Acknowledge You are a Recruiter?

Everyone in the agency recruiting and headhunting business knows how difficult it is to source high quality candidates from job postings, but is how they go about posting jobs part of the problem? Think about a job posting from the perspective of a job seeker. First off, nobody is really happy about needing a job so the tendency will be for job seekers to be a little irritated with the whole process. If a person has been job seeking for any length of time, they have probably blasted off a resume or two in response to an agency recruiter or headhunter's job posting, which of course they were an absolute perfect fit for, in their mind. What happens is that the job seeker never hears back and they get even more irritated. The tendency would be in the future to forget about applying to a recruiter's job posting because they're not real confident that the job is real or that anything will come from it.

The bigger problem is that if a really valuable candidate, who knows exactly that they are, decides to run a job search or stumbles across a job posting, they will be much less likely to apply for a position if they know it is a recruiter. You don't buy it? That's okay, you don't have to, but I am telling you now that many people will avoid recruiters if at all possible, especially the job seeker that can easily get a new job anywhere he or she chooses because their skills and experience are in high demand. You know the type. They would just as soon be their own recruiter and deal with companies directly if possible. I know, their loss.

After many job posting experiments over many years, I find the only way to possibly get a quality job seeker to apply to a recruiter's job posting is to not broadcast that you are a recruiter. Yes, there are excellent reasons for certain job seekers to work through a recruiter, but my suggestion is to get the resume first and sell your features and benefits later. I often see job postings starting out with, our client...blah blah blah. Actually, many job seekers appreciate you doing this so they can quickly hit the back button.

If job postings are what you have arrived at as to how you are going to recruit for employers, who as you know are usually posting the same job, you should hide the fact that you are a recruiter. Skip the big fancy signature and everything else that may indicate you are a recruiter. In fact, if you are considering starting a recruiting business or going out on your own, you should strongly consider a business name that says nothing along the lines of you being a recruiter. Also, if you are going to go it alone and use job postings for the primary way you attract candidates, you may want to consider something else, a different career.