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Recruitment Agencies

The way to get the best results out of your dealings with specialist recruiters is to build and manage a relationship with them. So here's how to go about wooing them.

Professional recruiters fall into four categories: high street agencies, headhunters, search and selection businesses, and interim agencies.

High street agencies normally deal in the more junior posts and temporary positions. Aside from directly applying to companies, they are the most worthwhile point of contact for anybody seeking manual, administrative or secretarial roles.

Headhunters are commissioned by companies to find senior executives with a particular set of attributes. They assemble a shortlist of people with the best fit and receive a fee (usually equivalent to a sizeable percentage of the first year's salary). The shortlist is often a combination of candidates who respond to advertisements placed by the headhunters, people who have directly approached the headhunters and those sought out by the headhunting company because of a recommendation from another party.

Search and selection businesses focus on middle to senior level jobs. Their clients are a combination of people responding to advertisements and those who approach them directly.

Interim management agencies focus on providing senior executives to companies who need them to take on a significant assignment for a limited period, on average around six months. As with search and selection businesses, their clients come from two sources: people responding to advertisements and direct approaches.

GETTING YOUR CV IN THEIR HANDS

Whereas high street agencies are happy for people to walk in off the street, most headhunters, interim agencies and search and selection businesses prefer to receive a CV first, which will be followed by a meeting if appropriate. That said, walking in off the street to personally deliver a CV and then asking for a few minutes of somebody's time can be a highly productive way of registering your presence in the market.

BUILDING A RELATIONSHIP

Professional recruiters are client-driven, not candidate-driven, i.e. they consider themselves to be working primarily for companies and not for you. As a result, it can often feel like you're getting a poor service from them. You may find they often claim to be too busy to talk to you, which can be a little galling given that they stand to make a sizeable commission out of placing you with a company.

The key to a successful relationship is for you to take responsibility for both the service they provide and for managing how the relationship develops. So, don't risk dropping off their radar by assuming they're being active on your behalf and putting you forward for lots of jobs. It's worth calling them every ten days or so to see what's around. Even though you're registered with them, when you see an advertisement they have placed that interests you, contact them to explicitly state your interest in being considered for the post.

You can use your CV as a tool for maintaining a relationship as well. As we've discussed elsewhere, a CV is a permanent work in progress. As you produce new variations or substantial revisions of your CV, use that new CV as a reason to phone or call in to see them.

GIVING THEM WHAT THEY WANT

In order to sell you to companies, agencies need to know what makes you a bit better than the rest of the competition. For that reason, they're particularly keen to see your career achievements, supported by a clear outline of companies worked for, jobs held, key responsibilities and the relevant dates. They'll normally edit your CV to match their house style for presenting information about clients to companies. For that reason, you don't need to stick slavishly to the two-page format.

By the way, agencies tend not to be big fans of the functional CV. This is because they'll be more at home selling you into a very similar role to the one you're moving away from. They'll be much less comfortable with helping you to achieve a significant change in career direction.


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