A person we will call “Tony,” recently used a recruiter, and this went against his usual practice. Typically he tries to avoid the cost of recruiters, seeing no value in the resource. The person he hired did not work out. The recruiter will help him replace this person at no additional cost, yet Tony’s first conclusion was that he had made a bad investment in the recruiter. Was this a bad investment or not?
Tony forgot why he hired the recruiter in the first place. His company was short of recruitment resources and was in desperate need of someone to fill a specific position. After two months of knowing they needed to hire someone, no one in his company had done anything to generate one viable candidate. They needed someone special, with specific industry experience, and wanted to do it as quickly as possible. While the company hired a recruiting firm on contingency, there was nothing stopping them from conducting a search on their own, which they did not do.
The firm quickly presented them with a few candidates. They decided to speak to two and hired one of them. The whole process took a month to six weeks. It could have taken less time, but Tony and the others that needed to provide information to the recruiting firm and conduct the interviews were slow to respond at first.
In the end, Tony chose what the recruiting firm thought was the lesser of the two candidates, but no one asked them. Actually, the recruiting firm found them hard to communicate with and could only contact them through email. The recruiting firm was happy to make the placement, but found it strange that it only took 3 resumes before a person was hired. Typically it is not this easy.
The candidate started off well. However, they found that he was taking an unusual number of days off. This escalated, and it turned out that his work started suffering because he was having family problems. Ultimately, they had to fire this person as he could not meet the needs of the company.
So I pose the question to you, was it a bad business decision to hire the recruiter?
Howard Shore is a business growth expert who works with companies that want to maximize their growth potential by improving strategy, enhancing their knowledge, and improving motivation. To learn more about him or his firm please visit his website at www.activategroupinc.com or contact Howard Shore at (305) 722-7216 or shoreh@activategroupinc.com .
Tags: Activate Group Inc, business growth expert, candidate, coaching, Executive Coach, Hiring a Recruiter, Howard Shore, recruiter, Was Hiring a Recruiter A Mistake
