How To Weed Out Bad Recruiters

“Recruiters are bad. Booooo!”

Every job seeker & recruiter see’s a post on LinkedIn or Twitter at least 1x/day like this.

Understandably so - there are a ton of bad recruiters out there. They spam you with openings that don’t fit, give you minimal to no feedback, try to talk like they’re in the Wolf of Wall Street, and spray & pray resumes to their clients.

But - not all recruiters are bad.

If you’re able to find a good recruiter - they can really supplement and accelerate your job search. A good recruiter knows the hiring manager, what they’re looking for, can help influence decisions to interview, and typically has previous success with said client.

But Rando, how do we figure out who’s a good recruiter and who’s a bad one?

First, let’s go over some context.

Why Bad Recruiters Exist

The good & bad thing about recruiting is that it has a low barrier to entry - on the agency side at least. It’s a good thing because people like me - that had a useless liberal arts degree - are able to make a good living.

It’s a bad thing though because just about anyone can become an agency recruiter. Low barriers to entry bring in more bad candidates than they do the good ones. Large staffing agencies use this model to bring in entry level candidates, hire in large class pools, and train them up. So - there’s a good chance you’re getting a recruiter with minimal experience if they’re coming from a large staffing company.

That’s not to say all recruiters from large agencies are bad. At the moment, I’m currently at one. But - just keep your guard up & ask them questions - we’ll get to this later.

Another reason why is because of commission. Now - there is no perfect way to fix this. If commission didn’t exist - I’m going to go out on a limb and say most agency recruiters would try to make their way in-house. Typically we make low base salaries (if any), but have high earning potential because of the commission which is the main incentive for being an agency recruiter vs. in house.

Just like in any other sales job - car sales, realtors - you’re going to get your bad actors. They’ll oversell you, tell you what you want to hear, just to get a deal done. Extremely short sighted - yet they still do it for whatever reason.

A third reason is due to quotas. There are quotas for everything - calls, emails, linkedin messages, submits, interviews, offers, starts. I don’t like them, but it’s the only way to keep track from a higher level what a recruiter is actually doing.

Quotas don’t mean anything to people who produce. Typically if you’re making placements, management doesn’t care how many calls you’re making. But if you’re barely making or not hitting quota, that’s when they’ll peek at their numbers. Then the pressure comes, and recruiters start to slip, make mistakes, and try to do whatever it takes to get a deal done.

So lack of proper experience/training + commission sale oriented + pressure of quotas = recipe for bad actors in recruiting (or any sales oriented job in general).

But wait - how do I weed them out?

There are good recruiters out there - like me, and many others I know - that want to do good. We want to make sure our clients and candidates succeed long term, not just for the sake of a short term placement.

To get to recruiters like me, you’ll have to put your detective hat on. Ask some questions up front.

You don’t need to get confrontational or rude, but you can ask to get to the point before the convo begins. You can do this on a call (ideally) but if you’re crunched for time, you can outline this in an email.

A good recruiter respects this - because we don’t want to waste any time with a candidate who won’t be a fit.

A bad recruiter won’t respect this because they’re looking for a short term sale.

1: What is the hiring manager’s name?

By far the easiest question to ask to get straight to the point.

They either know them or they don’t. If they know them, that gives you a better idea if they can help push things a long.

If they don’t, that’s not necessarily a bad thing. That just means they’ll likely submit you to an HR portal. Some companies that hire contractors actually forbid recruiters to talk to hiring managers to keep things neutral.

You don’t necessarily have to eliminate a recruiter for this - just temper your expectations as these types of clients typically don’t move very fast or provide much feedback.

2: How long has this position been open?

This will give some insight to the sense of urgency / difficulty to get an offer on the position.

The longer it's been open, the less sense of urgency they have to fill it, or there is tons of difficulties (a lot of interview rounds, coding tests, no feedback, difficulty scheduling).

3: Why is this position open?

If they can't answer this, they don't know the hiring manager. They may know the name, but that’s completely different than having a relationship with them.

This is one of the first things we ask them on an intake call. More budget for headcount? Backfilling someone? More work for the team?

This information matters and opens it up to more questions for you to ask if needed.

4: Have you placed anyone with this HM before (or at least company)

This shows their track record w/ them and how successful your application can be going through them.

If they haven't placed anyone here before, that doesn't mean they can't move things along. Maybe it's a new client/HM they picked up, they can still be a solid agency recruiter and help move it along. Just temper expectations accordingly.

5: What's the salary range?

Remember this should always be figured out up front. If they're games with this up front, that just gives you insight what the entire application process will be so make sure you keep your guard up.

Also make sure you do your research up front.

Different industries have different ranges. For example, senior software engineer or product manager will make more total comp in tech than in telecom. So if you're the latter, make sure you research the company you're applying to so you don't sell yourself short.

6: Are you a tier 1/preferred vendor?

This only applies to agency recruiting. Some large F500 companies use vendor management systems and managed service providers to organize their contracting program. This way, things are more organized instead of being a free-for-all.

These programs have different tiers for their vendors, 1 obv being the best.

If an agency isn't tier 1, you have a long shot at being placed there as they usually only have access to a very limited amount of roles.

TL; DR

Screen out your recruiter as much as they screen you. Save yourself some time as a job seeker.

You don’t necessarily need to eliminate a recruiter if they don’t provide all the answers. You have to make that decision yourself. You can decide to still proceed but just temper expectations in terms of speed to interview/offer and any feedback along the way.

1. How long as the role been open?

2. Why is this role open?

3. Have you placed anyone here before?

4. Salary range?

5. Are you a tier 1 vendor?

Thanks for reading. Hopefully you’ll save some time weeding out these folks on your job search. Subscribe and share with a friend to help save them some time, too!

~RR