So many industries would benefit from people taking a longer-term view to doing business, but not many would benefit more than recruitment.
The next paragraph should be read with a pinch of salt, but it is certainly true that there are enough consultants out there whose behaviour warrants the headline. As the owner of a fast-growing recruitment business, which wants to employ those who believe in doing things in the right way, you have to learn to recognise those who have been tempted over to the recruitment “dark side.”
These practitioners of the “dark arts” see candidates as a blank cheque waiting to be written. From the moment that the CV lands in their inbox, they are calculating the “placeability” of the individual and make a snap judgement as to the chances of earning some cash from that particular cow. They know that the window of opportunity for placing the candidate is short, so they adopt a splatter gun approach, convincing the candidate that inundating the market with their CV is the best approach. They spend 50 seconds sending the CV with a standard introductory email to a pre-ordained list of contacts in the industry and move onto the new victim. They will only bother to get back to the first candidate if they get a nibble of interest from a client, otherwise they are confined to the desert of unfulfilled promises (with accompanying tumbleweed blowing along in the wind).
Hopefully, this picture is vivid enough for you. It may well fuel some indignant comments, but it is reality for some unfortunate souls.
Now, the true recruiter sees candidates entirely differently.
They are experts in their particular market niche and they are in it for the long run. They know that every interaction with any candidate or client is valuable – irrespective of whether or not it benefits their current work. Candidates can become clients, candidates can refer candidates, clients can become clients for life. It all comes down to relationships, and every relationship needs investment to make it work. True recruiters invest in their networks on social media, they give career advice, they write interesting blogs and they share their experience with others.
Basically, they care about the person rather than the money that the person represents for them and their business.
Candidates aren’t stupid. Candidates talk to other candidates. Candidates take things personally in what is a very trying time in their lives. If they get treated like a commodity, they won’t forget it in a hurry.
If a recruitment consultant purely sees a candidate as a potential payday, they won’t last very long in the industry. Actually, they won’t last too long in any type of business. If you care about people, you treat them like people. The joy of recruitment lies in being able to make a difference to people’s lives – the financial rewards are merely an added bonus.