Looking At The World Through The Eyes Of A Recruiter - How Headhunters Spell Trouble

I had not planned on offering a series of articles on how candidates can best present themselves and learn how to optimize their relationships with recruiters, but the issue seems timely. I was prompted to offer these postings in part because a number of excellent resources have come to my attention in the past few days - many of them thanks to the kindness of David Teten and his Brain Food Blog. I wanted to be sure to pass them along to my readers so that you, in turn, can pass them along to those who might benefit most from these behind-the-scenes insights into how recruiters evaluate candidates.

There is one point that you will read in the article linked below that I would like to reiterate and ratify. Many candidates misunderstand the nature of the recruiting business. They feel that it is the job of the recruiter to make sure they find a job for the candidate. Finding a job for a candidate is actually a by-product of the main task of finding candidates for a client company.

The economics of the recruiting industry dictate that a company that is having difficulty finding appropriate candidates for a certain position using their own internal resources will contract with an external recruiter to help them to identify and screen qualified candidates. The search assignment can be a retained search - in which the client company guarantees to pay the recruiter regardless of the outcome of the search. Or, the search assignment can be a contingency search - in which the recruiter only gets paid if the client company hires a candidate that he/she has presented. In each scenario - retained or contingency search - the recruiter works for the client company, and not for the candidate. Of course, the best recruiters do a fair and balanced job of representing the interests of both the client company and the candidates. The best recruiters are diligent in seeking a win-win conclusion whereby the company hires the most-qualified candidate, and the candidate is hired at the company that is the best fit for her/his skills, goals, temperament and value system.

In addition to the top-priority activity of helping client companies to find and to hire the most qualified candidates, whenever possible, I also try to provide career advice to candidates, and even to pro-actively present them to companies where I feel they could add value. But I am only able to offer these extra value-added activities and services after I have fulfilled my obligations to the client companies I have committed to help. At the end of the day, it is the client companies that pay the bills and drive the recruiter's allocation of time and energy resources.

WSJ.com - How Headhunters Spell Trouble: 'FD,' 'PP,' 'Noncom' and 'TMI'