What we decide

Recruitment – What do we decide?

Firstly, I’m not writing this as a pity party for recruiters in some woe is me way in order to try and generate sympathy from people who don’t work in recruitment. I just wanted to tell the story from our side, how we do not control the decisions that are made when it comes to the hiring (and firing) of a candidate.

Secondly, people are not carbon copies of each other everyone is different, we come in different shapes and sizes and we have different thoughts, feelings and opinions, there is no brochure that categorises people (thank goodness). This is one of the best things about working in recruitment, we get to speak to so many different people, we learn something new every day and I honestly think speaking to different people is the best part of my job. It is because we work with so many different people that I enjoy coming to work every day, recruitment would be very boring if all candidates and clients were the same.

Now comes the most infuriating thing as a recruiter – we do not decide who gets hired. Yes, we speak to candidates and get a short list together, admittedly we do think who we think will be the best fit for a role, but we do not do the hiring and firing. The client’s choice is always final – believe me, it would make my job a lot easier if I could place every role I am working on – that’s the recruiters dream, but it isn’t reality.

We also always try and obtain feedback for unsuccessful applicants, but I would never dream of making feedback up or giving incorrect feedback. This unfortunately means that sometimes we can not provide every candidate with feedback as much as we would like to! Feedback is important to us as well, it is useful to know how someone interviews or how they have scored on a technical test so we can help a candidate secure the next role we put them forward for, but often feedback is not given and therefore we simply can’t provide any.

Ultimately as hard as a recruiter tries and as invested as they are in the placement, at the end of the day it is the client’s choice as to whether they take a candidate. We see it time and again that a client decides to take a different candidate for a number of different factors, and as recruiters we have to respect a firm know what they want and ultimately who is the best fit.

If it was up to us as a recruiter, we would of course place every candidate we work with, as everyone is quick to comment recruiters like to make money, and placing candidates is the only way we do this! So please let me re-assure you that we want to find you your dream role. I just want to leave you with a quick thought, recruiters do not make any money until a candidate has successfully started a role. We do not bill by the hour, we don’t charge per email or charge for our time, so believe me when I say we really do want to help every candidate find a position, at the end of the day finding you a role is all we try to achieve.