Cultivating Relationships With Recruiters

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Ever got a call from a headhunter? While it's good to know that someone has called you, such contact could be the start of a long-term relationship that is critical to your career development. Expressing a long view is very difficult in today's economy. Businesses are looking for immediate results and this makes candidates and recruiters focus too strongly on short-term gain. But at Search & Stáaffing International, consultants take a long-term approach to working with candidates – because many of them will eventually become the leaders of the organization.


Consistent Suppo
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Normally, the firm assigns a consultant and researcher to each assignment. The same team from this team handles candidates throughout the process, from the first phone call to interviews, report writing and taking up references. This consistency ensures the trust between the firm and the candidate and means that candidates could receive a high quality service.

The team structure at Search & Stáaffing International ensures that each assignment is carefully accomplished. Candidates are carefully targeted and the market is fully covered.


Qualification Requirements

There is no single candidate who is perfect and can tick off everything on the job specification. The recruiter's role is to understand the client's most important requirements and match these to a long-lasting placement and to the maximum match. All the assessment on the candidates is not only based on the hard requirement but also the soft requirement such as personality. The aim is to really understand candidates and to have gathered enough intelligence to know who would be the best fit. We've done an awful lot of homework before we dial the number to make the phone call.


Make Every Contact Valuable

Recruiters call you because that they may want to approach you, know who the best people are for an assignment, take up references or just update their information on an industry or function.

No matter what the reason is, the Search & Stáaffing International philosophy is to regard each contact as a potential opportunity to build a long-term relationship with a talented individual. So, it is worth to taking the phone call and taking it seriously.

But what would happen sometimes is that people appreciate the time they spend with people when they have an existing need but would find it difficult is to set aside the time for the conversation when they are not at the point for leaving.


Ever-lasting Contact

Opportunity only gives to the person who is prepared. But when would the opportunity come? Nobody knows and it's always worth spending time with a recruiter even when you can't see an immediate payback.

For sure that good consultants will try to help active job seekers. But what a candidate shouldn't do is to be the kind of person who looks to a search consultant to solve his need for a new job. If you have never hired the firm or have not been a placement but are chronically calling for advice and support, it will not help the job seeking.

Respecting the recruiter's time also applies once you're in the middle of an assignment. So if people are organized in what they do that helps both parties. It is important that candidates make decisions promptly and get back to people when they say they will. Recruiters are trying to produce a pool of candidates in a certain timeframe and to be a decisive candidate in the search process would not only help the recruiters but also will help the candidate in the long run.


Research the Opportunity

Doing due diligence before or during the recruitment process means that you would be in a good position to respond quickly. However excited you may get about the role, you have to know what you're going into. There are many aspects in the due diligence, for example, study the employer by talking to as many people as you could to learn about the prospective employer. Also you could work closely with Search & Stáaffing International 's consultants, getting the long-standing knowledge of local market and the expertise industry from the recruiters.

Communication is vital for a good recruitment process after the successful candidate has got on board and meetings are set regularly with either clients or candidates. After every meeting, there are feedback sessions for clients and candidates. The recruiter looks for consistent messages from both sides to see if that elusive fit is being achieved.

While this process can help ensure candidates feel adequately prepared for a role, it is not designed to force square pegs into holes. Search & Stáaffing International candidates have to remain in a role for at least six months. So it's in everybody's interest for the placement to succeed.


When Is Not Qualified

In today's market, clients can be exceptionally precise about their requirements, looking not just for a match on paper but also for chemistry. This makes handling rejection even tougher, wherever it occurs in the recruitment process. And don't think that your relationship with a recruiter ends because of an unsuccessful candidacy.

It's in your interest to handle rejection with grace and look to maintain a positive relationship with the search consultant you are dealing with – people in search have long memories.


Negotiating

When a candidate is successful, the search consultant plays a skilful role in negotiating the package. Both client and candidate actually benefit from the recruiter's dispassionate perspective. The group of really good people hasn't changed and clients realize that if they want to recruit someone really excellent they're not going to get them.

However less negotiation is used recently around the minutiae of options and increasing awareness of pensions issues.

Building continuity is at the core of Search & Stáaffing International 's approach. As people will be involved with the firm for their full career, it is our task to ensure that every transaction to be a good one. The relationship with the recruiters doesn't end after you have got on board. Search & Stáaffing International looks to maintain its relationship with high-calibre people throughout their careers. This makes good business sense: many candidates go on to become clients, and more than seventy percent of all assignments are for repeating clients.