Recruiters or headhunters tend to have a lot of jobs. At the same time, working with a recruiter or headhunter can be a mine field. It can be dangerous from the perspective that if you do not know what you are doing when you are dealing with a recruiter, it can cause a lot of problems.

Many, many people have made serious mistakes using the wrong recruiter or using a recruiter when they don’t have to. Nevertheless, people get jobs through recruiters every day and using a recruiter can be a great thing.

The number of recruiters out there is astronomical. In terms of recruiters that list themselves in directories and that sort of thing, there are at least twelve thousand who are known in their industries.

Contents Contingency-based Recruiters Retained Recruiters How to Evaluate Recruiters Privacy Concerns with Recruiters How to Find Recruiters 5.1 SearchFirm.com 5.2 Google Directory 5.3 The Recruiter Red Book 5.4 EmploymentCrossing 5.5 Granted

In talk about recruiting firms, there are a couple of things you need to understand, besides the fact that they are different than employment agencies. The first thing that is important to understand is that, generally, large recruiting firms will be a little bit better than their smaller counterparts. This is a general rule and there is a reason for this. Larger recruiting firms typically have resources to research jobs or contacts in the hiring community. What do I mean by that, specifically? Typically, when you look at a larger recruiting firm, they will be better because they have more resources to serve you. Usually, this is because they are in the contingency space.

When you use a larger recruiting firm, most of the ones out there–or the ones that you will be using and almost everybody uses–are known as contingency-based recruiting firms. Essentially, a contingency-based recruiting firm is one that only makes money if you are hired.

They advertise and call people and try to find people to take a certain job for which they are recruiting. They do this with numerous employers. The more jobs a recruiting firm has, the better off you will be because you will have more opportunities to work in different places. When a recruiting firm gets larger, it is typically a sign that they are doing something right, which means they are having success in terms of recruiting.

Larger recruiting firms also usually work out of offices and this means the people there are working and putting more into their jobs. Larger recruiting firms typically have the resources to take phone calls, speak with employers throughout the day, and reinvest into the business.

Smaller recruiting firms do not have the resources to investigate all the jobs, typically. You might also find they don’t put in as much time on your job search because they don’t have the staff. These firms are often run out of people’s homes and typically are a bit limited.

At the same time, some of the smaller ones may have highly developed relationships with a few employers. It is not uncommon for a very small recruiting firm or even a solo recruiter to have one or two very strong relationships with employers and those employers will consistently turn to them for jobs they have available. For the most part, however, this is not the case.

In addition, small recruiters do not do a lot of advertising. To some extent, this limits the number of employers they can serve. Larger recruiting firms will do a lot of advertising, which increases the number of employers they can serve.

There are drawbacks and strengths to each and you want to encompass them both in your search. However, the more reinvesting that is going on and the more jobs the recruiter has, the better it is for you.

As you look at ads and look at recruiters, it is very important that you understand what type of recruiter you are dealing with. The two types that you need to be concerned with are the contingency-based recruiters, mentioned earlier, and retained recruiters. In the following sections, we’ll take a look at both.

Contingency-Based Recruiters

This means that the recruiter is only compensated if you are hired. This is why it is on a contingency. They typically charge an employer anywhere from 15% to 40% of your annual salary; sometimes more, sometimes less.

In order to get candidates, the contingency recruiter will do lots of things. They advertise and cold call for candidates. Any way they can get candidates, they will. It is important to understand that most jobs you see advertised and most cold calls you receive are from contingency recruiters.

Sometimes, employers will require contracts with a recruiter. In fact, most of the time they will require contracts. However, for the most part, if a recruiter sends people a good candidate, the company may choose to work with a recruiter in order to hire the candidate. It is not always that way and it certainly differs as far as profession. Larger corporations typically want to have contracts with recruiters. Law firms and other organizations want to have contracts. However, this is not always the case. Because of this, pretty much anyone can get into the recruiting business and this is one reason why recruiting is so popular and why there are so many people involved in it.

Another interesting thing about contingency recruiters is that they will choose what jobs to recruit for. They do the same things you can do and the things you have learned. They visit employer websites and advertise the same jobs. A lot of recruiters don’t even get assignments from their clients.

One way to think about a contingency recruiter, as an analogy, is similar to a house for sale. If there is a house for sale and there are 1,000 real estate companies in the town, all the real estate agent needs to do is to bring a potential buyer to the home, present him to the other real estate agent, and that person will share any commission of the home that’s sold to that buyer.

It is the same with a contingency recruiter. The contingency recruiter will go out and try to find candidates for the job and the firm will hire anybody presented that looks good. Because there is this contingency-based thing, it is important to realize that the contingency recruiter is acting as a so-called marketing agent for the employer with regards to the job. Because they are acting as a marketing agent, the recruiter really wants you to find out about the job from them and not necessarily from the employer.

Contingency recruiters do not want you to apply directly to the employer. They want you to apply to the employer through them. Otherwise, they do not get a commission.

These are some very important things you need to understand about contingency recruiters. I told you about the smaller and larger recruiting firms. Typically, larger recruiting firms will have better standards for their employees and work product than smaller recruiters, by and large.

In terms of the contingency recruiters, there are good and bad recruiters, obviously. Some of the standards that make a good contingency recruiter include things like their work product. Most recruiters write letters on behalf of their candidates. Another is how well the material is drawn out. Yet another factor is whether you get an interview or not and the reputation of the recruiter with employers.

Some recruiters have very good reputations with employers while others do not. This is important to keep in mind because it can determine to a large extent how well you end up faring. For instance, certain employers will not look at candidates from certain recruiting firms. That could be huge.

Another thing that makes a good contingency recruiter is their visibility in the market. The best recruiters are typically out there doing public speaking. They are members of associations and may have deep connections into the profession for which they recruit.

Another important thing is how specialized the recruiter is. Do they perform different types of placements or only a few? Also, how geographic-specific is the recruiter? Some recruiters may recruit for the whole country and others will recruit for very confined areas. The more specific the recruiter is in terms of the geographic area, the better their relationship is likely to be with employers in those areas.

These are some of the general things you want to look for in a contingency recruiter. Just because the recruiter may seem uneducated and those sorts of things, many times that does not really matter. Many times it comes down to the recruiter’s connections, reputation, and how specialized the recruiter is in terms of things he knows.

Retained Recruiters

The next type of recruiter is a retained recruiter. The retained recruiter is a rarified world of recruiting. I would say that it encompasses less than 3% of all recruiters. Typically, they are used for CEOs and other highly compensated people.

The retained recruiter charges an upfront fee to the employer to cover research for a specific search. The fee will cover research, expenses, developing a list of potential candidates, cold calling, and that sort of thing. The retainer usually guarantees to present a certain number of candidates or a commitment to work on the search for a specified period of time. Generally, they will not guarantee a successful hire.

I think you have an idea about how a retained recruiter works. Typically, the situation that would warrant a retained recruiter might be something along the lines of a corporation that needs a certain type of executive or a very high level executive. They need a search to be done for that executive that would exclude a lot of unqualified people from coming through the door.

Instead of putting an ad for a CEO on a site like Monster and subsequently sifting through tens of thousands of applications, they hire a recruiting firm. They go to one of these retained recruiting firms and say, for example, “We are Xerox and we need a new CEO.” The recruiting firm puts together a short list and consults with the employer very closely. They cold call, network, and do all sorts of things in order to develop a list of people for the firm to interview.

For that fee, they may charge them something along the lines of a million dollars. It could be very, very expensive. The upshot is that the firm will get very highly qualified candidates who are most likely executives of other large technology-type companies similar to Xerox. It really does provide a massive benefit, but it is not something that is used very much at all. It is only used for very, very high level searches for the most part.

They work very closely with the company to identify candidates in contrast to a contingency recruiter. It is important that you understand the difference.

In addition, if retained recruiters advertise, the advertisement will say that they have been retained and that all applicants should apply to them. You see this fairly regularly in periodicals such as the Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times, the Economist, and so on.

Because of the role of retainer recruiters, they are not really interested in looking through a lot of resumes. They are laser-focused. With the contingency recruiters, again, there is a lot more involved.

How to Evaluate Recruiters

Anybody can pick up the phone or put an ad out and become a recruiter, so it is very important that you are careful when you use a recruiter.

There are several reasons for this. Some recruiters are just not good, so you need to find out how long they have been in this profession. This is generally an important indicator that the person is competent. In this role, a lot of people choose to become recruiters simply because they are a member of a certain profession or, for whatever reason, they decide they are interested in it. That is fine, but at the same time, this is your career and you want to use someone who is seasoned at recruiting when you start looking for a job.

It is important that you are careful when you choose a recruiter. I recommend using someone who has been doing it for a while. Do your due diligence on the recruiter, which means you should make sure the person has a lot of placements under her belt.

In addition to doing general due diligence, make sure you use a firm that is well known. That is not to say that you should not use a lesser-known firm if they have an exceptional job. However, the recruiter will send you to several different firms if they are doing their job properly for most types of recruiting. Make sure you use a recruiter that knows what he is doing.

I would ask to see redacted copies of the work product or just read their articles just to get comfortable with them. By “work product” I mean candidate submissions. Another important thing is to make sure you click with your recruiter. Recruiters have different personalities just like regular people. For the most part, recruiters are friendly and likeable.

I do not know why this is the case. I have been in the business for over ten years and have found that the best recruiters are typically very likeable on a first impression. I’ve noticed this over and over again. Having hired and watched lots and lots of recruiters in the industry, I’ve noticed the best recruiters are always extremely likeable right when you meet them. I don’t know why, but it’s just the way it is.

In addition to being careful when you use a recruiter, one question you want to ask yourself with a contingency recruiter is, “Should I be using a recruiter at all?” I am not the one to necessarily answer that question for you, but I will tell you that you have to be an exceptionally unique and rare candidate to use a recruiter. If you’re not, the fee the recruiter charges will get in the way of you getting hired.

Imagine that you are applying for a job and the employer that hires you has to pay, 30 percent of your annual salary just for bringing you in the door and hiring you. That is a lot of money for any employer, regardless of what your salary is. You have to ask yourself, “Would this employer be able to find someone just like me easily?”

If they took an ad out on a website, would they need a recruiter to find you? Do you do a very rare type of job or do you have very exceptional qualifications? Have you done something amazing or do you have an exceptional employment or educational background? This is something important to understand with contingency recruiters. Everybody believes they are special, but if you are a couple of years out of college, you should not use a recruiter.

What are examples of people who should be using a recruiter? Let’s say you have previous experience working in petrol chemical engineering doing testing on mobile oil platforms. This is a niche type of job. Maybe there are only 10 people in the world who can do your job. This makes you exceptional. Obviously, if a recruiter calls you, there is nothing wrong with using the recruiter.

Say you are in a very rare role inside of a corporation in representing steel manufacturers who export steel to Japan. You know that there are only 25 or 30 other people in the world who have experience doing that. In this case, using a recruiter is fine.

Here’s another example: you are an engineer and you deal with the packaging of medical products, specifically heart stents. Your whole career has been based around building boxes to package and store heart stents to send to surgeons. You should be using a recruiter.

And another: you are an accountant who has a master’s degree in business administration from Harvard Business School and you have six years of experience working for a major accounting firm representing a certain type of client in the plastics industry who exports stuff to Switzerland, exclusively. You should be using a recruiter, assuming it is the same type of job you are looking for.

These are just some general examples. When you evaluate yourself, you need to make sure you are exceptionally unique for whatever the job is. IT recruiting is another field that often requires some very unique candidates.  The main thing to remember is that there should be very few people in the world who have your qualifications.

If you think, even for a moment, there are a lot of people like you out there with a similar background, you shouldn’t use a recruiter. Remember: you are like a commodity. Everyone is a commodity in the market and, if there are a lot of people just like you available, no employer in their right mind will pay a fee to hire you.

There are some incredibly talented recruiters out there. By “talented,” I mean this person can find employers that do not know how to promote their jobs, and he can get you a job using his contacts that most companies or firms would never pay a recruiter for.

Here is one example. I am in the legal business and because I work in the legal recruiting business, I tend to know about a lot of different law firms out there. In many cases, these law firms don’t even advertise their jobs. They don’t know how to advertise their jobs and they don’t put jobs on their websites. In some cases, they may not even have a website.

For a really good recruiter, having those contacts is a good place to send candidates. A really good recruiter can track down employers like that and send you in their direction. If this really good recruiter sends you to those places, you may have a chance of getting hired. A really good recruiter may have very solid relationships with those places as well, which can make a big difference for you.

At the same time, it is vital for you to understand that if you were to approach those employers on your own, you might have a better shot of getting the job through the recruiter or you might not. The recruiter may have such good contacts with people that they can really make your case, or your credentials may stand on their own. It depends. But when in doubt, you may be better off using a recruiter.

Another important aspect of a good recruiter is her ability to reach the decision-makers at potential employers. A good recruiter is persuasive. However, you need to remember that, for the most part, the employer runs his business and is able to make his own decisions, no matter how persuasive the recruiter may be. The recruiter’s ability to get behind you and be enthusiastic can make a difference though.

When you use a really good recruiter, his or her reputation acts as an endorsement of your candidacy. When you apply to the firm, this can help you get hired.

Privacy Concerns with Recruiters

With a retained recruiter, they are usually supposed to have your authorization to submit you to employers, but they often submit people without authorization. In most cases, they will hold onto your resume for a long time. You also need to be careful about whom they are talking to about you.

Always insist that contingency recruiters update you on where your information has been submitted or insist that they get your authorization and maintain a list, especially if you are working with multiple recruiters. You should probably maintain a list even if you are working with one recruiter.

Because recruiters are so pervasive, it’s very important that you understand most jobs on websites are recruiter jobs. This is the case most of the time, but not always. For this reason, when you are looking at job sites or in the job market, you will see a tremendous number of recruiter jobs out there at all times regardless of when you are doing your search.

As you might expect, contingency recruiters typically do much better in good economies than bad. Employers have much more discretionary funds to spend on recruiters in good economies. I would just caution you to be very careful about using contingency recruiters when the economy is not that great.

How to Find Recruiters

Despite the drawbacks to using recruiters, there are a lot of positive things that can come out of using them as well. Oftentimes, recruiters have relationships with many different employers that would be difficult for you to find and to establish on your own. If you have done your employer research thoroughly, you can go into a market and apply to all the employers without using a recruiter. This is an effective way to find a job. In most cases, the employers will be happy to hire you without a recruiter once they review your information.

The key is whether or not the recruiter has influence over the employer. If the recruiter has the ear of the employer, this will help to get you over the hump. I can tell you numerous stories where I’ve helped candidates get jobs and I know without a doubt that they would not have been hired had they gone on their own without using me. Using a recruiter is a very smart thing to do if you are the right type of candidate and, in some cases, even if you are not.

The cool thing about these directories of recruiters is that you can go onto the recruiter website and get a sense of the recruiting firm. If you like them, you can call them. Many of them do not pick up their phones, which makes it a little difficult. This could be a sign for you, though, if they are not picking up their phone. This may mean the recruiter lacks the resources to have their phone answered (and therefore is not successful). At the same time, you can read their websites and get information to see if you are comfortable with them.

The following list offers some of my favorite resources for finding recruiters and recruiter jobs:

SearchFirm.com. This is a good one that you should look at. A lot of these sites, as with the last module, are going to be directories, which people have to pay to list. Anyone you go to is not necessarily going to be perfect.

Google Directory. If you go here you can see lots and lots of recruiters. There is a massive list on here. This is a good source and you can certainly poke around there for what it has to offer.

The Recruiter Red Book. This is one of the best sources you can use. It is broken down by industry.

EmploymentCrossing. At EmploymentCrossing.com and at many of the EmploymentCrossing sites such as AccountingCrossing.com, we put a list of recruiting firms and recruiting agencies. You can see all of the recruiting firms here, which is helpful. These are accounting recruiting firms. There are many different EmploymentCrossing sites for different industries. If you go to an industry-specific crossing, it will list the recruiters in that specific industry.



Granted.com. While it doesn’t specifically have a list of recruiters, this job site, which is free to use for job seekers, gives you the option to search only for jobs from recruiters if you want. It’s also a great resource for employer job listings.



The Riley Guide. Another good source is TheRileyGuide.com. This is a good directory of recruiters from lots of places. They show you e-based directories where the recruiters pay to list themselves. This is a good source.

Here are a few additional sources of recruiters:

IRecruit.com

Online Recruiters Directory

RecruiterResources.com

Recruiters Directory

The industry for recruiters is so fragmented that it’s smart to investigate a lot of different places. The more places you investigate, the more likely you are to find a recruiter.

Generally, I also recommend that you use a recruiter in your niche or profession. They will have the contacts, and they will understand your skill set. When searching, I recommend going specific and trying to find the smallest ones first before moving on from there.

Supplement your search using recruiters. Make sure you listen to the cautionary words I provided you about recruiters because there are strong pluses and negatives to recruiters. Ultimately, if you are the right kind of candidate, a recruiter might be just what you need to get in the door.