Build a relationship with your recruiter to ensure that you are well placed to take advantage of the job opportunities they find. We explain why it’s important for us to have a good working partnership with our candidates and how our candidates benefit from this relationship.
At Source we strive to build a strong relationship with our candidates. To successfully place candidates in new roles requires attention to detail, honesty and the creation of a working partnership. Everything we do at Source is underpinned by our Core Values, we hope our candidates embrace these values too. Our pledge to candidates is to treat you as we would wish to be treated, and our recruitment process is shaped through transparency, integrity and respect. This is why we believe it is important for recruiters to build a strong relationship with their candidates; and why candidates should do likewise with their recruiters. How will you benefit from a good relationship with your recruiter?
Forming a Solid Relationship With Your Recruiter
Initial meeting
At the start of your recruitment search we ask a lot of questions! We want to understand what makes you tick. It’s not just about finding you a job that matches the job title and salary scale you’re after. We also want to find out about the working environment you favour, the challenges you seek and your long term goals. So we hope that our initial meeting won’t feel too much like an interrogation, but we have good reason for asking so many questions. By providing this background information, and being clear about your expectations and career situation; you give the recruiter the tools they need to find you the right opportunities.
Face-to-face briefings
We like to meet our candidates face-to-face. We appreciate that it can be a struggle to find time to attend a briefing, but this contact is very important to ensure both candidate and recruiter understand each other. We don’t want to waste your time (or clients) by sending you ill-prepared to an interview, or forward you job opportunities you are not interested in. Our experience is that face-to-face briefings are much more effective than a phone call or an email. Long term this simplifies and speeds up the recruitment process for all concerned.
Honest feedback
As recruiters part of our responsibility to candidates is to manage their expectations. This often means giving objective and constructive feedback. We appreciate that this may be hard to hear, but we hope that candidates take our feedback on board and use it to their advantage. On the other hand, we will always listen to your opinion. A good relationship with your recruiter means sharing information both ways and it is the best way to guarantee that both parties are working to the same objectives.
Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
We take CRM very seriously and regularly review the experience our candidates have with Source. Therefore your comments are very important to us, they help shape our recruitment process for your benefit, and for others.
So what are the key benefits for you, the candidate, to invest your energy in building a good relationship with your recruiter?
- Better matched job opportunities.
- A more effective recruitment search (potentially saving time).
- Keeps you in the picture.
- Support: preparation for interviews, background information on potential employers etc.
- Creates a long term relationship with your recruiter that can help progress your career.
As a recruiter we would ask you to take note of the above and help us build a strong working relationship with you. Your recruitment experience is valuable to us, so please share your feedback below.
photo credit: Richard.Asia via photopin cc
Nicola January 13th, 2015, in the morning
I've been a designer for many years and have found things have changed immensely in the way you connect with recruitment agencies. In the past it used to be exactly as you suggest: build a relationship with your recruiter. Every Friday and Monday I would ring up the companies I was registered with, I would have a discussion with my regular recruiter, they would discuss what roles were available and I would get regular work.Nowadays, it doesn't happen like this. It is very hard to build that type of relationship. Whenever I ring up an agent, especially a new one, I'm told 'Send us your CV/have up uploaded it to our website?' This is a very impersonal way of working and gives no way for me to discuss my very varied experience.
The weekly ring round to let recruiters know of my availability doesn't seem to work now either. One recruiter suggested sending a weekly email rather than ringing up. This seems to have depersonalised the whole process.