How to effectively collaborate with recruiters

Since any company, often, is a system, closed on itself, busy with the “affairs” of its specific sector of the economy – creating a single well-coordinated mechanism, or building a friendly team of highly qualified specialists – this is the number one issue of strategic importance.

Definitely, the formation of a team of people who will lead your business to success should be entrusted only to real specialists in the field of finding and selecting the best of the best. Due to the fact that recruiters are experts not only in the labor market, but also in certain niches in which they specialize (B2B, B2C, Services, IT), they can “prompt” the client with salary realities, the latest industry news, and analyze the labor market. Also, recruiters help create a sequence of actions that optimize the recruitment process. To make cooperation with recruiters as useful as possible, the customer company should pay special attention to the first stage of cooperation – the formation of an application for the selection of a specialist. The more accurately the recruiter receives the terms of reference, the more chances that your ideal candidate will “come” to you.

So, before meeting with a recruiting specialist, it is advisable to:

Introduce your candidate: his experience, companies in which he could work, skills, personal qualities.
Think about whether you want to see in your team specialists who have worked in competitors’ companies.
Make a list of basic requirements for a candidate (experience, education, number and level of foreign language proficiency, proficiency in special programs, etc.) and additional (certain personal qualities, achievements, recommendations, etc.).
Outline the issues and tasks that the specialist will solve, prepare a list of his duties.
Consider the points on which you are ready to make a “discount” to the candidate: “lower” the bar in formal requirements (work experience, professional skills, knowledge of languages) or make a “retreat” in the requirements of an informal nature (personal qualities, appearance).
Outline the stages and timing of the selection of candidates and their form (personal interviews, interviews and tests, Skype and portfolio interviews, psychological tests).
Think about the time frame for the provision of the first candidates and the closure of this position.
Determine the criteria that will indicate the successful completion of the probationary period by the candidate and his suitability for the position.
If possible, provide the recruiter with a stop list of candidates who were interviewed for this position earlier.
Outline the career opportunities for a specialist in this position, if any.
Of course, it is desirable that cooperation with recruiting agencies be of a long-term nature: the more positions a recruiter closes for one company, the more voluminous his vision of the “portrait” of an ideal candidate becomes.

Anna Kalyuzhnaya

Julia Deryagina