5 Mistakes Employers Must Avoid When Choosing a Recruiter!

If you are an employer, or a hiring authority, your routine is most likely predictable. You had a staffing need, a recruiter happened to call you at the right time, and before you knew it, contingency fees were negotiated and voilá… your inbox was filled with resumes to review.

So now you have a professional working on your job order and hopefully you will get some good candidates. There is only one HUGE problem with your selection method… you could be setting yourself up for failure!

Find a recruiting firm:

You must realize that when you allow a recruiter to recruit for your company, he is much more than a manufacturing job board representative, he becomes a representation of YOU and YOUR company… and that's not always a good thing.

Carelessly choosing the wrong headhunters, as many are called, can ruin your company's reputation and infuse your workforce with the wrong people. This, in turn, can increase your employee turnover rates and create a very unhappy work environment.

Here are the 5 Mistakes to Avoid when choosing a recruiter:

1. How to Choose a Recruiter:

Most recruiters are trained to say that they specialize in a specific industry. Hiring authorities must ask on-the-spot, industry-related questions to test the recruiter and make sure he has industry knowledge.

For example, if a recruiter in the manufacturing industry claims to be a specialist in the plastic injection molding industry, he should be able to name the basic materials such as Nylon, PP, PE, Acrylic, etc. He should also be able to tell the difference between an open and a closed lube system, or perhaps name the most common molding machines such as Van Dorn, Cincinnati Milacron, Kawaguchi, HPM, Engel, etc.

If a recruiter is calling a CNC machining company, he should absolutely be knowledgeable about CNC milling and turning centers, G & M codes, and discuss the differences between an experienced CNC Machinist who knows how to program and a manual machinist. Don't be afraid to put him to the test!

The same goes for those who claim to be experts in the food industry. If a recruiter can't explain some very basic terminology such as: GMP, HACCP, SOP, etc., run in the opposite direction!

Why does this matter?

The more a recruiter knows about your specific industry, and the greater number of years he has recruiting in that industry, the better candidate selections he will be able to provide.

By becoming an expert in the manufacturing industry, an experienced recruiter will gain the respect from highly skilled job seekers. Once their respect is earned, skilled manufacturing job seekers begin to trust their opinion as to whether or not an employer is a good company to work for. This, in turn, is a great added value for employers. When you get quality applicants, it saves you time and effort.


2. CHECK THEIR REFERENCES:

For some reason, most hiring authorities do not take the time to check references on recruiters. After all, the end result is what matters, right? Wrong! You must ask for company references and you should call them ALL.

If you are considering working with a staffing firm, you must require a list of references from clients in the same (or similar) industry. After all, if they claim to be an expert, they should be able to provide you with credible references. Credible firms will have no problem providing this information. Our firm not only provides references to potential new clients, we follow up and ask them if they did indeed call them. A good manufacturing staffing firm should have nothing to hide when it comes to the services they have been providing for their clients.

I know it takes time to pick up the phone and actually call to check references on a particular staffing agency, but consider this: If one phone call can save you a lot of headaches, and help your company keep the image it worked so hard to build, don't you think it's worth the call?


3. USE DEVOTED RECRUITERS:

If the recruiting firm you are utilizing is local, a key indicator of their commitment is whether or not they ask to come to meet you, or for a company tour. In the manufacturing industry, it is extremely important for the recruiter to visit the client site.


Why is this so important?

A committed recruiter will want to know everything about his client… the good and the bad. In fact, at our firm, we require that every recruiter visits his new clients. In addition, we do our best to conduct annual visits with every client to discuss our progress. There are some great firms out there that follow this practice, and I advise that you work closely with those who go the extra mile to learn about your company.

A recruiter will help your company's image when he is able to tell job seekers how the plant looks and perhaps give a general description of the workforce, neighborhood, etc. As a manufacturing recruiter for almost two decades, I know for a fact that it adds major credibility to your company when a job seeker knows that the recruiter presenting the opportunity has visited the employer, and approves of the environment.


4. CHECK TO SEE IF THE CANDIDATE WAS INTERVIEWED:

Make sure the job seekes presented to you by a recruiter were actually interviewed by the recruiter. Also, if the candidate is local, ask the recruiter if he actually met the job seeker. You might be surprised at what you find! All too often, some recruiters spend only about two minutes examining a resume, and another five minutes talking to the candidate before rushing his resume to you.


REGARDING HEADHUNTERS:

Do not allow recruitment firms or headhunters to waste your valuable time by forcing resumes on you, and leaving the actual interviewing up to you! Find a recruiter that takes the right steps to help you employ quality candidates.


5. ASK CANDIDATES HOW THEY WERE RECRUITED:

Do you know how to find out if your recruiter is actually cold call recruiting candidates? It's simple… just ask the job seeker how did the recruiter recruit him.

If you are working with an experienced recruiter, most of the candidates will tell you that they were cold-called recruited or referred by others in the industry; however, you might be surprised to find out how many agencies simply rely on the very same techniques you were already doing… running an ad.

If you are going to pay a recruitment fee to a staffing firm, then you should at least expect them to do something different. Sure, in the end, it doesn't matter exactly how that recruiter found the candidate; however, if you discover that the only techniques they are using are simply running ads, then you might as well save your money and run the ads yourself!

Unlocking Greatness...


Zenja Glass is the VP of USA Technical Search, Inc.,a reputable staffing firm in Illinois, and Career Author of "25 Reasons Why I Won't Hire You!" and job seekers most requested training guide, "How to Set Up Interviews Without a Resume!" found at 25ReasonsWhy.com. She is also the Co-founder of a national manufacturing job board USAManufacturingJobs.com. She has been featured on MSNBC, ABC NEWS and FOX NEWS.