What Does A Recruiting Firm Look For In A Client Relationship?

Good recruiting firms are all about close, transparent relationships- true partnerships- with their clients. They look for responsiveness, feedback on candidates, on updates to job specs or the status of a search they’re working on. They look for calls, emails, texts to be returned promptly, fast reviews of resumes they submit, interviews to be scheduled quickly, feedback from interviews to be provided promptly

Wait- all of this seems to be about speed? Yes! The recruiting firm has accepted the search with the understanding it’s an urgent priority by the client. Agreements have been signed, kick off meetings held, hiring manager conversations have occurred and the firm has dedicated costly resources to furiously developing hundred’s of potential candidates, screening them and submitting a handful of the very best to the client- as a priority. 

If it’s suddenly “crickets” once resumes are submitted it’s a BIG warning sign to the recruiter that the urgency discussed by the client at the onset of the search has changed or was never really there. The recruiting firm immediately stops the search, reaches out to the client to reset expectations and assesses if continuing to dedicate expensive internal resources to the search makes sense. 

Recruiter’s view their search assignments as triage situations- the client has indicated they have an urgent hiring need that has a business impact unless it’s filled quickly. The recruiter is working with this premise and prioritizing the search- if the responsiveness of the client is high then the recruiter is confident in continuing to work furiously on the search- if it’s low however the search is promptly suspended in order to save valuable resources.