January 31, 2020

I’ve been a recruiter for 10 years in the emerging technology space. That means I place software engineers and engineering leaders across Canada. We work with our clients on an exclusive basis and one of the first questions our clients ask is why they should work with only one recruiter. My answer is simple: you get my full attention and I ensure the role is filled. However, after contemplation, I realized there are a host of other reasons and thought I would share my thoughts to help everyone understand what the recruitment process really looks like.

Is more always better?

I’m sure you can agree that more is not always better. More chocolate is great, until you gain weight. More exercise sounds fantastic, until you overexert yourself. More developers on a project could be better, but only if managed properly. So, is more always better when it comes to a recruiter?

Let’s think about this like a recruiter would:

If you’re competing against other agencies in a contingency search, you want to find candidates fast. That means, reducing the amount of time spent getting to know your company and sourcing the easiest candidates to find. These are usually applicants and active candidates that are interviewing with dozens of other companies. These candidates are often unemployed or underemployed and most often, they were laid off.

How is an Exclusive Search Different?

The recruiter knows they don’t need to rush the process so they spend time getting to know the company and the position. They scour the market to find the right fit and end up finding candidates that other recruiters are passing up. They focus on finding passive candidates on platforms like Github or StackOverflow which takes a bit more time to go through. They also focus on candidates that have bare LinkedIn profiles and require research to determine what they’re doing. Best of all, they know you’re relying on them so they work harder and faster to find the right fit.

So, Does it really work?

Sage Recruiting works on an exclusive or retained basis with our clients and the proof is in the pudding! We successfully closed over 90% of our positions in 2019 and retain nearly 100% of the candidates we place. The reviews from our clients and candidates on Google also speak volumes on the success of this method.

So, do you still think more is better?