Be Careful Whose Advice You Buy, But Be Patient With Those Who Supply It.

For better or worse, recruiters are playing a larger role than ever before in the decision making process in people’s careers.

Regardless of what stage you are in your career, provided you have reasonable tenure in each of your roles you will have lots of people wanting to help you secure the “best available role in the market.” The challenge for you will be to work out who can deliver on that promise.

Taking a step back it is important to recognise that career choices (job seekers), and hiring decisions (hiring managers) are at their core buying decisions.

People buy from people they like and trust which is part of the reason it is important to take the time necessary to determine if the recruiter you are speaking with:

● Has a good reputation in the market with the businesses you want to work for, (access to the jobs you want);

● Knows what they are talking about, (experience in the market you want to work) ;

● Minimises the power of incentive based bias for the sales person (recruiter).

Assuming you want to give yourself the best chance of securing the best possible role, the question becomes; how do you assess who is best placed to help?

The follow-up question is; when is the best time to make that assessment?

I’ve included a brief outline below of the above and these are ideas we will explore in considerably more detail in our webinars, please get in touch peter@halbowman.com.au.

Access To The Jobs That You Want

No recruiter will have all the jobs in the market however OK recruiters should be able to get you interviews at some businesses for which you want to work.

Effective recruiters will be able to provide you with access to jobs that are representative of the market.

Something to be very aware of is there is a difference between knowing about a job and having the business’s engagement to help fill the job.

With this in mind, it is very important to ask lots of questions of the recruiter, the standard ones would be:

● When was the last time the business in question met a candidate through you?

● Have you placed anyone with the business in the past and are they still there?

● What can you tell me about the culture?

● Why do you think I would want to work for them?

● When people leave, where do they go?

Experience In The Market In Which You Want To Work

A lot of people we speak with are unsure of exactly what constitutes a good opportunity. It is the job of the recruiter to ask you lots of questions to really understand the reasons why different things are important to you.

The experience of the recruiter you are dealing with will dictate the level of insight they can provide and the quality of questions they will ask.

For example, in the market in which we recruit - accounting and finance - a common want is to work at a mid-tier accounting firm.

When you explore further, what we discover is that most people who want those jobs actually just want to be working with more interesting clients, have access to the resources typically available at a mid-tier and in some cases the “prestige” that comes with working at a business their friends have heard about.

An inexperienced recruiter will send the above person to all the mid-tier firms and usually there will be one that hires them.

An experienced recruiter will explain that people can get lost in the machine at larger firms. Depending on what stage you are in your career, what skills you need to develop, working at a slightly smaller firm can give the person similar technical experience, they are likely to be paid more AND they are more likely to be given advancement opportunities (staff and client management), which will make them more valuable in the future.

Again this is an oversimplification however there are costs and benefits of any decision, trusting someone who can explain everything in detail will minimise the risk of you making the wrong decision.

Incentive Based Bias

The biggest mistake we see is that people will only start speaking with recruiters when they are looking for a job.

The story goes something like this:

● Hate where I am working;

● Log into Linkedin, respond to a few Inmails, apply to a few jobs on Seek;

● Speak with 5 recruiters;

● Give said recruiters permission to send me to 10 different businesses;

● Receive offers from 5 different companies through 3 of those recruiters;

● 3 different people telling you the offer they have for you is the best.

The obvious question is, how likely is it that each recruiter is going to give you an unbiased opinion on which opportunity is better?

The follow up question is, how likely is it that you are going to be able to maximise the financial aspect of the offer you receive if each offer is through a different recruiter?

There are lots of other elements to consider like if the recruiter’s own job is dependent on placing you? This can be the case if you are dealing with someone who is starting out in their career.

How We Recommend You Work With Recruiters

While your choices are ultimately your own, the reality is where you work is one of the biggest decisions you will make and in varying degrees the advice this person gives you can impact your making a positive or negative career choice.

I believe that you should be working with a recruiter in the same way a sports person would work with an agent.

Start speaking with a few recruiters when you are happy where you are working, get an understanding of how they can help you and when you are ready to have a look, choose one and stick with them.

Good recruiters do value candidates who value them and they will go out of their way to help you if they think they have your engagement.

We run events throughout the year both online and in person so if you are interested in starting a conversation, or have a specific question please get in contact peter@halbowman.com.au it would be great to hear from you.