If your company is ready to partner with a recruiter (or multiple ones for diverse hiring purposes), it’s important to select ones who have the experience and specialized knowledge that you need. The most effective recruiters make quality hiring matches in an efficient way, satisfying the needs of both the company that needs professional talent and the job-seeking professional.

When choosing which recruiters to partner with, it’s important to consider company goals as well the hiring challenges that you’ve experienced. What job titles, for example, does your human resources department have the most difficulties with when finding the right candidates? If your answers include full stack developers, cloud computing engineers, and/or big data developers, know that this can be a challenge for many companies.

That’s because, combined, these three job titles make up 80% of all tech hires, globally—but the right recruiter can cut through the competition and noise to find the talent your company needs and present you with top choices. This is, in fact, one of High5’s specialties.

Recruiters can relieve some of the pressure on your hard-working human resources department. While a busy HR department could get overwhelmed by a big stack of resumes for just one key position, an experienced, knowledgeable recruiter—especially one with access to the cutting edge, data-driven tools provided by High5—can seamlessly prioritize candidate choices. This frees up the HR department for other company priorities, perhaps creating effective retention campaigns, as just one example, to keep the prized talent that’s been recruited.

Plus, does this next scenario sound familiar? Your HR department worked hard to find just the right candidate but, when an offer was made, the chosen candidate shared that they had just accepted an offer from another company. Your in-house department must now look at alternative choices, with the process taking up additional time that could go towards other non-hiring-related tasks. In some cases, they’d even need to start over at ground zero. Recruiters, however, can remain ultra focused on finding the right candidates for you until the position is filled, having additional quality choices for your company to consider.

Talent acquisition professionals often offer a spectrum of additional services, and ones that may be offered include:

• Consulting services: Each company has its own hiring practices and, once the methodology is established, they are often not changed. When you hire recruiters, you can also get a fresh look at your company’s practices, including where the repetition of certain ones may not get you the results you want and need in today’s environment. They can advise your company on how to use their hard-earned strategies to refresh and revitalize hiring practices.

• Salary negotiations: Recruiters are uniquely positioned to know what companies are offering for specific positions and—perhaps even more valuable—they have deep knowledge into how much other companies, including those in your industry, are willing to negotiate to get their candidates of choice. So, they can have a keen sense of fair market rates for particular skill sets. This means that they can also offer insights about when it might be time to walk away from the negotiating table and connect with another qualified candidate.

• Transition Services: When companies are in transition, they may need new technology solutions or unique insights into technological challenges—solutions and insights that may not be as much in demand once the company has transitioned to its new business model. In other words, these are highly valued yet short-term needs. Recruiters can identify candidates who possess the change management skills that are needed in this scenario, above and beyond the technical skills required to get the job done right.

Overseas Recruiting Solutions

Companies in the United States are often open to the incredible amount of talent available around the globe, wanting the best professionals out there—and let’s face it. Because companies can’t specify work hours for independent workers (only a project’s timelines and deadlines), it typically doesn’t matter what time zone those technology professionals reside in—just that they have the right skills sets, ones that fit your needs and budget.

The same is true when it’s time to hire recruiters. They’re also located all around the globe, each with unique skills sets and experiences. So, it can make sense to cast a broad net when considering recruiting solutions on the High5 platform, including overseas professionals, and then narrow down the options according to your unique requirements.

How to Choose Your Recruiters

On the High5 platform, recruiters can open an account and fill out a profile, just like technology professionals can. Your company can review these profiles and contact ones of interest, asking them additional questions and/or asking for additional examples of successful connections made.

Questions to ask yourself as you make selections include:

• Does this recruiter have experience in the industries where we will need to hire talent?

• What specialties does this recruiter have? Do they match what you need? Are any key ones missing? If so, how central are they to your company’s hiring needs?

• How quickly did the recruiter respond to questions you had? How complete were the answers?

• In personal interactions with this recruiter, how comfortable did you feel? Just as in any profession, people can have a variety of personalities and working styles, from highly efficient ones without much chit-chat to people who like to establish a bit of rapport first. Neither is necessarily “bad.” Look for corporate culture fit.

Getting Started

Once you’ve chosen the recruiters your company will partner with to find talent, tips that can help create an optimal relationship from the start include these:

• Clearly state requirements for the talent you need to hire, including but not necessarily limited to the:
  • technical skills, tools, and computer languages required
  • soft skills, such as verbal and written communication skills, and their level of importance
  • agreement type (freelance, contract, SOW, employee, etc.)

• Agree upon ways in which you’ll communicate with the recruiter (and vice versa) and on how often you’ll touch base.

• Give feedback, as needed, so that the recruiter can provide even more laser-targeted recommendations.

• Provide clarity on both your budget and timelines.

• Inform the recruiter about changes in your needs as soon as possible.

• Let the recruiter know if professionals they recommend to your company will be required to take a skills test and how they will be compensated for doing so if required.

If circumstances allow, it can be helpful to assign a recruiter that’s new to your company with talent needs that don’t have a super-tight deadline. That said, some recruiters may specialize in providing especially quick recommendations. As a final tip, be transparent about how the recruiter will be paid and stick to that agreement.

Recruiting Solutions at High5

High5 offers an intricately connected, all-in-one system that meets the needs of hiring companies, corporate and agency recruiters, and technologically-skilled talent. Our system is ultra efficient, thanks to the vetting processes we use, and the instant analytics and other tools that we offer our recruiters. The result? A streamlined process that empowers recruiters to more quickly place talent in positions that dovetail with their skills and experience, which allows companies like yours to meet project deadlines with the quality of work meeting your high standards.

To get started on the process to hire recruiters from our platform, we just need a few pieces of information. After your company provides it, someone from High5 will contact you within 24-48 hours. We look forward to helping you fulfill your hiring needs!