What to do?

Many organizations are using this time to stop and reassess who and how they are hiring. Not to mention, what they use for their hiring methods (recruiters, place their own ads, internal recruiters, referral programs etc.). Today, I'm going to be rather blunt on this topic.

For some organizations, the economy is used as an excuse to eliminate deadwood and to get back to where they realistically should have been all along. For others, they use the economy as an excuse to use only internal resources, the thinking being; we do not need outside sources, if we can get referrals and have our HR do the recruitment and ad placement for us. For other firms, they are seeing this as a time to take advantage of the times and get more aggressive, go after clients more so than they have in the past.

Are any of these stances wrong? No. In fact, from each firms relative view points, their stances are correct for the market and economic times we are in. The one mistake many firms seem to make, over and over again is on the recruiting end. As I've said before, recruiters/headhunters/executive search consultants are seen as an evil, sometimes a necessary evil, but an evil, just the same. As I've said previously, this is the best time to talk to us.

For organizations, developing relationships with recruiters, is crucial, the hard fact is this, in our business, an organization is a supplier or a client, but not both! This is not a threat, it is a fact of life, if your organization has the individuals we need for our client, we will take them, or at least try. After all that is what we get paid for. For many organizations, that are already swamped with everyone doing 2 or 3 jobs, as well as, the one they were hired for, and than you are asking these individuals, especially in HR, or the managers, to recruit or interview individuals for positions (after placing an ad), after reading how many resumes to determine who they should see?

This is time consuming and places tremendous pressure on the individuals involved. It takes them away from their core functions within the organization, and, ultimately, makes them less effective in their roles. This is where an organization like GranITt Partners can come into play. What your people are asked to do, place ads, read resumes, interview etc. is something they have to do to get their job done, but it is not their core function (even in HR, recruitment is something that they view as a necessary, but not preferred, or core, function). However, for agencies like ours, it is one of, if not the core function. As well, we have thousands, if not tens of thousands of resumes on file, that we can refer to. These resumes and the individuals attached to those resumes are more often than not up to date! These are individuals that are looking for new opportunities and they have given us their resume, to help them take the next step. That step, could very easily be to your firm!

We also, read 1,000's of resumes a month and interview 1,000's of people per year. This allows to use our knowledge and expertise to see through the person/resume and really understand if they are who they say they are, on the resume! We are not the enemy to your firm, in fact, we can be advantageous and helpful, since we speak to volumes of individuals daily, we may have some knowledge that may prove useful in the position(s) you are looking to fill.

While we know and understand our position on the 'call back scale', we also know that sooner or later, you will need us. Besides, there is absolutely no reason, just because you are using a Search firm, to stop all the other things you are doing. In point of fact, Doing all of them, but letting the recruiters do the interviews on behalf of your firm, to the point of shortlisting candidates, would still allow your firm to focus on what it does best.

More soon!