I got an email this week that was written something like this: 

Dear Peggy,

I have decided to allow you to aid in my job search. 

Could you please let me know what type of marketing efforts you have in mind?

I need to get a job asap.

 Hmmm…Does this person understand the role of the third party contingency recruiter?  I don’t think so.

While some searches involve marketing efforts, they are more the exception than the rule.  Sometimes, recruiters will market a candidate to a new client to entice that client to do business with them.  As in:  “Look at the quality of this candidate.  If you worked with me, all of your candidates would be this great!” 

Here’s the basics of how recruiters work: 

All contingency recruiters are paid for by the client.  Therefore, they work for the client.

The recruiter’s mission is to provide the client with the type of candidates that the client specifies.  Sometimes candidates confuse the client’s requests/demands with those of the recruiters, but the recruiter doesn’t make the rules, the client does.

If a client specifies they want a specific skill set and background; that is usually the only kind of candidate they will look at.  However, if the recruiter has a good relationship with the client, they may entertain input from the recruiter and expand their pool of candidates. 

When a recruiter says, “You aren’t a good fit for this opportunity”, they aren’t telling you that you aren’t good at what you do.  They are telling you that their customer (the client) has specified who they will look at and consider as a qualified candidate and you don’t meet the client’s requirements.

(The irony here is that many recruiters will tell you that skill sets are transferrable, to a point, and that clients would be better served if they looked at candidates with similar skill sets.  For example, selling an executive jet is very different from selling laboratory capital equipment, but they are both complex sales with long sales cycles.  Someone with a record of success selling jets might do very well selling capital equipment in the lab because the sales process is very similar.  In this case, though, the deal-breaker might be that the jet salesperson doesn’t have a science degree and the client may have reservations about the jet salesperson being able to grasp the science of their products and environment.)

Good recruiters try to add value to the hiring process and can be a valuable asset to hiring managers beyond just providing candidates.  The level of partnership and input is directly related to the relationship the client has with the recruiter. 

Did you know that less than 30% of recruiters are in business more than 3 years?  Many try and many fail.  To ensure a positive result, look for a recruiter who has chosen recruiting as her profession and has been doing it a while.