In your organisation, if you often hear your hiring manager complain that they feel like their external recruiter just ‘whipped a few resumes off a database', we would hazard a guess that you are entering into a 'contingent recruitment' or 'multi listed' relationship with your recruiters of choice.
It's fair to say that contingent recruitment has been around for a while. Sadly, despite its vintage, 'contingent recruitment' provides less than ideal outcomes for both the customer and the recruiter.
This is why most high-quality recruitment firms have moved away from offering it as a service.
What does Contingent or Multi-listed Recruitment mean?
Its a scenario where you:
- brief multiple recruitment agencies on your requirement
- give them a crappy deadline
- and then race them against each other
- and only pay the one who provides you with the candidate you hire
Sounds good, right? Nope, it’s a stupid move. Here is why:
Let’s draw back the curtain and spotlight what really happens when you list your recruitment project on a contingent basis with multiple recruiters.
First, that contingent recruiter will open their database and pop up a quickly written advertisement for your recruitment project. They'll pull a few quickly chosen resumes off their database.
They will work on your project, but it is not the only project that they are working on. More often than not, contingent recruiters are working on 5-15 recruitment projects at any one time.
If that is the case, how on earth can your urgent and important requirement get the lion's share of their time and attention?
Recruiters who take on contingent work are not in an exclusive relationship with you. This means they are also working on 5-15 contingent recruitment projects for other people.
So how do you get high performing recruiters to work 'exclusively' on your urgent recruitment project?
Recruitment (talent acquisition) is one of the top priorities for every CEO right now because getting the right talent on your team determines if your organisation will be a phenomenon or a flop.
Recruitment and talent acquisition is a professional service. So, just like you wouldn’t brief three accountants to do your tax return and then give them a crappy deadline to do it by, you shouldn’t multi-list or list your role on a contingent basis with a recruiter – it doesn’t generate quality results.
Instead, ensure your recruitment project gets all of your recruiters attention and expertise by asking them for an 'exclusivity' arrangement
When they are exclusively focusing on your recruitment project they will evaluate more candidates against your role and develop a much higher quality shortlist for you, and you’ll end up with a much higher quality new team member, reducing stress, increasing productivity.
Don’t hire wrong; it causes so much anguish and pain. It creates significant drag, decreases productivity and can even affect the retention of your other staff.
To be guaranteed a higher level of service and to access better talent, opt for exclusive or retained arrangements with your recruiters and avoid contingent and multi-listed recruitment arrangements at all costs. You deserve amazing service and amazing outcomes.
