- As selective as you are? Of course, you need your recruiter to target a wider audience than you have been able to reach. Make sure they're producing more candidates by targeting more competing organizations and other sources of talent than you were, rather than by lowering your standards for new recruits.
- Committed to your success? Actions speak louder than words. You'll know your recruiter is committed to your success if you're seeing immediate results, if a single someone is clearly accountable for seeing the assignment through from start to finish, and if that someone is keeping you directly in the loop every step of the way.
- Following a well-developed, filtering process for qualifying candidates? Ask your search firm to explain its research methods, process, and standards for screening candidates.
- Saving you time and hassle? If you're not spending less time and energy on the assignment than before you hired the recruiter, you're not getting enough for your money. An effective recruiter will keep you involved without requiring any hand-holding to get the job done.
- Paying attention to the facts? A good search requires analyzing the data, investigating the facts, and using market research techniques to read between the lines. Make sure your recruiter can explain how each candidate is qualified with reference to data that goes deeper than the words on a resume.
- Engaging your candidates with the right questions? Have your recruiter role play the initial conversations with you, if you have any doubt on this score! The right questions will be open-ended, dig deep, and present your opportunity and organization in an appealing, accurate manner.
- Respecting and getting to know your candidates' "world"? You'll get a sense of how skilled your recruiter is in this respect by how well they are able to use research, questioning techniques, and social savvy to get into your world and to respect your needs.
- Representing you and your organization with appropriate integrity and credibility?
- A good judge of personal chemistry and "fit"? If you cannot confidently answer this question in the affirmative, be sure to find out whether you recruiter's client and candidate references can!
- Facilitating closure for you? Your recruiter's work is no good to you if the candidates they present have not been sufficiently informed about your opportunity to have developed a true interest and given it serious consideration before taking up your time on an interview of any kind.
- Protecting confidentiality? Many recruiting firms interpret their assignment as no more than a Numbers Game, which leads them to broadcast your positions widely and publicly, where a greater degree of separation, discretion, and focus would be more appropriate.
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