Maximizing Your Technical Recruiting Partnership

There is no doubt about it...the demand for technical talent far exceeds the currently available supply. As a result, many companies are struggling to land the talent that they desperately need. In an effort to maximize their chances for success, we see an increasing number of organizations reaching out to professional recruiting partners for assistance in attracting and securing talent.
Our 20 years of experience in the technical recruiting space has shown that there are a number of proactive steps that organizations can take in conjunction with their chosen partner that will greatly increase the effectiveness and success of the partnership. The most effective of these practices are detailed here.

EDUCATION

Invest the time to help your recruiting partner gain a clear understanding of everything they'll need to know in order to successfully attract, screen, and select the right types of candidates for your consideration. This includes an understanding of the following items:

• Your business, your products and services, and your customer base.
• The specific project, management and team that the talent will be working with, and how it fits into the organization as a whole.
• The job description and responsibilities of the available position(s).
• The technical skills, experiences and talents required to be successful.
• The culture of the company, division, and individual workgroup.
• The unique personal qualities and soft skills that are crucial for the success of individuals in your environment.
• Your desired processes for submission of candidate credentials, execution of interviews, etc.
• The reasons why your organization offers a uniquely attractive opportunity for candidates (so that the recruiting partner can properly market your opportunities and educate candidates on the opportunity).

Your goal here is to equip the recruiting partners so that they are communicating with, screening, and evaluating candidates through the same lens that you would use to make decisions.

COMMUNICATION

Do all that you can to foster open lines of communication with your recruiting partner. Beyond the initial education, the most effective communication that you can have with your recruiting partner is to provide feedback on candidates. The feedback should be:

• First-hand (i.e. directly from the person who made the decision to accept/reject the candidate),
• Timely, and
• Candid.

Allow the recruiting partner to have direct communication with the hiring manager.

• This allows the partner to receive unfiltered input—directly from the key decision maker—on position requirements and the reasons why a particular candidate was deemed to be desirable or undesirable. This unfiltered feedback allows the partners to recalibrate their screening and selection process quickly and accurately, if necessary.
• Direct communication with the hiring manager also eliminates the risk that valuable information gets "lost in translation" when feedback on candidates passes through a number of people before finding its way to the partners.

TIMELINESS

In today's ultra-competitive environment, any delay in the screening and hiring process can result in the candidate getting locked up by another organization, or worse yet, by your fiercest competitor. It is imperative that you take action quickly when reviewing candidate credentials, selecting candidates for interviews, scheduling and executing interviews, providing candid feedback to your partners, making hiring decisions, and formulating and extending offers.

MINDSET

Approach the recruiting process as if you are a seller, not a buyer.

• Consider the lengths that your company will go to in order to land a valuable customer. Be prepared to put forth this same level of accommodation and consideration during the candidate interview and selection process.
• Ensure that your interview process is as accommodating as possible...especially when it comes to talent that does not currently reside locally and must travel in order to interview, relocate in order to join the team, etc.