IT Recruiting - Is It Still Providing Value Amongst All The Turnover and Corruption?

There are many IT recruiting shops in the market and it is allegedly a must for IT departments to leverage for their talent acquisition efforts. The only problem with that is the likelihood of finding a good recruiter as not all recruiters are of the same quality, some are very experienced and others just started in the field.

The Dreaded Knowledge Based System, "What Is Your Current Status?"

Knowledge Based Systems are a very powerful tool for any industry, but especially for the recruitment industry. A knowledge based system is simply a system that uses the power of computers to perform tasks that are too complex for human beings alone. The most important thing about this type of application is that it can learn from its past experiences with different clients and use those experiences to help it make better decisions in future cases where similar situations arise.

Given a scenario, you as a hiring manager have been looking for a developer with particular skills and qualifications. In the past three months, the recruiter has submitted 30 candidates who claimed they had these skills and qualifications; however only 10% were actually able to sell and corroborate their skills (the other 90% did not have the correct skill set). Recruiter then goes back through all 30 resumes and finds out which ones exaggerated their skill sets – deleting them from their list so they don't waste time interviewing anyone else who isn't qualified! Ultimately you the hiring manager are the recruiter's data entry minion essentially eating away at the very time savings that using recruiting services was supposed to provide.

Business Model Challenges

This IT recruiting process seems like a big simple game of word matching, and from the hiring manager's perspective no time has been saved especially after adding the commissions should you do find a match, time would have been better spent sorting through the resumes yourself.

For the business model to work it's important for recruiters to understand the business process and industry that they are working in, so they can align themselves with the right candidates for the needs of the client. Unfortunately given the high pressure nature of recruiting high turnover is commonplace, resulting in young inexperienced individuals attempting to recruit professionals to a role they know little about. How many times have you heard, "I have a Dynamics CRM role, and I see you have some Dynamics experience and I think you'd be a great fit for"...unfortunately the Dynamics experience being alluded to is Dynamics AX a top tier complex ERP application far different from a CRM.

Corrupt Slippery Business

The corrupt or dirty tactics leveraged by recruiters are growing ever more sneaky, the following exchanges are a couple that have been experienced:

RECRUITER: [To Previous Candidate] Hey we have worked on some opportunities in the past, can you tell me who the hiring manager is for position X at your organization?

What this really means is can you provide me with an individual that I can call and get an express lane without going through the proper channels of HR and staffing agreements.

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RECRUITER: [To Hiring Manager] Do you mind if I sit on the call with the candidate to get a better feel for what you are looking for?

What this is really asking is if the recruiter can get a "cheat sheet" on the interview process so they can prep other candidates to tailor their responses to misrepresent their skills so the recruiter can ultimately get the commission.

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RECRUITER: [To Candidate] What is your current salary?

What is really happening here is attempting to obtain current rate to determine if you are worthy of the targeted opportunity and/or to propose the submission to other probably lower paying roles that they are actively searching for.

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RECRUITER: [To Candidate] Can you sign an agreement to work exclusively with us for your job search needs?

We understand its a competitive environment, but would we as a candidate be naïve to think that your recruiting firm is the only one who has access to the opportunities I would be most qualified for?

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RECRUITER: [To Candidate] Your salary expectations are little high, you should probably lower those by about $15,000.

Typical bait and switch tactic, would appear recruiter doesn't have anything that matches candidates wishes, and thus must switch to self-serving sales proposition for what they are actively recruiting for.

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RECRUITER: [To Candidate] Can you tell me the organizations that you have been submitted?

The proper response to this question is "I am not at liberty to list all submissions, if there is a role you think I am a good candidate for just let me know and I will confirm if I have been submitted or currently in the running for."

Conclusion

Similar to the greedy, money hungry environment that has permeated our culture in various areas, the IT recruiting model has followed suit and placed too much focus on quantity over quality. Unless business environments can return to honest "good profit" practices, it would appear that leveraging IT recruiting for talent acquisition has lost its identity and has been compromised by too many small shops and bad actors. Unfortunately given current market conditions hiring managers will see little to no time savings and would be better suited evaluating resumes submitted internally. An experienced hiring manager can identify a qualified candidate in a matter of seconds and save the exorbitant placement fees.

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