6 Reasons to Love Your Recruiter

Since Valentine's Day is right around the corner and proverbial love is in the air, I thought it would be nice to list the reasons you should "love" your recruiter. After all, they are essential to your goal of attracting and hiring the very best talent out there.

Below are six things that are sure to make you feel all warm and fuzzy whenever you think or your recruiter.

1. Recruiters are natural match-makers.

When it comes to hiring top talent, line-of-business managers can easily be led astray by their own emotions. The pressure to fill a job slot can convince you to see potential where there's really not very much. Conversely, the natural fear of making a costly mistake can make you overly cautious.

Recruiters look for the best match between a candidate and a job. Furthermore, your recruiter is not as emotionally involved in the specific hiring situation, which allows him or her to see where there's a good "fit." Your recruiter also has a "sixth sense" that can tell when a match looks good on paper but probably won't work in real life.

2. Recruiters have a broader perspective.

Since you're looking to hire people, you're probably something of an expert in your own industry. Your experience and capabilities are no doubt best suited to dig deep into specific subject areas to discover whether candidates know what they're talking about. However, your expertise can also make you blind to other important issues.

How will the candidate fit in? Where are the potential problems? What character traits does the candidate have that would make him or her especially well-suited (or ill-suited) for a particular position? By finding the answers to these questions up front, your recruiter ensures that every candidate you interview is potentially right for the job.

3. Recruiters find the hidden gems.

Those in the top ten percent of every profession aren’t looking for jobs. They're not searching through job postings or prepping for interviews. Their resumes are probably years out of date and they're reasonably happy with their current jobs. And some of these extraordinarily talented individuals are working for your competitors.

Just locating these "hidden gems" requires extensive research into both the individuals themselves and how their companies are structured. But, if you do manage to find a gem, will he or she take your call? Your recruiter knows how to find "the best of the best," cultivate a relationship, and help them rethink their careers.

4. Recruiters have connections.

If you're like most managers, your phone has an app where you've stored some business contacts (back in the day, people called this a "rolodex"). Most of those contacts are probably people you work with; the remainder are maybe some people you met at a conference last year.

Recruiting is a perfect illustration of the old expression "it's not what you know, it's who you know." Your recruiter has a huge rolodex and constantly finds ways to make valuable new contacts and keep those contacts current. That network makes it easier for your recruiter to find the right person at the right time.

5. Recruiters know the job market.

Imagine you accidentally meet the perfect candidate for your hardest-to-fill job. You decide to make an offer. Will you insult the candidate by offering too little? Will you make an offer that's too high and thereby lose your company thousands of dollars each year?

Your recruiter makes it his or her business to know the "going rate" for job positions. He or she can compare what you're offering to what the candidate is making (or could make) elsewhere, so that you present a reasonable offer that works for both you and the candidate.

6. Recruiters build strong relationships.

As a manager, you already know the value of strong relationships. However, most of your work relationships are with the colleagues that you interact with every day. You see familiar faces at conferences, people with whom you've worked in the past, but you don't have the time to keep those relationships alive and kicking.

Your recruiter, however, is a professional relationship-builder. Those relationships are not just valued for their usefulness; your recruiter genuinely likes people and is curious about their work, their thoughts and their lives. You know this, though, because you've experienced it yourself.

So, what's not to love?

*Image by Paul Howard