Hiring Leaders: Should You Engage an External Recruiter for Your Search?

Recruitment Strategy

Hiring the right person, or the wrong one, can have a huge impact on your business. Competition for good talent is still at an all-time high, and the longer a position sits vacant, the more your business and employee morale can suffer.

So what options do leaders have to speed up hiring? Referrals, your internal team, and an external recruiter are the strongest levers. A good external recruiter can find the right match in a much shorter timeframe than going it alone, which ultimately saves both time and money.

If you’re engaging more than one recruiter for a search, there’s a good chance you aren’t getting the best out of any of them. Recruiters put in far more time and effort when they know their work is likely to be compensated, would you want to spend hours on something with only a small chance of getting paid? Engaging one recruiter exclusively often comes with a discounted fee too, and it’s genuinely less work for you than managing multiple relationships.

What are the benefits of working with a recruiter

• Access to passive candidates. LinkedIn research found 70% of job seekers are passive, not actively applying, but open to hearing about the right opportunity. Recruiters specialize in reaching them.
• Works alongside your own team. For contingent searches, you pay nothing unless you hire their candidate, so there’s little downside to running an external search alongside your internal one.
• Offers guidance and counsel. Recruiters do this every day. They can tell you if your salary expectations are unrealistic or if your timeline is too tight.
• Can run confidential searches. A search that can’t be posted or advertised needs a recruiter who knows how to handle it with care.
• Has tools you probably don’t. LinkedIn Recruiter, Indeed resume search, and other specialized tools are expensive and rarely worth it if hiring isn’t your full-time job.
• Is well-networked. A respected recruiter knows people who know people, and many offer referral fees to candidates who recommend someone for an opening.
• Frees you up to do your own job. Recruiting takes real time. Outsourcing it protects your time, and that’s real savings for the company.

How to choose a recruiter

• How much experience do they have? A new recruiter can succeed, but experience brings a level of assurance that’s hard to replace.
• Are they specialized? It’s hard to be all things to all people. Recruiters focused on a niche tend to know it deeply and aren’t spread thin.
• Can you trust them to follow through? A good recruiter doesn’t overpromise. If they say they’ll do something, they do it, or they tell you why they can’t, on time.
• Are they well-networked? Knowing people is really the core of the job.
• Do they listen to your needs? It’ll show clearly in the candidates they present.

When to engage a recruiter

• A role that was hard to fill last time. Engage as soon as you know you’ll have the need again, sometimes weeks or months before the position opens.
• Confidential searches. These can’t be posted or advertised, and an external recruiter is well practiced at handling them.
• Business-critical or income-producing roles. Worth adding an external recruiter alongside your internal resources.
• When a vacancy is straining your current team. The longer it sits open, the more it costs you in morale.
• For every opening. Many hiring leaders find it’s worth engaging a recruiter on everything, especially since contingent searches cost nothing unless you hire their candidate.

What should you expect

• Only vetted, qualified candidates. A good recruiter isn’t a resume service throwing candidates at you to see what sticks, and they’ll flag it upfront if someone’s outside your salary range.
• A consultant, not just a source. They might suggest going back to HR for a higher salary, or dropping a requirement that doesn’t match the salary on offer. Take advantage of that advice.
• Clear expectations. You should know roughly when to expect candidates. Vetting takes time, and passive candidates especially may need time before they can even discuss the role.

What your recruiter needs from you

• Feedback on why you pass on a candidate. It helps them stop sending resumes that wouldn’t interest you, a little time now saves a lot of time later.
• More than a job description. Why is the role open? Why didn’t the last person work out? What’s truly required versus a nice-to-have? What personalities thrive in your business? The more context, the narrower and better the search.
• Selling points for the role. Standout benefits, growth opportunities, anything that helps them sell the opportunity well in a still-competitive market for good people.
• Openness about company culture. What’s the team like? Do you promote from within? If your recruiter asks to visit your office, take them up on it, even before you have an active search, so they’re ready the moment you do.
• Communication. Don’t sit on candidates they present. Keeping a candidate warm takes real effort, and repeated “no feedback yet” messages wear thin fast.

A partnership, not a transaction

A recruiter is a partner, and the partnership only works if both sides stay actively engaged. Only work with recruiters you trust and whose opinion you value, and consider an exclusive arrangement. The more information and feedback you give them, the better the results. Happy hiring!

I specialize in Finance/Accounting recruiting in Atlanta and the surrounding areas. Feel free to reach out anytime if you need help with a search, smarr@argpeople.com or linkedin.com/in/shanamarr.