{"id":4565,"date":"2014-03-18T09:12:36","date_gmt":"2014-03-18T16:12:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/recruitloop.wpengine.com\/?p=4565"},"modified":"2023-05-15T10:49:58","modified_gmt":"2023-05-15T17:49:58","slug":"how-to-un-break-recruiting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.zippia.com\/employer\/how-to-un-break-recruiting\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Un-Break Recruiting"},"content":{"rendered":"

I still remember the first time I hired through a traditional recruiter. I was at a law firm. We were sitting in a room and discussing salary, benefits, what I was looking for in a candidate, and what the recruiter would be doing. Then the recruiter said, \u201cOur standard is to charge 22% of the salary, but we\u2019ll knock it down to 20% for you guys.\u201d<\/p>\n

I thought I\u2019d mis-heard.<\/p>\n

But I hadn\u2019t. I remember thinking, \u201cOkay, so this recruiter is going to find a few candidates and send their resum\u00e9s to me to review. And then I have to interview them. And I\u2019ll check the references personally. And I\u2019ll construct the offer. So I\u2019m just paying $XX,000 for this person to be a resum\u00e9 hose? I\u2019m in the wrong line of work!\u201d<\/p>\n

Now, of course, I realize that sometimes recruiters do much more than that. But at the time, I was a bit taken aback. It felt like \u2013 no, it WAS a lot of money for an opaque process that they wouldn\u2019t explain.<\/p>\n

From an hourly perspective, it seemed like we were going to be paying the recruiter far, far more than our most senior partners charged. And, unlike our senior partners, this recruiter didn\u2019t have a graduate degree and 20+ years of experience. Also, unlike our senior partners, the recruiter didn\u2019t have to provide me with an itemized bill describing everything that he did and how long it took to do it.<\/p>\n

We justified paying that recruiter (and countless others) exorbitant fees because we didn\u2019t have time to do it ourselves. I worked at other companies where we had to make the opposite trade \u2013 we put in egregious numbers of hours because we couldn\u2019t afford exorbitant fees.<\/p>\n

Does this feel broken to anyone else?<\/p>\n

Un-Breaking Recruiting<\/h2>\n

I don\u2019t think of this as \u201cfixing\u201d recruiting \u2013 I don\u2019t want to patch it. I just want to make the darn thing work! So I\u2019m calling it un-breaking recruiting.\u00a0 And here\u2019s what I think we need:<\/p>\n

1. Transparency<\/h3>\n

If I don\u2019t know what a recruiter is doing, how do I know that I\u2019m getting what I\u2019m paying for? Maybe the recruiter is doing a crap-ton of work and their hourly rate isn\u2019t actually all that good once we do the math. Or maybe the recruiter is making over $1K\/hour. Which seems high, but maybe it\u2019s worth it?<\/p>\n

Or maybe it\u2019s not. I have no idea, because, as a hiring manager, all I see is a stream of resum\u00e9s or candidates as opposed to documented time.<\/p>\n

2. Consistency<\/h3>\n

Most professionals have to meet certain bars, but I feel like my Great Aunt Sally could call herself a recruiter tomorrow. Conversely, I know recruiters who are real superstars and who (if I could afford them) would do all my recruiting for me forever and always. Sadly, there\u2019s no way to know which one you\u2019re talking to, since there\u2019s no grading mechanism or consistency in the industry.<\/p>\n

3. Choice<\/h3>\n

Each time I worked with a recruiter, they<\/b> told me<\/b> what they would do and what I would do. I\u2019d have to fight with them if I wanted to see more resum\u00e9s, or I would have to beg them to do more filtering if I wanted to see fewer. They would get angry if I worked with other agencies or on my own, and I ended up feeling boxed in.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t like feeling boxed in.<\/p>\n

4. Cost<\/h3>\n

Holy crap, using recruiters is expensive. So expensive it puts getting expert help out of reach of many small businesses and startups. So expensive that I had to choose between new servers and new people. That\u2019s an awful, painful choice.<\/p>\n

So, to un-break recruiting, we need to increase transparency, be able to figure out consistency, be able to choose what help we get from recruiters, and make it more cost-effective.<\/p>\n

We Started Calling It Elastic Recruiting<\/a><\/h2>\n

I have a little confession to make \u2013 I used to work at Amazon Web Services (AWS). The coolest thing about AWS is that, with elastic computing, companies use only the computing power they need when they need it, and then they pay for what they used. \u00a0When I got to RecruitLoop, I realized that we do the same thing \u2013 companies use only the recruiting \u201cpower\u201d they need when they need it, and then they pay for what they used. So we started calling it Elastic Recruiting.<\/p>\n

What is Elastic Recruiting?<\/b><\/a> It\u2019s getting an expert recruiter who bills by the hour, gives you the help you want\/need, and tells you everything that he or she is doing.<\/p>\n

Apparently, I have two little confessions to make \u2013 Elastic Recruiting goes a long way towards un-breaking recruiting, but I don\u2019t think we\u2019re completely there yet. So part of the reason I\u2019m posting this is to find out what else we need to do to un-break things.<\/p>\n

In a bit more detail, here\u2019s how Elastic Recruiting un-breaks recruiting:<\/p>\n

1. Transparency<\/h3>\n

We push our recruiters to be completely transparent. They document their hours and what they do with their time just like lawyers do. You see what we\u2019re doing, and you can always have communication with your recruiter.<\/p>\n

2. Consistency<\/h3>\n

We\u2019re a bit fascist with our recruiter marketplace. We reject 7 recruiters for every one that makes it to our platform. We hold recruiters to a high \u201ctwo strikes you\u2019re out\u201d policy. We\u2019re super careful to match roles with recruiters who have done that work before. We\u2019re trying our hardest to get consistent, excellent results from our recruiters.<\/p>\n

3. Choice<\/h3>\n

This is where the \u201celastic\u201d part really comes in. We have clients who can\u2019t afford much, so they only pay for their recruiter to do a couple of things (usually sourcing or screening). We have other clients who have our recruiters help them with absolutely everything. We encourage clients (and recruiters) to stop projects at any time. We\u2019re stretching for truly flexible recruiting. (Sorry \u2013 had to get a bad pun in there somewhere!)<\/p>\n

4. Cost<\/h3>\n

Our recruiters set their own rates, but I have yet to see any rates near what a senior partner at a law firm charges! (Heck, I have yet to see many that are even as high as my personal independent consulting rate of $190\/hour.) I\u2019m consistently amazed at how much clients save with hourly billing, and it has put recruitment help in the hands of a lot of companies that couldn\u2019t afford it before.<\/p>\n

We don\u2019t yet have all of this 100% right at RecruitLoop. But we\u2019re trying, and we have a slew of amazing recruiters who have bought into the concept of Elastic Recruiting. I\u2019m six months in, and I\u2019m pretty happy with how we\u2019re doing.<\/p>\n

What do you think? What more can we do? What have we missed? I seriously want to know. Comment below, Tweet me, send me smoke signals \u2013 what else can we fix?<\/p>\n

Image courtesy of Sam Howzit.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At some of my companies we justified paying recruiters exorbitant fees because we didn\u2019t have time to do it ourselves. I worked at other companies where we had to make the opposite trade \u2013 we put in egregious numbers of hours because we couldn\u2019t afford exorbitant fees.<\/p>\n

Does this feel broken to anyone else?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[73],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\nHow to Un-Break Recruiting<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"What is Elastic Recruiting? It\u2019s getting an expert recruiter who bills by the hour, gives you the help you want\/need, & tells you everything that he\/she is doing.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.zippia.com\/employer\/how-to-un-break-recruiting\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"How to Un-Break Recruiting\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"What is Elastic Recruiting? It\u2019s getting an expert recruiter who bills by the hour, gives you the help you want\/need, & tells you everything that he\/she is doing.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.zippia.com\/employer\/how-to-un-break-recruiting\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Zippia For Employers\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/Zippia\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2014-03-18T16:12:36+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2023-05-15T17:49:58+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Jenn Steele\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@ZippiaInc\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@ZippiaInc\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Jenn Steele\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"6 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.zippia.com\/employer\/how-to-un-break-recruiting\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.zippia.com\/employer\/how-to-un-break-recruiting\/\",\"name\":\"How to Un-Break Recruiting\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.zippia.com\/employer\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2014-03-18T16:12:36+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2023-05-15T17:49:58+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.zippia.com\/employer\/#\/schema\/person\/08314e2cf14b589a12bb79c51e244414\"},\"description\":\"What is Elastic Recruiting? It\u2019s getting an expert recruiter who bills by the hour, gives you the help you want\/need, & tells you everything that he\/she is doing.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.zippia.com\/employer\/how-to-un-break-recruiting\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.zippia.com\/employer\/how-to-un-break-recruiting\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.zippia.com\/employer\/how-to-un-break-recruiting\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.zippia.com\/employer\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"How to Un-Break Recruiting\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.zippia.com\/employer\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.zippia.com\/employer\/\",\"name\":\"Zippia For Employers\",\"description\":\"How to find the best employees.\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.zippia.com\/employer\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.zippia.com\/employer\/#\/schema\/person\/08314e2cf14b589a12bb79c51e244414\",\"name\":\"Jenn Steele\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.zippia.com\/employer\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/3e5ab6aee56e035953065cc1aee56054?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/3e5ab6aee56e035953065cc1aee56054?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Jenn Steele\"},\"description\":\"Jen Steele is a dynamic, results-driven leader with over two decades of experience in the technology and marketing industries. As the CEO of KissMetrics, Jen is responsible for driving the company's strategic direction, growth, and overall success.\",\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/jennsteele\/\"],\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.zippia.com\/employer\/author\/jenn-steele\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"How to Un-Break Recruiting","description":"What is Elastic Recruiting? It\u2019s getting an expert recruiter who bills by the hour, gives you the help you want\/need, & tells you everything that he\/she is doing.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.zippia.com\/employer\/how-to-un-break-recruiting\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"How to Un-Break Recruiting","og_description":"What is Elastic Recruiting? It\u2019s getting an expert recruiter who bills by the hour, gives you the help you want\/need, & tells you everything that he\/she is doing.","og_url":"https:\/\/www.zippia.com\/employer\/how-to-un-break-recruiting\/","og_site_name":"Zippia For Employers","article_publisher":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/Zippia\/","article_published_time":"2014-03-18T16:12:36+00:00","article_modified_time":"2023-05-15T17:49:58+00:00","author":"Jenn Steele","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@ZippiaInc","twitter_site":"@ZippiaInc","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Jenn Steele","Est. reading time":"6 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.zippia.com\/employer\/how-to-un-break-recruiting\/","url":"https:\/\/www.zippia.com\/employer\/how-to-un-break-recruiting\/","name":"How to Un-Break Recruiting","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.zippia.com\/employer\/#website"},"datePublished":"2014-03-18T16:12:36+00:00","dateModified":"2023-05-15T17:49:58+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.zippia.com\/employer\/#\/schema\/person\/08314e2cf14b589a12bb79c51e244414"},"description":"What is Elastic Recruiting? It\u2019s getting an expert recruiter who bills by the hour, gives you the help you want\/need, & tells you everything that he\/she is doing.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.zippia.com\/employer\/how-to-un-break-recruiting\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.zippia.com\/employer\/how-to-un-break-recruiting\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.zippia.com\/employer\/how-to-un-break-recruiting\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.zippia.com\/employer\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"How to Un-Break Recruiting"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.zippia.com\/employer\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.zippia.com\/employer\/","name":"Zippia For Employers","description":"How to find the best employees.","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.zippia.com\/employer\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.zippia.com\/employer\/#\/schema\/person\/08314e2cf14b589a12bb79c51e244414","name":"Jenn Steele","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.zippia.com\/employer\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/3e5ab6aee56e035953065cc1aee56054?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/3e5ab6aee56e035953065cc1aee56054?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Jenn Steele"},"description":"Jen Steele is a dynamic, results-driven leader with over two decades of experience in the technology and marketing industries. As the CEO of KissMetrics, Jen is responsible for driving the company's strategic direction, growth, and overall success.","sameAs":["https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/jennsteele\/"],"url":"https:\/\/www.zippia.com\/employer\/author\/jenn-steele\/"}]}},"articleguide":"","showTableContent":"","showFeaturedImage":"","pageCategoryL2":"","authorsExperts":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zippia.com\/employer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4565"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zippia.com\/employer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zippia.com\/employer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zippia.com\/employer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zippia.com\/employer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4565"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.zippia.com\/employer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4565\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zippia.com\/employer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4565"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zippia.com\/employer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4565"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zippia.com\/employer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4565"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}