In the fast-paced world of today’s hiring market, speed is often the name of the game. But the adage – “Slow and steady wins the race” – is more truthful and advantageous. Here’s why.  

The practice of pitting several recruiting firms against each other to compete in filling open roles can lead to slowdowns and confusion in your hiring process. When multiple recruiters are involved in a talent search, it becomes a competitive scenario in which the focus shifts from finding qualified top talent to fulfillment speed. It can also wind up costing you as much or more money in the long run.  

Consider this restaurant choice analogy. Let’s say you want filet mignon (prime, top-tier talent), but you’re pressed for time and so a perfectly cooked steak just isn’t in the cards. You know you can’t get what you really want from a quick-service restaurant, but you need speed – so drive-thru it is, and you have myriad choices. At today’s prices, you could probably get the steak you want for a similar tab.  

If you have ever asked yourself, “Should I use more than one recruiter to fill this important role?” – this article is for you.  

When quality matters, partner with one recruiter  

Working with a single, trustworthy talent recruiter keeps the focus on quality over speed. It leads to higher-quality candidates who are more thoroughly vetted and more likely to be highly engaged in your interview process. And the entire interview and hiring process is smoother for you and everyone involved. 

Candidates are higher quality: An exclusive recruiting arrangement motivates the recruiter to invest more time in sourcing top-tier candidates, rather than flooding you with resumes. For example, it is quite common for volume-based recruiters to only engage with “Open to Work” candidates or those with a recently updated resume on Indeed or profile on LinkedIn. These candidates represent those in an active job search and are most readily available – not necessarily those who are most qualified.  

In an exclusive agreement, you’re allowing your recruiter time to prioritize “best fit” over “fast fit.”  

Candidates are more thoroughly vetted: In an exclusive arrangement, where the recruiter isn’t rushed to deliver as many resumes as possible, talent sourcing is more selective and vetting is more thorough. For example, you work together to develop detailed candidate profiles, the most relevant interview screening questions, and comprehensive background and profiling steps. This gives you concierge-level service not available on a competitive first-come, first-served timetable. Such measures effectively shorten your own interview process by proactively combining or eliminating time-consuming steps.  

Further, with one recruiter acting as your representative, you can ensure all candidates are evaluated in an equitable and consistent fashion, ensuring you are comparing apples to apples. 

Candidates are more engaged: With one trusted recruiting partner, you ensure all candidates receive consistent messages about your company culture, values, and work environment, and a polished, high-touch candidate experience. One individual or firm acts as an ambassador for your brand, seamlessly guiding candidates from their previous role to their first day of employment with you. On the contrary, if you have multiple voices speaking on your behalf, your message may become diluted or garbled, and it will be harder to keep track of communicating updates to candidates throughout your hiring process. Too many cooks can definitely spoil the broth. 

Your recruiter is more engaged, too: As I recently shared, a recruiter may be working anywhere from five to 40 or more open roles, or talent requisitions, at any given time. This means your critical role is competing for a fraction of your recruiter’s time. Why isn’t your role as important to your recruiter as it is to you? It’s due to the demands of a recruiter’s many clients, all vying for time and attention. This becomes particularly important if your recruiter currently has other agreements in process, in which case, your high-priority Director of Purchasing role may wind up on the back burner. An exclusive agreement ensures your talent need (and your team, your shareholders, and your peace of mind) gets top priority. 

A smoother process for you: You can assume that the candidates in your interview process are actively looking. Why? Because even if they’re happily working for a competitor down the street, once a recruiter identifies them as having potential for your consideration, there’s now a spark for those candidates to “see what else is out there.”  

If you’re sourcing talent on your own, once you engage with a candidate, it’s important to keep your average contact times to less than 48 hours; otherwise, you’re losing ground to other job opportunities on Indeed, LinkedIn, ZipRecruiter, etc. The more time that passes between your communications and updates with candidates, the more each candidate begins to assume there isn’t any real interest from you. Or, if you have a handful of recruiters with different levels of engagement sending you resumes and requiring constant check-ins, their candidates will check out and you’ll lose out. 

A dedicated recruiter who is invested in making the right placement for you and ensuring a good candidate experience will keep every single candidate engaged and working on their own homework and interview preparation between the steps of your hiring process. This greatly minimizes the time you invest in talent acquisition administration and effectively maintains candidate follow-ups.  

What are the differences in cost?  

Some hiring managers might be thinking, “Wouldn’t it be cheaper for me to just let different recruiters vie for finding and landing their candidate at my organization?” Not necessarily. The wrong hire made in haste can cost up to two times the person’s annual salary to replace.  

When a dedicated recruiter finds a high-quality candidate who stays engaged all the way through your hiring process, you’re far less likely to see turnover in that position. Additionally, if your recruiter knows they are your exclusive talent recruiting partner and guaranteed to make a placement for your open role, there is often greater flexibility with the placement terms.  

And remember, your time is money, too! With your recruiter handling the search and vetting process from start to finish, requiring minimal effort on your part, you’ll make better use of your time in other areas of your role and enjoy a lower-stress, quicker search process than you’ve had in a while! 

The moral of the story  

As told in the story of The Persevering Tortoise and the Pretentious Hare…  

And THE MORAL (lest you miss one) 
Is: There’s often time to spare, 
And that races are (like this one) 
Won not always by a hair. 

Make your next hire a steady and sure process  

If you’d like to learn more about the benefits of retained or exclusive talent recruiting models, partner with a trusted recruiting firm like Goodwin Recruiting. We’ve been providing tailored recruiting solutions to clients in every business vertical for more than 25 years. We’ll listen and talk through your priorities and your options and do all we can to help you find the best talent for your team. 

Reach out to me today.