The Recruiter – your hired gun

The Recruiter – your hired gun

by Rob Ridout

Article on dealing with recruiters - Rob Ridout

Most people seem to think that the recruiter’s role is one that is owed to society, somebody who has been selected to represent every available candidate. This is a misconception.

A recruiter is a business person who needs to pay the bills just like you. They have targets, bosses and goals to meet. And as such often suffer under immense pressure. Never forget this as it will ensure you less sleepless nights if you experience poor service delivery from your recruiter. Utilising the recruiter is of vital importance when achieving your goals as set out in your career engagement plan. Many people underestimate the importance of the recruiter and the importance of managing the recruiter in the right way. The recruiter is there to earn money, you are their ticket to that paycheque, so working with the recruiter ensures benefits for both. An experienced recruiter will make certain that you never think that you are being placed for money only. Remember most recruiters started their journey for the love of placing a candidate and the satisfaction they received from an appreciative client and candidate. Unfortunately, this often erodes over the years and is replaced by the typical grudge purchase relationship between recruiter and client. Recruiters can earn anything from twenty to one hundred thousand Rand to place you in a job. Although this money reward seems very appealing remember that there is no guarantee and most recruiters wake up every daylong facing an unsure future. 

To understand the recruiter, you must understand South Africa’s complex job market. The main problem here is the size of the unemployed candidate pool in South Africa − it’s enormous. Any form of response that a recruiter is handling for a role usually is overwhelming. 

The recruitment industry remains disorganised, unlegislated and unsupported. 

Do not let a recruiter that does not call you every other week after you have responded to an advertisement, affect your overall attitude – keep focused. 

What would you say if that recruiter suddenly calls you out of the blue with an opportunity that you were looking for one year down the line? Would you say no you were not prepared to look at it simply because your recruiter had not called you on your birthday? Keep your options open, don’t make bad decisions based on principle. Your challenge, ultimately, is to use the recruiter to find work, it’s that simple. 

Most people entering the job market make the simple mistake of spending so much time whining about the poor service the recruiter offers, that they miss the point of the recruiter in the first place. Understanding the recruiter’s mentality is important.,

London recruiters make an art of selling their candidates proactively, American recruiters are called headhunters and require you to sell your CV’s to them. 

In South Africa, the recruiter manages a large number of candidates that apply for positions and the recruiter very seldom partners with the candidate through a lifetime of career changes. Your CV is shoved to the bottom of the pile or top of the pile depending on your credentials, only to wait for the right opportunity to present itself. 

The headhunter, on the other hand, represents their company’s exclusivity with a determined focus that ensures your placement − if you can get onto their shortlist. 

Complicating this industry is the fact that most recruiters and headhunters run ‘boutique agencies,’ which are a small one or two man businesses, generally with paper-based databases and normally with a client base that is loyal but does not cover the entire marketplace from an industry sector point of view. 

There are currently about four thousand recruiters in Johannesburg alone, so finding a few decent ones should not be a problem. Most candidates also do not fully understand the differences between a headhunter and recruiter. 

Each will need a separate section in your CVforLife engagement plan to ensure success and depending on your experience level, will require more or less research and relationship management. You should promote your CV to at least five to eight recruiters or headhunters at the same time. 

The more senior your role in your current company, the more head-hunters or specialist agencies you require on your list. 

Headhunters will demand a higher fee for your placement and therefore you can demand more from them in return. The recruiter offers you no favors with such a large number of unemployed people in the market. 

You will, however, if you are lucky, find a ‘career recruiter,’ somebody that you can nurture a relationship with, a recruiter that will stay with you through several job changes and that understands his/her client’s corporate culture and your ideal fit in that culture. 

Your attitude should be simple and straightforward; your recruiter is not a service provider, they are a broker between yourself and an opportunity that may exist in the market. 

It remains your responsibility to provide your recruiter with as much ammunition as possible to link you with that career opportunity. How can you possibly do that if your attitude prohibits you from calling them regularly?

So stop whining about how many times your recruiter does not call you and start managing your relationship with your recruiters. 

Rob assists his clients as a career coach and CV/Resume writer. His business CVforLife based in Johannesburg offers career coaching services and career counseling as well as CV and resume writing services. 

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