Dealing with 300 Uber Drivers before Taking a Ride?!

Recently, I sat down with a friend/client over coffee to discuss HR and hiring strategies. Given my background with FindRecruiter, the conversation led to the use of recruitment agencies.

“So Howard, it’d be great if you get all 300 of your recruiters on your platform to help me search for this position” he blatantly stated as he takes a sip in his caramel latte.

Avoiding to sound rude, I knew I had to say it, “the platform would be a failure if I had to get 300 recruiters to work on your job.” I continued with my Americano in one hand, “you wouldn’t take 300 Uber rides to get from Point A to Point B, right?”

“In fact, I’ll get you the top 3 recruiters.” That’s when his eyes lit up as he starts to understand.

Hiring with a recruiter is supposed to be like taking Uber – easy, comfortable, and quick. If you knew you’d had to spend more effort dealing with 300 drivers, you’d probably rather jam yourself into a crowded MTR. Yet, some employers still opt to deal with more agencies and not less.

Competition is good as long as it’s a healthy one so overusing too many agencies will diminish the interests of recruiters thus the quality of their work. The worst-case scenario is good recruiters being demotivated and bad recruiters spamming your inbox with sub-par profiles.

Recruitment is a game where there’s only 1 winner – the recruiter who finds the right candidate. You need your recruiters to know that they all have a good chance to win.

“So how many recruiters should I use?”

“2 -3, that’s the golden range.”

Because you’re only going to choose 2 – 3 recruiters, you must be diligent in selecting the best recruiters because they aren’t all the same. How do you choose better recruiters? Read more here.