Hiring managers, who is that behind the wheel of your employment brand? You’ve had 5 internal meetings to discuss the language on your new website, but then you hired a contingent recruiter to work on your job opening after talking to them on the phone for what, half an hour?
What exactly are they telling people about you, your company, and your open job?
When you engage an executive search firm, you hand over your reputation as an employer. The search consultant is authorized to represent you (for the duration of their engagement). t’s like handing over the keys to your car … with your company name emblazoned on the side of it. They ARE your employment brand while they are behind the wheel. And remember, they are talking to a lot of people about your company.
So how much control do you have over what they say? In most cases, none at all. So yeah, you probably want to know who you are dealing with, what their reputation is, and precisely what they will say about your job opportunity.
At Staffing Advisors, we craft a written marketing message for you, and give you a chance to look it over before we use it. (You told us that you offer great work/life balance, but really don’t want to want to over-promise that? Ok, no problem, we’ll delete that sentence…). We want to be sure the message sets the right tone for skills, performance expectations, cultural fit … everything.
Then, when we deliver the message, someone with real credibility reaches out. If someone who reaches out looks legit, that is reflected in how people respond to them. (Test this for yourself. Google the name of whoever you are trusting with your brand. That’s what smart candidates do before they respond. So how does it look?)
We’ve connected with over 25,000 candidates this year (people who were referred to us, or people we reached out to). I hear about every single person who has had a complaint with the service. This year, I talked to less than a dozen disappointed people – that’s less than one in two thousand who had a complaint – and remember, 24,900 of those people ended their experience with us by getting a rejection letter.
I’m not saying you need to hire us to protect preserve and defend your employment brand (although that is an excellent idea), and I’m not bashing how other search firms do business (Relax third-party recruiters, I’ve said for years that the contingency search model is perfectly valid).
I’m just saying you need to think harder about who you let drive your reputation around. Because it matters more than you may realize. You are welcome to learn more about the executive search and hiring process or download this evaluation tool.