Why You're Dead Wrong About Staffing Agency Recruiters: 5 Myths Busted!

In the employment world, staffing agencies and their recruiters get a bad rap. Partially due to media portrayal and resume farms masquerading as staffing firms, real recruiters who can?help you hire and find a job faster?get cast aside without second thought.

Those in the know, understand how beneficial having a recruiter in their corner can be.?Is someone else doing the hiring/job search legwork for me? Yes, please!

For everyone else, those preconceived opinions on what a recruiter is and what they do might actually be hurting their job search or ability to hire effectively.

Let’s break down the top 5 myths of staffing agency recruiters:

Myth: We Only Care About Filling Positions

REALITY: WE WANT OUR CANDIDATES AND OUR CLIENTS TO WIN PROFESSIONALLY.

Some people may think that recruiters just want to get a fast-fill on a job, and while that may be true for some staffing agencies, the majority of recruiters get into the field because they want to help job seekers find their dream job.

As a business, a lot of our money comes from returning customers and referrals. To put someone in a position with no regard for how successful they will be won’t make us money in the long run.

Successful placements need to be successful for both businesses and job seekers, too. To do this, it’s important for us to understand what the company is seeking and to know what the candidate is looking for from their next job as well.

Myth: Recruiters Make the Final Hiring Decision

REALITY: WE DO NOT CONTROL THE HIRING PROCESS.

Over the years, the sentiment, “Staffing agencies can help you get a job” has transformed into, “Staffing agencies get you hired”, and for some this has come to mean that staffing agencies are the ones making the final hiring decision.

While staffing agency recruiters act as an extension of a company through finding applicants, conducting interviews, and even passing along the information of a hiring decision, we are not the ones making that offer. The one exception is if a company is using?an RPO model,?but that’s a blog for another day.

Believe us, we want you to get answers from the other side as swiftly as possible, but sometimes, we’re simply at the mercy of Murphy’s Law. As a liaison, we can do our best to advocate and push the process along as quickly as possible, but ultimately, we are not the ones giving the green (or red) lights.

Myth: Recruiters Simply Scrape Job Boards To Find Talent; I Can Do That, Too (And Have the Same Results)

REALITY: WE LOOK FOR TALENT EVERYWHERE.

A lot of professionals and businesses will dismiss working with a third-party recruiter because they think that what we do is nothing they can’t do on their own. (Go on a job board and put some search terms into a search box and find candidates/opportunities).

But here’s the thing: A lot of our success relies on getting in front of top performers first. Ironically, it is because that’s what everyone is doing that we need to do a whole lot more to find talent.

Now, while I can’t give away Bridge’s “secret sauce”, what I can say is that it’s always in job seekers’ and employers’ best interests to explore every option out there.

Myth: Staffing Agencies Blindly Send Resumes Over to Clients

REALITY: WE. READ. EVERY. APPLICATION.

This myth in particular really gets to me. Again, we wouldn’t be a profitable company if our requirement for filling a position was simply:

?Warm body.

?Pulse.

My goal is to get to know YOU and your professional goals before I even think about you in the context of the openings I have. If you’re a hiring leader, the same applies for your open positions.

When?I do decide I have a good match, I need to be able to speak intelligently about your experience, skills, and why you are the best fit. I can’t do that if I’m just throwing resumes at a wall and hoping for the best.

Interviewing and having open communication on both ends is crucial. I need to be able to tell my clients why you are the best fit --and explain that in detail. Without a proper conversation and interview beforehand, I can’t do that.

Myth: Recruiters Don’t Care

REALITY: WE DO CARE. A LOT. WE ARE CONSTANTLY LEARNING AND TRYING TO BE THE BEST WE CAN BE IN THE INDUSTRY.

Even the best recruiters are still human. There may be times that an interview process does not go according to plan, a position takes longer to fill than expected, or a candidate does not decide to move forward with a position. It’s not ideal, of course, but things happen.

We do our best to learn from these experiences and make changes to safeguard against similar things from happening in the future. Our goal is always to make the process of working with a recruiter as frustration-free as possible for job seekers and clients alike.