Recruiters build organizations. They help companies pick the best and retain the talent longer. They are like the specialist doctors we visit to not only fight an illness but stay healthy. Do the CXOs and HR Directors see the recruiters as specialists who help their organizations with the right nutrition to grow?
Help them understand your context
Every organization has a context that is unique to itself. This context guides its actions and priorities which are different from another in the same industry sector. The choices an organization makes about talent are very different from another because its culture, leadership and strategies are different. Interestingly, these three aspects are not tangible; nobody can touch and feel them. These have to be experienced over a period of time and absorbed. The Specialist Doctor understands not only our body but also our mind; hence, she can treat us the best. Again interestingly here, our mind is not something that can be touched and felt. The doctor understands it through her interactions with us over a period of time and advises us accordingly. Do you interact with your Recruitment Partner such that your culture, leadership style and strategy are understood well by them?
Get strategic
Many a times, organizations think that recruitment is about finding a bunch of Resumes that a recruiter should submit and coordinate a few meetings as and when demanded. If this is all that you need, it is worthwhile doing it all yourself. You can post a job on a few platforms, subscribe to a few databases and use its search feature to find a bunch of matching candidates. You do not need a recruiting partner!
Your recruiting partner must have the domain expertise, the intellectual bandwidth and curiosity to understand your context. Secondly, they must be able to integrate their experiences to help you develop an insight about the talent market. If you run recruitment in-house, you normally get limited by your vision of the talent market. Get the best out of your recruitment partner by understanding the market trends and gathering various insights.
Invest your time and energy
Relationships evolve over a period of time. Trust and commitment get built over time like any other natural process. At times, organizations engage many agencies for recruitment. So, they do not have the bandwidth to transform any of these engagements to that of a partnership. Moreover, Talent Acquisition teams, Supplier Engagement teams and Senior Management Teams often do not find the time and energy to engage with the recruitment partner. In the absence of investment of time and effort, no relationship can gain strength. You need to give the time at the right levels in the organization to build mutual understanding and deepen the engagement.
Organizations can potentially make huge changes in their talent strategies based on the insights that they gain from their conversations with the partners. They can save valuable time and energy by improving efficiency of the recruitment partner. Given the nature of engagement, the partner is likely to get a lion’s share of the business with you and hence, a likely cost advantage for you. As they understand the context better and feel valued, they fortify their commitment to find the best talent for you in the shortest time. That’s a competitive advantage for you
