Working with Staffing/Search Firms: An Insider's Guide, Part I

How do Staffing or Search Firms really work? That’s not an uncommon question.

As someone who spent nearly a decade in the business, I hope to provide some answers. The intent is not to encourage or discourage your use of a staffing or search firm as part of your job search (IMHO – they can be helpful and have gotten me my most recent position – which took place during this recession.)

The more you know, the easier it is for you to understand what’s going on. I’ve worked with some very established, professional and ethical firms over the years: however, no matter how much we explained to a candidate or a client, there were still questions.

So, I’ve divided up this into 3 separate articles:
1. Background/Intro
2. How Staffing Firms/Search Firms Work with Candidates
3. How Staffing Firms/Search Firms Work with Employers

Each section will also handle and hopefully clarify some common misconceptions.

Some background and an introduction re: my experiences:
From 1997 to 2008, I worked at several staffing firms as well as a couple of search firms. Starting originally with some basic sales calls and recruiting, I became involved in finding candidates, finding clients, setting up interviews, briefing and debriefing of candidates, and closing deals and bill clients. At one time or another I set bill rates or placement fees, got a signed contract, found candidates, got them interviewed and got them placed.

I generally worked what the industry calls a “full desk” – meaning that I was responsible for finding clients AND candidates. Somehow, I always felt better knowing I was part of the whole process and could know more completely what was going on. However, some firms split recruiting and sales and do just fine that way.

A “full desk” person is usually called a “Recruiter” even though he or she is also doing sales. Very often, I was making over 100 outbound calls on a daily basis: it’s an inside sales position whether you are dealing with companies who may have jobs or interviewing local candidates who come into the office or you deal with remotely. And a lot of voicemails left.

During my experience, I had to create my own potential client list as well as candidate pool. Potential clients were just that: people who might work with me at some point, but had not done so as of yet. Sometimes, it took years of phone calls and discussions to get to that point where a potential client became a real one. If you have been in sales, you know how that can be. On the candidate side, I ran ads online, in the papers (back in the 90s,) attended job fairs and also called directly into companies to “head hunt” candidates. You may have heard the term “Headhunter.” It was also the name of a job board in the late 90s was absorbed into Careerbuilder.com in 2001.

In my time in the placement world, I placed people in temporary, temp to hire and direct hire opportunities. Direct Hire at one time was called “Permanent Placement,” but the recession of 2001 gradually pushed that term into past tense usage. It’s hard to think of any job as “permanent” anymore. As the times changed, so have people’s approaches toward their careers. In many situations, people are at their current jobs only until something better opens up elsewhere, whether in another department in their firm or another firm altogether.

I’ve strictly done inside sales, and many firms operate strictly that way. Others mix in outside sales and inside sales or rely strictly on outside sales. I admire outside sales professionals because I could never do what they do – visit people all day to try and sell business services/products.

I had no degree in HR nor sales experience when I started working in staffing/search. That’s not uncommon. In my first position, I got truly wonderful training through the Sandler Sales method. My firm paid for me to go to an external trainer who presented and trained in the Sandler method. I used those techniques for years. Plus, I got interview training from the former HR Manager who ran my firm. Thus, I was given good tools to start to work with.

When I worked in Career Services at a college, I would run classes in Career Development. One of my early questions to students was “What qualifications does someone need to be an interviewer?”
The truth surprised them. There are no qualifications.

Years ago, I was interviewed for a direct hire recruiter position at a Tampa Bay recruiting firm. Only it was more of a lecture than an interview. My interviewer spoke for about 45 minutes straight, asked me a couple of short questions, and then said “I think you can do this job.” How he knew that was anybody’s guess!
Key point here is that some of the worst interviews you will have aren’t your doing. You were interviewed poorly.

And the more you know about the way staffing/search firms work, the more likely you have a chance to have more positive experiences with them. As well as an understanding of why things may happen the way they do.

The Job Search Dolphin