The following is a simple guide to enable you to determine when to use or when NOT to use a recruiter. We hope you will find it useful.

When you should NOT use a recruiter to fill a job vacancy.

You are NOT really 'committed' to finding a better candidate. The incumbent, in spite of being incapable, has been around too long to terminate, and doing so would cause more grief than benefit. He/she is related to the owner, President, majority stockholder, or has scandalous information about the only person with the power to eliminate them.

The incumbent has left, but the job being filled was obsolete, and its elimination will have little if any effect on operations. The position was one filled by someone who had already been 'put out to pasture'.

You have vast resources of computerized candidates and sourcing them by education, title, salary, city, state, employer is an easy task. You have maintained contact with many of them and they are easily locatable for telephone conversations at their home or office.

Your staff has the knowledge and finesse to enable a cold contact at place of employment with someone who has been reccommended by an existing employee.

You have a highly effective recruiting staff, and it is aware of highly capable candidates whose experience and industry presence have a direct bearing on your operations success. Your staff is sufficiently aware technically to understand the subtle nuances of technology transfer, and with specific knowledge about your products, applications, software, systems, and specific requirements of the most technical jobs which require staffing. They can easily and rapidly write accurate job descriptions which reflect the duties and responsibilities and mindset required.

Your recruiting staff has little difficulty finding and attracting obviously superior candidates at minimal cost to the company. They know most of your competitors and have the inside 'scoop' on current state of events within most of those organizations. The staff has plenty of excess time for extra duties such as an additional recruiting assignment, and relishes the thrill of writing and placing ads in newspapers or trade journals, and they eagerly anticipate the resumes to be reviewed, candidates to be interviewed, and notifications of rejection letters to be mailed.

Your company is so highly thought of in your industry that most candidates are beating a path to your door. You have a long history of successful employee referrals resulting in placements. Your benefits are superior to those of your competition, and your competitors genearally know this and are anxious to work for your company.

You have all the time in the world to make a decision. You have no time pressure at all to find someone in a particular vacancy. Your company has been doing things the same way for a decade and you're not about to change any precedents !

When the supply of superior candidates by far outweighs your need. Your recruiting staff thoroughly reads several dozen resumes per day and files them electronically by category, making it easy to retrieve specific skills within a salary range. They maintain broad contacts among dozens of recruiters from coast to coast and know just which to call for referral of highly specialized candidates, based on their historical practice.

Your position is of such general nature that the supply of qualified candidates is virtually unlimited. Anyone could do the job now open.

Your operation has long been overstaffed anyway, and is downsizing. You welcome the attrition because of reduced payroll and benefits expenses.

You have sufficient numbers of qualified candidates on layoff which you are able to recall easily should market conditions require.

Your company is up for sale, and you wish to minimize payroll expenses, in order to maximize the profit and loss statement.

Your operation is not sufficiently profitable to be able to afford a recruiters fee where the fee could approach or exceed $10,000.

When you SHOULD use a recruiter to fill a job vacancy.

The incumbent has left, and group morale is deteriorating. You are in a time bind, and need to get a qualified replacement at the earliest.

The loss of the incumbent is causing loss of service with a major customer, and the potential loss of a client and that revenue stream.

Loss of the incumbent will be seen as a major blow to operations, and subsequent defections of key people could occur as a result.

The duties being performed are critical in meeting product objectives, contractual requirements, time deadlines, profit, or sales objectives. You have already determined that no internal candidates are qualified.

The duties require highly technical skills, abilities, academic credentials, computer skills, software knowledge or other state-of-the-art technical experience in some process, product, application, specific account or sales/market niche, or specialized certification.

Your recruiting staff is non-existent, overworked, involved in other key projects, and does not have time to get involved.

Your recruiter is not sufficiently knowledgable nor mature to have the wisdom required to recognize a qualified candidate if one were available or had made his/her presence known by resume.

Your processes, products, applications, are very specific and qualified candidates are found in distant geographical areas only with direct competitors. Invariably, such candidates have had to be sought out and attracted from competitors with great incentives or premiums.

You have used a specific recruiter with great success in the past, and were generally satisfied. You generally call them first with any openings. You trust the quality of judgement of this recruiter and know that they will not waste your time with misfit candidates. The firm is professional, thorough, meticulous and has a long history of placement of similar candidates in related industries and product applications as you now need.

You have no resources of qualified candidates, and have not hired anyone with such specific or 'cutting edge' skills before. You are unsure of the supply factors on such candidates, and have no idea of what appropriate salaries should be for such persons.

You may have no written description, and no well established idea as to how such person should fit into overall organizational structure. You also have no idea of what industries represent possiblities from which to seek candidates, so you can take advantage of related technologies. You would like to know what kinds of candidates are generally available whose skills bear on your particular needs.

You have special needs or requirements such as computer literacy, applications, polymer chemistry, powder metallurgy, international sales or marketing experience, foreign language fluency and intimate knowledge of international distributors, OEM's, specific process or product familiarity, applications, supervisory skills, effective people management skills, or industry contacts. These are almost non existent in a suitable candidate in your present organization.

Your company is for sale, and rapid acquisition of a key player will make the difference n maintenance of operations, revenue, and morale. The purchasor needs to have confidence that existing managemet has genuine committment to quality, service and human resources in spite of some attrition of key employees as result of acquisition, merger, or site relocation.

You know that your competitors are coming out with a major new product or service that will make your existing product or service obsolete or stale by comparison, and its about time you had some fresh blood and new ideas from your research department. New technologies have bypassed your company, and existing staff are reluctant or unable to learn new concepts.

You need someone in a new territory where you have few or limited contacts. You have a limited customers in this area, and limited capacity for generation of qualified referrals. The new product or market you intend to serve is 'a whole new ball game', with no precedents.

Why to consider using ALPHA SYSTEMS,INC as a recruiting source.

While the above was obviously written somewhat 'tongue-in-cheek', I've been recruiting since 1967, computerized over 20 years! With 53,653 candidates in my database for rapid evaluation. I've information on over 51,400 companies where specialized candidates may be found and the knowledge of how to find, approach, motivate and quantify them. This enables me to make a qualified judgement on how a candidate fits your opening and why he or she brings specific related expertise to the table.

Many of the candidates I refer I have known for long periods of time on a personal basis. Before I refer any candidate, I personally speak with them about their objectives, their sense of urgency, their priorities, their salary requirements, and truly understand their ability to fit into a particular organization in terms of their style, company size, and their technical competency.

I would be pleased to hear from anyone with comments on the above, or with details of your interest in some particular technical opening.

Return