In recruitment, the art and aim are the Win/Win/Win. The candidate gets a great new career, the client gets a great new resource to fulfil their requirements, meet their objectives and fill the hole in the business and the recruiter gets paid for the time and effort in locating, matching and qualifying the candidate correctly and artfully to minimise the time and effort of the hiring organisation.

The industry as a whole has a bad reputation for not carrying out the three tenets laid out above. Financial technology recruiters in the city to date seem to take a bunch of “maybe relevant profiles” and throw them at their clients in the vague hope that one of the profiles will be the right one. This does not take the work away from the hiring manager -  usually, the very reason the hiring company pays a recruiter in the first place. Further, this gives the financial recruitment industry a very bad reputation.

With contingent recruiting, the company paying the bills is the client of the recruiter, not the candidate. Finding candidates and helping them decide whether they have the skills required, followed by the time and effort it takes to talk to the candidate and guide them towards the conclusion they are seeking is a free service to the candidate. Candidates should understand that contingent agencies do not work for them, but with them, to help them find the correct career path.

To this end, candidates should be responsive, available, reliable and conscientious. The recruitment company may have up to 500 candidates in the mix at any one time for a variety of roles in a variety of companies. The agency does not have the time nor the desire to chase after candidates that do not fulfil their end of the bargain by being available, presentable and reachable.

Similarly, as we work for our clients, their motivations develop, their requirements change and their original thoughts on the skills they require will morph as they meet more candidates for the position they originally qualified with the recruiter.

It is, therefore, vitally important, that the recruiter and the hiring manager stay in touch on a regular basis as profiles are being submitted, to keep track of any change in direction that may occur as a result of meeting a selection of people with the required skillsets but wildly different characters.

As Sun Tzu said, “no plan survives contact with the enemy”. As such, the original qualification of a role may change in the mind of the hiring manager and the recruiter needs to understand and implement those changes in their search for the appropriate person for the new or additional set of criteria that have appeared.

Hence it is important that the hiring company makes themselves available on a regular basis to confirm the requirements have not changed or communicate the change in requirements and search criteria.

In the middle, the recruitment agent must be fleet of foot, in keeping the plates spinning (candidates warm) and their client’s requirements at the forefront of their minds so that when the sexy horse appears (unicorns don’t exist!) then the consultant can confidently urge that the hiring manager would benefit from an initial discussion with this candidate, then give feedback as to what was both right and wrong about the candidate so that, once again, the recruitment agency can adjust their search criteria to more accurately reflect the evolving thoughts of the hiring manager.

In the win/win/win scenario, we all have a part to play, it is not a passive sport, it is an active, consultative and extremely busy endeavour. Harrington Starr understands this process with its nuance’s and subtleties and prides itself on carrying out every step of this process with confidence, flexibility and professionalism.