Avoiding the URGENT Recruiter

Avoiding the ‘chasing’ Recruiter

I’ve written this brief article, not to defend over eager recruitment consultants, or to place blame on allusive clients, but to hopefully shed some light on how the dreaded ‘urgent’ word can bring an otherwise successful recruitment relationship crashing to the ground. 

Understanding ‘Urgent’

It’s estimated we spend around 80% of our working lives living in ‘the urgent’. Urgent is shorter term, exciting and gives us a sense of achievement when we have ‘cleared my desk of anything urgent for this week’. The Friday night drink with colleagues is all the sweater when we deem to have completed the urgent tasks, but is our ‘urgent’ doing more harm than good to our long-term relationships with clients?

Urgent means many different things too many different people, however, I feel it’s important to understand the meaning to a recruitment consultant when tacked onto the end of a job spec call. Urgent is the opportunity to turn a bad week into a good week, to turn a good week into a great week, a great week into a legendary week…you get the picture. Urgent presents the opportunity to do deliver on the promise you‘ve been making to your client for the last 6 months, the chance to demonstrate your knowledge and skills and to open to door for repeat business by delivering the best candidate. Urgent is the opportunity to demonstrate your worth to a client, an opportunity that doesn’t arise daily in the recruitment industry.

Baring this in mind I feel it’s vital for clients to understand the differences between what their chosen consultant considers urgent and they consider urgent themselves. Recruitment makes up the majority of a consultants job, but only a small part of the clients with a gap evident for all to see.

Controlling the ‘Urgent’ Recruiter

The urgent recruiter, once understood can be a real asset to a client. They’re the person likely to dig you out of a sticky situation on a Friday afternoon with your clients when you need someone for Monday morning. The urgent recruiter is likely to stay late to find you the right person and work all weekend to deliver quickly, and usually to a reasonable standard.

Unfortunately, the urgent recruiter is also you’re the thorn in your side, chasing several times a day for updates, calling for feedback on CVs 2 minutes after being sent, chasing interview feedback seconds after the interview.

However, this can be easily harmonised by removal of ‘urgent’ and simply agree on timeframes to suit all parties. My advice for clients; be clear on what you consider urgent timeframes for each action. Recruiters; try and remember that your version of urgent doesn’t always align with your clients.

Hopefully, by attempting to understand the environment we work in we will be able to maximise and improve the relationship between clients and recruiters. I hope you found this brief in-site of interest and I welcome anyone’s thoughts.