I spoke to more than 100 Recruiters and Headhunters. Here’s what I learned.

Over the past 60 days, I have had conversations with just over 120 recruiters and headhunters. In these conversations, I sought to…

Photo by Clem Onojeghuo on Unsplash

Over the past 60 days, I have had conversations with just over 120 recruiters and headhunters. In these conversations, I sought to understand what drove them in their professional pursuits, what frustrated them in their day-to-day grind with clients and candidates, and what excited them about the potential for the future of their business.

The purpose was to understand all of the outside factors that affect the candidate placement process and candidate experience, specifically from the recruiter perspective. These are the stakeholders in the process that know most about hiring biases, candidate preferences, and the process of job searching as a whole, so I knew there would be a lot to learn from them. Knowing their day-to-day is imperative to understanding how to solve key issues in the talent acquisition and recruiting space.

All in all, they loved what they do on a daily basis, but there were clear reasons why the recruiting industry was flawed in their eyes. The pursuit of the profession is currently driven by relationships (people who love people) and expertise (people who know a particular industry/function very well), but all of those warm sentiments tend to get undercut because of a necessary commitment to the clients so that pay their commission fees. These discussions were deep and diverse and resulted in several recurring themes as I reflect back:

Strong Relationships Help in the Tough Times.

“Sometimes, talent is fickle and clients are unresponsive, but what keeps us afloat are strong relationships on both sides.”

New Recruiting Technology is a Mixed Bag.

“Technology is expensive and the tools are limited. My effectiveness is handicapped by the tools I use and my margins are simultaneously cut because of them.”

Business Development and Marketing is a Chore.

“Branding and selling is hard and I’d rather not spend time and money on these if I had a choice. I like focusing on the process of filling a search.”

After really sinking into all of this, the common refrain is: what if there was another way? In this inherently HUMAN business, how do we reduce the inefficiencies that exist in human behavior and communication? How do we reduce uncertainty and predict well in the talent market?

The reality is that humans will always use subjective measures to decide on what opportunities they want to take on, who they would like to work with, and when they are ready to leave their current role. Things are simply unpredictable in talent acquisition. However, the trust factors in hiring will continue to remain the most important variable (i.e. “Who or what can we trust to give us high-quality talent that is a culture fit for our team?”).

Thoughts on how to solve this vary, but one approach that I found that had consistently worked from these conversations: referral networks. The factors that play into the value proposition of hiring an external recruiter are to save on time and cost, while investing in higher quality candidates. Much of the pain points noted above speak to the time and cost components, but the main pain point that clients truly care about are the quality of candidates. For example, HR managers report that 42% of resumes they receive are from candidates who don’t meet the role’s requirements.

A potential solution?

Referral networks, as they currently exist, are not built to scale or incentivize all sides. What if there was a way to build out a more robust referral network — one that replicates the effectiveness of an employee referral program, but to a network of highly vetted professionals with similar insights? There could be a platform in which their reputation risk is mitigated by a marketplace platform and their relationships are focused on matching opportunities for their personal connections. These “agents” would not have to worry about the pain points noted above and the clients, in turn, would receive doubly vetted candidates.

The possibilities and vision here seem to hold water and I can’t wait to find out what’s around the corner.

About Careerlist

Careerlist is on a mission to make recruiting better for everyone.

Careerlist is building the first modern talent platform, pairing the industry’s top professionals (“talent agents”) with technology that transforms the job search experience for candidates. The company provides software to talent agents to help them propose the best candidates in their network. Meanwhile for talent, Careerlist opens the doors to thousands of hiring managers around the world directly for the vetted candidates they represent through their software.