Recruiting Monogamy
Posted by Mitch on 3rd May 2017
One of the clichés that have become embedded in recruitment culture is the phrase “my client”.
It’s almost impossible to find a job ad written by a recruitment agency that doesn’t start with, or features prominently, the phrase “my client…”
Without getting too psychological about this, what I think it underlies is a deep-rooted desire on the part of the recruitment consultant for it to actually be true.
At least that was what I used to feel when I first starting working for a recruitment agency many years ago.
But it isn’t true in the vast majority of cases.
In the same way that it wouldn’t be true to describe an encounter with a prostitute as “a date with my girlfriend”.
So, if my hunch is correct and agency recruiters really would like some of these companies whose jobs they advertise to become serious relationships, what can they do to make this happen?
They could book their best recruiters onto a Retained Recruitment Workshop which will educate them on all the pros and cons of converting some of their ad-hoc customers into regular clients*.
Or to show those companies how to stop being kerb-crawlers and start becoming long-term partners.
Or, to put it even more indelicately, show them how to stop whoring themselves to anyone that will give them an ill-defined job brief to work on.
*3 weeks ago, a recruiter with 5 years experience walked out of a Retained Workshop, booked a meeting with a hiring manager for the next day and came back from that meeting with a £3,000 down payment on a new vacancy. That’s the record so far; 20 hours.