Play Multiple Roles: Throw various different professions into a bucket and you will create a good recruiter. To post compelling job ads there must be an engagement of marketing techniques. To understand what clients and candidates really want you must understand certain aspects of psychology. Of course, a good recruiter must be a salesman but above all they must be a team player.

Simple Questions to Ask:

1.   Who is the position with? Simple question should get a simple answer. When you get a deflective statement like “they choose to remain anonymous” or “I can’t close that information” your alarms bells should be ringing. Highly likely they haven’t been invited to recruit or there is no job.

2.   What other organisations would be interested in my skills? You want a recruiter who can give you a few options. If they truly know their sector and understand your needs they should have no issue giving other possibilities.

3.   How well do you know the organisation? It’s becoming an increasing problem that recruiters have poor relationships with their clients or even have a basic understanding of the business. You deserve to know the working environment and culture of the place you may well be working day in-day out.

4.   How is this company different from their competitors? A good recruiter should understand how a company lines up against their competitors as this really illustrates the companies standard of work. This also allows you to gauge the future opportunities the company may be able to offer you, or on the other hand if the position is stale… and starting to go moldy.

5. Where is the position based? Sometimes recruiters will be assigned vacancies that are located way out in the wop wops, but for many recruiters, this isn’t the first thing they will tell a candidate. It can be disappointing to hear all this fantastic information on a role and the company, and then find out that the location is the reason the role cannot be filled. So, I would recommend asking this question promptly.

When talking with recruiters, make sure you approach conversations strategically and carefully. In this day and age technical skills are in demand, you have the opportunity to choose, so why not choose wisely? A good recruiter will know a lot of information that can help you to successfully find what you are looking for. So don’t waste time by asking questions that you can easily find the answers to, delve deep into the recruiters mind and pick out parts that will benefit you in the long run.

If you wish to trial these tips, and speak to a successful recruiter who can present you with fantastic opportunities, then call us on 0800-171-000. We currently have vacancies open all over New Zealand, looked after by consultants who have real life experience in the industries they recruit within. If you wish to drop us a CV then send it to conor@trs.co.nz and I will refer you to one of our many experienced consultants.