[CaptainCrunch]

So I want to keep adding on to this, again I preface things with my thoughts and advice are only worth as much as you pay for it. I also try to state this when I do resume reviews with people from the board. I do it to be helpful. But I think its important to learn a little bit more about recruiters and their role and what in theory they should be doing.

First of all, lets be completely square here. A recruiter is realistically an account manager. In terms of priority, their first priority is to their company, the second to the client, the third to the candidates. They are not a talent agent for you. The sooner you realize that the better.

Recruiters have several realistic fears. 1) They're terrified of losing a client. 2) They're terrified of fall off, a candidate that gets a job and then falls off within the first 90 to lets say 120 days because of the guarantee. If that candidate falls off depending on how the contract is written, the recruiter is on the hook either to return the fee, or do a replacement for free. Do enough of those and you're really not working as a recruiter anymore. On average the fee is calculated based on a percentage of the new hires first year salary, and depending on the recruiting firm, the complexity and level of the job and a few other factors.

Its important to understand that, when you're talking with or establishing a relationship with your recruiter. Why? Because you're worth as a candidate is locked to that recruiter. Its reputational.

So with that in mind. Lets talk about how things work. When a recruiter gets a role to recruit for, they should be doing a few things. First of all digging into the requirements of the role. Some companies will hand the recruiter a job description, some will give some high points and tell the recruiter to create a job description. There's an important distinction. First of all a recruiter has to go by what the company desires, they are not HR specialists, they don't have intimate knowledge of the clients culture, or a true sense of the role beyond what they're being told. A good recruiter also pushes for a understanding of the time line, process to hire, decision matrix and most importantly tries to get access to the hiring authority. To be honest most of them don't get these things or do the minimum possible and hope for the best.

A good recruiter can then control the timeline, push the client along the process and gets direct feedback on the interviews from the person that makes the yes or no decision.

As a candidate, when you first talk to the recruiter, its hugely important that you establish how much control the recruiter has in the situation. You can try to find out

1) Is this an exclusive recruit with the recruiter?
2) What does the hiring process look like, what's the urgency. What's the timeline, what are the steps, how firm are they?
3) Are you dealing directly with the hiring authority?
4) Is this the finalized job description?
5) Is this your exclusive recruitment (Tricky to ask but worth it).

Why do you want to find this stuff out?

If they don't have the ear of the hiring authority, they can suddenly find out that the client isn't happy with the candidates and will ask for a reset, and rewrite of the job description, and after hours of interviews you could be eliminated

If they don't have the ear of the hiring authority, they can lose control of the time line and suddenly things will stretch out by days or weeks or there might be a stop and refocus.

So once you get past the first stage of the vetting process, the recruiter becomes your voice in the process. Don't hesitate in asking for answers, time lines, call to actions. If you don't you could find the process stretching on, or new actions like interviews or homework or testing happening that you weren't aware of before. Or you might get the shocking call that they've stopped hiring for the position. Or sorry they changed the job description so you don't fit anymore. Don't be afraid to be a little bit demanding. If they promise an answer on Thursday, don't hesitate to reach out on Thursday at an appropriate time.

Also and this is key, ask what else is available, ask if their colleagues are working on something that you may fit into. As a recruiter I was very protective of my bench strength. I didn't want to get halfway through my process and suddenly get a good candidate snatched away from me by a colleague. But I was always surprised when a candidate didn't ask.

Anyways hope this helps get you around the frustrations of the Recruiter roadblocks.