In this video, Konstanty Sliwowski, the founder of Caissa Global Recruitment, talks about why it is hard to find experienced recruiters. He explains when people from B2B and B2C sales background join the executive recruitment, you’re not going to get the right talent. He, then explains, what type of experience a recruitment agency should look for while hiring an experienced recruiter.
Find the details in this transcript.
I consciously chose a career path in recruitment. I realize that this is unusual. In fact, in my 17 years working in the recruitment industry I have only met a handful of people that have consciously chosen recruitment as their career path. Many “fall” into it from a transactional sales background.
The fact that recruitment is rarely chosen as a career path is also why it is so difficult to find experienced recruiters. Many people come into recruitment from a B2C or B2B background find themselves often disillusioned by:
- The complexity of the role,
- The challenge of talking to people who are dealing with big personal choices (after all changing a job is a big personal decision and not a transaction)
Thus, for those coming from sales, the ineffectiveness of the transactional sales processes they are familiar with becomes glaringly apparent.
Nevertheless, it is not uncommon to see people come into recruitment from a sales background with no previous experience within:
- Talent engagement,
- The recruitment sector, or
- The industry they are recruiting for and try to adapt the approach of a transactional sales role.
We see this every day. It is one of the reasons:
- You are getting cold calls from recruitment agencies, and
- Why the market complains so consistently about recruiters not knowing anything beyond the keywords of the job they are hiring for.
People are, however, not objects and transactional approaches will only yield transactional results. If you treat recruitment as if it was only about “buying skills” and getting butts on seats, you will inevitably hire transactional employees who will not be bought into your business, product, or values.
Recruitment is the only job I can think of (aside from matchmaking which is essentially a form of recruitment), where you have a product that has freedom of choice and opinion.
No matter if your product is:
- The role that your client has asked you to hire for, or
- The skillset of a candidate you are representing
Either way, you need to ensure that both sides are happy to essentially buy into one another.
This is why it is so critical to consider who is recruiting for you and how.
- Are the recruiters representing you to the market concerned about finding you the skills you want based on keywords and a job advert? or
- Are they understanding your organization in such a way that they can represent you personally and effectively to the people who not only have the skills but also buy into your values, mission, product?
In short, in order to find the right recruiter, you must see:
- They have prior recruiting experience. They should be aware of talent engagement as well as the basics of the recruitment sector.
- They can differentiate between people and transactions. An employee meant to fill the seat is no good as he/she cannot be bought into your business.
- They understand their clients’ requirements - know the role thoroughly to find the right talent and vice versa.
Do you think, as an organization, you’ve chosen the right recruiter? Is your recruiter offering you the jobs suitable to your skills, values, and culture? If you have any problem in getting hired or hiring in the Berlin Tech industry, contact us with your issues.
