> You are in no position whatsoever to make determination as to what incentives drive the recruiter's business.
My god, how patronising.
My view on his comes from speaking to several hundred recruiters and owners of recruitment agencies as part of research for a product targeted at those businesses.
I also have close friends who worked or have worked in that industry and we have had very frank conversations about what their incentives are.
Maybe they all lied to me, but none of them wanted to put anybody forward for an interview who would make them look incompetent.
Their ideal flow for a deal was as follows:
- Receive brief from client.
- Find about 3 good candidates and get them booked for interviews. Could be more or less, depending on the role.
- Interviews take place and the client considers all candidates to be at least somewhat suitable, but decides to pull the trigger on one of them.
- The recruiter manages the candidate's salary expectations within a range based on their experience of placing other people in similar positions so that the deal gets done. Generally this means that they will try to get it closed within one or at most two offer-counteroffer loops. That may mean disabusing candidates of unrealistic salary expectations. It may also mean convincing clients to increase the previously agreed salary range to accommodate a candidate who is significantly more attractive than the average.
- The recruiter receives a placement fee equivalent to a percentage of yearly salary in most cases.
This does not mean that individual recruiters or agencies may not have other incentives. I know that sometimes interviews of external candidates are a procedural requirement and are conducted just for show so that a preferred internal candidate may be offered the position.
But in general, I am quite sure that the above is a reasonably accurate account of what the usual incentives are.
My god, how patronising.
My view on his comes from speaking to several hundred recruiters and owners of recruitment agencies as part of research for a product targeted at those businesses.
I also have close friends who worked or have worked in that industry and we have had very frank conversations about what their incentives are.
Maybe they all lied to me, but none of them wanted to put anybody forward for an interview who would make them look incompetent.
Their ideal flow for a deal was as follows:
- Receive brief from client.
- Find about 3 good candidates and get them booked for interviews. Could be more or less, depending on the role.
- Interviews take place and the client considers all candidates to be at least somewhat suitable, but decides to pull the trigger on one of them.
- The recruiter manages the candidate's salary expectations within a range based on their experience of placing other people in similar positions so that the deal gets done. Generally this means that they will try to get it closed within one or at most two offer-counteroffer loops. That may mean disabusing candidates of unrealistic salary expectations. It may also mean convincing clients to increase the previously agreed salary range to accommodate a candidate who is significantly more attractive than the average.
- The recruiter receives a placement fee equivalent to a percentage of yearly salary in most cases.
This does not mean that individual recruiters or agencies may not have other incentives. I know that sometimes interviews of external candidates are a procedural requirement and are conducted just for show so that a preferred internal candidate may be offered the position.
But in general, I am quite sure that the above is a reasonably accurate account of what the usual incentives are.