Choosing the right recruiter

Vern Brownell understands the need to establish relationships with the best recruiters. When he was CTO at Goldman Sachs, turnover was only 5% per year. Although he didn't have to replace many departing employees, Brownell arranged for a few trusted recruiters to let him know when they found an outstanding candidate regardless of whether there was a job opening at the investment banking firm.

"One such candidate was so strong that we immediately created a spot, and I just heard he was promoted to director," says Brownell, who is now CEO of server blade vendor Egenera. He knows the reason Goldman Sachs has such a star is because the recruiter understood the company and knew what would make an exceptional employee.

Brownell realizes the single most important job of management is to stock the company with top talent. High-impact employees are the ones who make suggestions that save the company lots of money, or solve problems executives may not even know exist. The challenge is these senior-level staffers are the hardest people to find and hire.

Why mention recruiting during a time of rising unemployment? First, the slowdown won't last forever. Economists are predicting at least a partial turnaround sometime this year. Second, many IT positions that were eliminated to save costs will need to be filled during the recovery. Third, there's still nothing more important to a manager's success than the quality of his team.

Regardless of market conditions, there's always a direct correlation between the caliber of candidates and the caliber of the recruiters who find them. If you work with the best recruiters, odds are the best candidates will follow.

Top-notch IT pros want to see a company's commitment to hiring other quality people. Therefore, higher-level candidates make assumptions about the company as a whole based on the quality of the recruiters the firm trusts to find employees and bring them on board. If a business has low standards for the recruiters it uses, this sends a warning that the company also has low hiring standards.

Generally most recruiters fall somewhere along a continuum of two extremes - those who supply resumés found on the Internet but add no more value; and those who work with their clients, committing their resources, aggressiveness and expertise on behalf of the network executive. Here are several things to consider when evaluating headhunters:

l Know your needs before deciding on a retained or contingency arrangement. While both charge a placement fee of between 20% and 30% of a new hire's salary, a retained search requires you to pay a portion upfront. Generally, retainers work better for higher-level positions that are expected to be difficult to fill, and contingency recruiters concentrate on filling lower-level jobs.

l The first impression the recruiter leaves with you is the same one that person will leave when presenting your opportunity to top candidates. High-impact people quickly dismiss recruiters who have lousy opening pitches. Look for those who make strong, honest first impressions.

l Seek a recruiter who can tell your company's story. Ask recruiters to tell you about one of their recent placements. Listen to how the recruiter describes the opportunity, the company and the hiring manager. This is how that person would describe your open job to candidates.

l Forthrightness is crucial. Recruiters who withhold negatives about candidates and don't advise their clients against making a poor hiring decision are only concerned about collecting a placement fee. Ask the recruiter to describe a candidate and determine if he's provided an honest evaluation of strengths and weaknesses.

l Sending job board resumés. Top recruiters don't send resumés that the company could find by performing a simple keyword search on the Internet.

l A common mistake managers make in choosing recruiters is to focus on short-term savings in the form of low fees. In doing so, you could be sacrificing long-term impact. There's too much at stake not to pay a little extra to bring in the top talent.

Because candidate quality is the first objective when filling a job, it's critical to maintain high standards for recruiters who introduce prospective employees to your company. Yet outstanding recruiters, like all service professionals, can be difficult to find. Do some digging and ask peers which recruiters they recommend and why.

"The best recruiters act as an extension of my company," Brownell says. "They have a good grasp of what the industry is doing; know my peers at the competition; put us in the best position to land the best candidates; and have my best interests in mind."

Hand is executive managing director of Talent Capital Group, a retained search firm in Cambridge, Mass. He can be reached at thand@talentcapitalgroup.com.