LACK OF PHONE courtesy, crude marketing techniques, high consultant turnover and going direct to line managers who mightn’t know about recruitment budgets are some of HR’s pet hates when it comes to dealing with recruitment firms. Equally annoying for recruiters is when HR practitioners don’t return phone calls and e-mails, assume all agencies are the same, delay in reading resumés or putting off an interview or change the details of a job without telling the recruitment firm
LACK OF PHONE courtesy, crude marketing techniques, high consultant turnover and going direct to line managers who mightn’t know about recruitment budgets are some of HR’s pet hates when it comes to dealing with recruitment firms.
Equally annoying for recruiters is when HR practitioners don’t return phone calls and e-mails, assume all agencies are the same, delay in reading resumés or putting off an interview or change the details of a job without telling the recruitment firm.
These are the findings of a recent poll conducted by Suzanne Kallenbach, national HR manager of building products company Lincoln Sentry.
Presenting her findings of interviews with 30 recruiters and 30 HR managers at the RCSA international conference, she said HR managers were receiving up to 12 cold calls per week from recruitment consultants – many of whom wasted their time with little or no training in telephone marketing techniques.
“It’s almost as if recruiters are after a date and HR managers are looking for a marriage,” said Kallenbach, using personal relationships as a metaphor for relationships (or lack of) between HR manager and recruiters.
“Cold calling from recruiters is a big turn-off. It’s like ringing someone for a first date without actually having met the person.”
Kallenbach also explained how a HR manager prioritises their day, dealing with anything to do with “blood, breathing or barristers” first, followed by “tears, tantrums and terminations” and then “payroll, problems and promises”.
Dealing with recruiters – especially unknown consultants – are prioritised much lower than dealing with internal workplace issues, she said.
Kallenbach also warned about the dangers of high staff turnover and poor handover of accounts among recruiters, which often left new recruiters in the dark about the HR manager and their needs.
She said the HR managers in her poll were more interested in developing a good working relationship with a consultant, and that employers’ allegiances were generally with the consultant rather than their firm.
“We’ll follow the consultant, not the company,” she said.
Top ten irritating things that recruiters do
1. Not asking if it’s an inconvenient time to call, and then not respecting the answer if it’s an inconvenient time.
2. Cold calling and asking for an appointment if you don’t already know each other.
3. Not having a point of difference from other recruiters.
4. Lack of internal communication, especially if the HR manager has built a solid relationship with a particular person in the recruitment company.
5. Staff turnover and poor handover of the account, so that the new recruiter knows nothing about the HR manager and their needs.
6. Not accepting or respecting the HR manager’s assistant.
7. Poorly prepared applicants and poor reference checking.
8. Going directly to line managers, who may not have any idea of the available recruitment budget.
9. Inconsistency between state offices of national recruitment agencies.
10. Not listening or padding bad news.
