My buddy Jim Stroud records this hip little podcast called The Recruiters Lounge.  I’ve been behind on my listening, but I recently heard his interview with John Sumser of Electronic Recruiting News fame.

During the interview, John talks about how recruiting is an interesting field to track … “a boom and bust industry,” as he calls it.  He quotes some statistics, and while I’m not sure where he got these numbers, they sure are interesting:

In the last 6-8 months, 100,000 new recruiters have joined the industry.  The recruiter workforce has jumped from 125,000 recruiters to 230,000 recruiters, and according to John, these new recruiters are operating with very little training.

Yikes, that’s scary ... but I believe it.  I’ve seen first-hand the differences between a highly trained recruiter (novice or not) and an untrained one (“experienced” or not).  Training – and not just of the “this is how you build a Boolean search string” variety – is key. 

Recruiters are the ambassadors to your company.  For most candidates (who are likely your customers, too), their first contact with a representative of your company is the recruiter.  Are your recruiters portraying the correct image and communicating the proper information to your candidates?  If you don’t know, maybe you should ask to “shadow” a few phone or in-person interviews.  Ask to see your recruiter's candidate communication templates and even listen as he or she delivers an offer package (or declines) one of your candidates.

Good recruiting goes far beyond the ability to build a leads list.  Make sure your recruiters (and you!) are trained representatives of your company.

gretchen