THE SEARCH PROCESS

Client that needs a key person.

Hires a recruiter.

Recruiter assembles a pool of candidates.

Recruiter brings client and candidate together.


CLIENT HIRES KEY PERSON

A recruiter who does the search and placement process properly is nothing more that an honest broker for the client and the candidate. The process requires trust and openness on both sides.  The client must be candid with the recruiter to explain the need for the new employee and describe the skills and experience necessary to make a successful transition into the company.  The candidate must be equally open about his or her background, experience, education and preferences. Every candidate’s background will be checked and references called.

The process is triggered by the client’s need for a new employee and the hiring of a recruiter to do the search. The recruiter responds by getting all of the relevant information possible about the client’s company and the position to be filled and the client’s industry or market segment.  Once this is done the recruiter goes about assembling a pool of qualified candidates from which to select those who will be presented to the client. This sounds hard, and it is.  Not all candidates will be presented. There are two reasons for this:

The client has hired a recruiter to take away the work of finding candidates and sorting through them.

The recruiter is only going to present the best qualified candidates to make the process as efficient as possible.

Once the client has settled on the candidates to be interviewed the process goes into a new phase. The recruiter is required to facilitate these meeting by preparing both the client and candidate. The client is given a complete background of each candidate in the form of a resume and a write-up by the recruiter explaining the choice and pointing out the candidate’s relevant skills and experience. The candidate is given all of the information available on the client company and is encouraged to go to the Internet to look up the company’s financials, press releases, etc. The candidate is also given guidelines on interviewing etiquette, dress, manners, follow-up letters and the like. Both sides are instructed that this is a conversation between professionals.  Both sides have to win to make the process work. This sometimes takes practice.

Bringing the process to a successful conclusion requires the recruiter to facilitate the negotiations on salary, benefits, vacation time and any special requirements by either side. Finally, the recruiter has a series of follow up conversations with both sides to make sure the arrangement is working as planned and to iron out any misunderstandings or difficulties that may crop up. In rare cases, if the fit is not good the recruiter goes back to the pool of candidates and goes through the process again.