By Priscilla Poirier, Toronto IT Recruiter Are you thinking about working with a recruiter? Many hiring companies and job candidates consider it daily. We all know that working with a recruiter is extremely beneficial for job…
“What’s your greatest weakness?”
“Where do you see yourself in 5 years?”
Watch Marketing Recruiter Catherine Lund explain her tips on smart answers to 4 tough interview questions.
IQ PARTNERS would like you to get to know some of our recruiters. Each month we ask one of them the same 10 questions about their lives, the headhunting business, and what you should know as a job seeker or hiring manager. This month, meet Toronto Recruiter Steven Petroff.
Counter offers are a candidate’s current employer’s effort to keep them – some offer, raise, or perk that might entice them to stay after they’ve already accepted a new job at another company. As headhunters we see this all too often, and unfortunately, it is usually the best, most senior candidates that are the most likely to be presented with a counter offer. Here are our 3 best tips companies can use to avoid losing their best candidates to counter offers.
As headhunters we know that switching jobs is a big deal in someone’s life. After all, most of us spend the majority of our waking hours at work. That’s why we do our best to ensure our candidates are taking the right next step for their careers before we place them. Are you considering changing jobs? Ask yourself these questions first.
Currently there are no barriers to entry whatsoever in the recruitment industry, so while I don’t want to add a layer of complexity, I think there certain criteria (mostly around business ethics) that should be built in, that just aren’t there right now.
Listen more, talk less. There are many times when I have witnessed this business becoming more about the recruiter and their needs and less about the candidate and what’s best for them. More recruiters should listen to their candidates and, instead of just trying to make submissions, try to understand what they’re really looking for. If submitting them for a job takes too much convincing, it’s probably not the right role for them!
As far as agency recruiting goes, there are way too many “fly by night” shops that give our industry a terrible reputation. I have worked with countless recruiters over the years, many of which are phenomenal, and many others – not so much. Too many are focused on their commission instead of the human beings they are trying to help match up.
There’s a story about Pablo Picasso that speaks well to the enormous time investment that recruiters make (to know the candidate market, to really understand the industry we serve) well in advance of actually being engaged in a search. It goes; a woman sees Pablo Picasso sitting on a park bench, idly sketching. She approaches and asks for sketch. He says yes, does it and as he hands it to her says “that will be $5000.” The woman is outraged and says “that only took you 15 minutes!” to which Picasso replies, “No Madam, that took me 40 years.”
