This comes from a study via IBM’s Smarter Workforce Institute, led by 2 Ph.D’s.
It can be quite deflating for a company and a hiring manager to reach the end of the hiring process and extend an offer, only to have the candidate reject.
The #1 cause of a negative candidate experience?
Communication.
A lack of communication, that is.
Candidates hate being in the dark and simply want to be kept informed. It’s not even about the offer in most cases; candidates want to be respected. The IBM study even found that declined candidates that received a positive experience will even apply in the future!
If a company wants to acquire talent in this tight labor market, they need to focus on this. And if they work with recruiting partners, they need to make sure that these partners are treating their candidates the right way.
A good recruiting partner will help to provide that professional and positive candidate experience, figuratively (and sometimes literally) holding your candidate’s hand from start to finish.
DTG Consulting is a boutique staffing & recruiting firm that excels in providing positive and professional candidate experiences. We hope to have the opportunity to consult with you on the experience your company gives to candidates to help your business grow.
As with just about anything in life, there is a spectrum of quality when it comes to Recruiters. There are bad recruiters, there are average recruiters, and then there are good recruiters. But what makes the latter – a good recruiter – so valuable as a partner to your company?
A good recruiting partner knows your time is valuable
Unless you need to staff an entire cloud migration project by the end of the week, a good recruiter should only be introducing quality candidates for your open position. It’s the recruiter’s responsibility to comb the market and ask tough questions to qualify/disqualify candidates, so that only a small handful reach you, the hiring manager. It’s the age-old notion of “quality over quantity”. As a technical hiring manager, spending less time on hiring means more time to tackle other challenges.
A good recruiting partner shares insight on a candidate not found on a resume
You work with a recruiter in order to take care of the “leg-work” at the beginning of the interview process, so that you & the candidate can immediately begin having advanced interview discussions. Your recruiting partner should be able to inform you on the candidate’s situation, how they match up against the skill/experience requirements, their career aspirations, salary expectations, personality, and more. These are things can’t be found on a resume and can help you, the hiring manager, have more informed and progressive conversations during interviews.
A good recruiting partner’s input isn’t always geared towards their pocket
For a recruiter, every candidate that is introduced to a client presents a potential monetary opportunity. However, a good recruiter should play the part of the trusted advisor, consulting with you to solve the hiring problem. Not every candidate is going to be “outstanding”, “amazing” or “must-hire” material, and therefore a good recruiter shouldn’t be too biased with their judgement on the pros & cons of the individual’s candidacy.
A good recruiting partner focuses on providing positive & professional experiences to your candidates
No matter how delicious a chef’s menu is, if the wait-staff & maître-d are rude to customers then the restaurant is doomed to fail. Hiring, even for the most technical positions, is no different. Studies[1][2][3] have shown that several pitfalls of the recruiting process can be traced back to negative candidate experiences. The modern-day technologist has no shortage of suitors and competition for certain technical skillsets, such as Java, AWS and Pen-Testers to name a few, has never been stronger. With so many opportunities to choose from, the “candidate experience” that a candidate receives while interviewing for your position has become absolutely critical. As the matchmaker, a good recruiter will ensure that your candidate receives first-class treatment as they go through your interview process. That means exhibiting traits like honesty, respect and integrity with your candidate, along with frequent & transparent communication.
A good recruiting partner helps to distinguish your company & position from the competition
I touched upon the demand for tech pros in the last paragraph. A good recruiting partner will help to “sell” your candidate on the overall opportunity with your company and ward off interest from your competitors. This is particularly important if you have several steps in your interview process. You could be looking forward to a final interview with a strong candidate in a few days, but another company could swoop in and make an offer in an effort to take your candidate off the market. A good recruiter will be able to consult the candidate on the benefits of finishing the process with you, therefore giving you an opportunity to seal the deal.
DTG Consulting is a boutique search & staffing firm that has consulted hundreds of clients over the last 4 decades on acquiring top technology talent. We hope to have the opportunity to consult with you on technical hiring to help your company complete IT initiatives and achieve critical business objectives.
Are your current recruiting partners best suited for your company’s needs? Recruiting firms come in all shapes & sizes, feature different processes for sourcing candidates and many specialize in certain industries. Drawing upon 45 years of staffing industry experience in Metro-NYC, we put together 4 questions to help ensure that you are working with the right partners for your unique hiring needs:
One of the fundamental aspects of your company’s partnership with a recruiting agency is that they won’t recruit your employees for their other clients. Therefore, when a recruiting agency partners with you, your employees become “off-limits” for them to recruit. If your recruiting partner works with several large companies in your geographical area, that shrinks the talent pool available for your company’s open positions. With a recent survey by Indeed revealing that “86% of managers rate the IT hiring market as very challenging”, you’re going to need access to every corner of the talent market.
You’re going to want your recruiting partner to have a thorough answer here. Every agency has business memberships to job boards like CareerBuilder or Monster with large yet general talent pools, but for certain skillsets the best talent will be sourced elsewhere. Leading recruiting agencies forge relationships and utilize defined strategies in order to gain access to unique talent pools. An agency featuring long tenured directors and recruiters will most likely ensure a strong referral network which is the #1 most successful method for hiring, per the SHRM.
Many recruiting and staffing firms can be very KPI & metrics driven, which frequently means that the recruiting team is largely made up of recent graduates. With lofty call numbers to hit on a daily basis, turnover can be high and your candidate’s experience leading up to joining your company can be adversely affected. On the other hand, if your recruiting partner features career recruiters and long tenures, that probably benefits you and your potential candidates.
If a recruiting partner is also working with several of your direct competitors, that is potentially not an ideal situation for you. At the end of the day, a recruiting agency is still a business and will look to make a placement where it can. You want your recruiting partner’s allegiance as they navigate the talent market on your behalf, so make sure that they aren’t also serving too many of your company’s rivals.
While these are not the only questions you should ask both existing and potential recruiting partners, they will help to determine if you’re working with partners that are best situated to meet your company’s hiring needs.
Founded in 1972 by John Di Bari, a Vietnam Combat Veteran, DTG Consulting is a boutique search & staffing firm that has been placing candidates in technical positions for over four decades. Our recruitment methodology has been proven time and again in placing professionals in contract, direct hire, and contract-to-hire positions. We hope to have the opportunity to consult with you on technical hiring to help your company complete IT initiatives and achieve critical business objectives.
The transformational leadership theory is one of the most studied and thus most popular theories of leadership. The ability to translate across cultural boundaries while being applied to more situations than many of the other studied theories of leadership contributes to the popularity of this theory of leadership. The main premise of this theory is the transfer of the leader’s vision to their subordinates, which inspires the subordinates to focus on a higher order of intrinsic needs and organizational goals (Zwingmann, et al., 2013). To accomplish this goal, transactional leaders have to inspire followers through motivation to become engaged in their work, thus sharing in the vision of the organization. Transactional leaders use these four components to become an effective leader: idealized influence, inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation, and individualized consideration.
Having idealized influence refers to a leader’s ability to provide a clear vision, and instills pride in accomplishing the goals of an organization. Subordinates will respect and trust a leader who exhibits an ethical behavior and has high morals. When a leader inspires motivation in their subordinates, that leader demonstrates the ability to communicate their high expectations goals which followers are expected to accomplish. By having been provided with such motivation, the followers become committed to the shared vision of the leaders of an organization (Northouse, 2013).
Transformational leaders stimulate the intellect of their subordinates by allowing for innovative and creative approaches towards accomplishing their work within an organization. Subordinates are encouraged to create new methods of accomplishing tasks by questioning assumptions and applying new frameworks to established situations (Bass & Riggio, 2006). The final component of the transformational leadership theory is an individualized consideration which requires leaders to take on the role of a coach or mentor to a subordinate. Managers using a transformational theory of leadership provide a climate that is supportive to their followers, and they listen carefully to the needs of all members of their team.
Because the transformational leadership theory creates a strong bond between leaders and subordinates, the transformational leadership theory leads to longer lasting benefits between leaders and subordinates. This theory is unlike another popular theory of leadership, the transactional theory, which tends to view the relationships between leader and followers as shallow and good only for a short period of time. The exchange of rewards for achievements in a transactional leadership theory often leads to resentment between the leaders and followers. Thus the bond created is not as strong as in the transformational leadership theory.
References
Bass, B.M. & Riggio, R.E. (2006). Transformational leadership. New York, NY: Psychology Press.
Northouse, P.G. (2013) Leadership Theory and Practice. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, Inc.
Zwingmann, I., Wegge, J., Wolf, S., Rudolf, M., Schmidt, M., & Richter, P. (2014). Is transformational leadership healthy for employees? A multilevel analysis in 16 nations. Zeitschrift für Personalforschung, 28(1/2), 24-51. doi:10.1177/239700221402800103
