How to Hire A-Players: Finding the Top People for ... - GIT home page

Headhunters are brokers. They achieve success when a deal has
been sealed and your company hires their candidate. A few are fantastic.
They listen to your needs, conduct a great process, watch out
for your interests, and consistently find and place A-players. Others
can perform poorly. They’re more salespeople than recruiting
experts, and they try to push any warm body to fill a position. As a
result, if you choose to use recruiters—and I believe you should in
certain cases—choose wisely. Select a recruiter with the care that
you would use to select an attorney or CPA. When you find a good
one, hold onto that relationship with everything that you have.
Criteria for Selecting a Recruiting Firm
How do you differentiate between great recruiters and average
ones? Here are some characteristics the best recruiters share.
They Know Your Industry
Using Recruiters Wisely 141
A-Player Principle: There are situations in which paying a
recruiting fee is well worth the cost. A good relationship with
an effective recruiter can be a valuable asset in the struggle
to find talent.
You don’t have to educate the best firms about your industry; they
already understand it. Whether you work with a retained or contingent
firm, you want to hire one that knows your field and understands
how different roles and positions fit together in a company
like yours. Justin Smith, a highly regarded recruiting executive in the
retail industry, says, ‘‘The best recruiters not only know the right people.
They understand what those people do and how they fit into
your organizational strategy. For example, a recruiter may know a
lot of people who are Java programmers. But do they understand
how a Java programmer fits into your IT department and what differentiates
a great programmer from an average one? That is the kind of
knowledge that differentiates great recruiters from everyone else.’’