“We always work with multiple search firms.  It’s company policy.  We want to make sure we are getting good coverage of the market and don’t miss out on anyone”

A couple weeks ago I had a discussion with a potential client, who could not commit to working with one search firm exclusively.  She thought that by working with multiple search firms they would cast a wider net and therefore get better results.

It is easy to think that by working with multiple recruiters, you’re multiplying the effort, but the reality is you’re actually getting less effort from each one, therefore diluting the search efforts.  Unfortunately, working with multiple firms actually narrows your candidate pool and slows down the hiring process.

As recruiters, when we work on a contingent basis, we don’t get paid unless we fill the job, which basically means we are working for free.

Contingent recruiters typically work between 5 and 15 jobs at any one time.  And because we’re working for free, we need to rank or score our jobs in order of priority, and then spend our time on the searches that are most likely to fill.

If a job on our list has multiple search firms involved, it lowers the likelihood that we will fill the job, so it actually ends up much lower on our list.

All search firms that operate on a non-exclusive contingency basis work the same way.  There may be variations in how they rank their jobs, but typically the more experienced the recruiter, the less likely they are to spend their time on a non-exclusive search.

Are you a hiring manager?  Have you tried working with recruiters on a non-exclusive basis?  How did it work out?  Are you a recruiter?  What’s your opinion on exclusive / non-exclusive searches?  Please let me know in the comments.

Posted on LinkedIn October 17, 2023  https://www.linkedin.com/posts/tompauls_we-always-work-with-multiple-search-firms-activity-7120021852617408512-i27w?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop