Recruiting Animal points to a Lou Adler ERE article from last month in which Lou discusses the results of his 2006 Hiring and Recruiting Survey.  This is good information for hiring managers and jobseekers alike to understand how various recruiters (corporate, agency, and retained) operate.

As the Animal points out:

The number of job orders a recruiter handles is a strong influence on the quality of her candidates.

Corporate recruiters: handle 20 to 40 jobs at a time
Agency recruiters: 8 to 12
Retained recruiters: less

I talked about this problem before here, and I know many corporate recruiters who would kill for a 20 - 40 job load. Your in-house recruiter can be a great resource.  As a true blue corporate recruiter, I know corporate recruiters can deliver stellar results if set up for success.  So before you run out and start dropping money right and left on recruiting agencies, consider this:  Is your in-house resource even set up properly to deliver the results you need?  Probably not.

gretchen