Recruitment to Recruitment

We recently ran a survey with Voyager covering a number of different aspects of the recruitment industry.  I'll share all the results here over the next couple of weeks.  However, here are the results from the first two questions we asked:

If you were looking for a new job in recruitment, would you go via a rec to rec?  
Yes: 22%
No:  46%
Maybe: 32%
 
If you were looking for a new job in recruitment, would you contact recruitment firms direct?  
Yes: 76%
No: 14%
Maybe: 11%

I suppose it should be no surprise that so many recruiters (76%) would go directly to a recruitment firm.  However, I am a little surprised that so few (22%) would work with a recruitment to recruitment firm.  Is this because you feel you can do a better job of "placing yourself" or in any part due to the disappointing reputation of the recruitment to recruitment sector?
 

Comments

[Paul Chantrey]

In response to your first question it does not surprise me that recruitment professionals do not want to work with a rec2rec to find a new role. As a rec2rec consultant myself I hear horror stories all of the time and often to have to sell to candidates who even approach me direct. Many recruiters are afraid that their CV will be used as a marketing tool and will be sent everywhere. It still happens to this day and sometimes candidates of ours apply to us because we have an exclusive role on with a client that they will not hear of anywhere else and are loathed to use rec2rec agencies. Before I got into rec2rec I had a mixed service but there are still rec2recs out there who are very ethical like us and I would rather see them as my competition than the not so ethical rec2recs who are on the market place. However, I am quite surprised that only 22% of candidates would consider using a rec2rec as we are inundated with candidate applications at the moment due to the recession. I can’t really comment on the second question as I am not a candidate considering using a rec2rec. As a pointer for all recruitment professionals out there who are considering using a rec2rec you should ensure that the rec2rec will ask you for consent before submitting your details anywhere, most will not have a problem with this.

[Elizabeth Jacques Jones]

I agree with Paul in that the service varies dramatically from firm to firm. We all hear horror stories and like every other form of media, bad news is more publishable than the good. There is lots of good news though and perhaps consultants should ask R 2 R firms to supply references from placed candidates that they can actually speak to. There are a great number of active recruiters in the market currently that we cannot place for many reasons. Perhaps they have a few short moves, billings are quite low (understandably in last quarters market)and the fact that they have been made redundant. Clients are very reticent to believe that good consultants are ever let go!! Most of us know that this does happen sometimes but it is only with many years experience that you learn how to overcome this obstacle. My advice would be use an R2R consultant that was around in 2001 and has been through a recruitment market like this before - they know the pit falls and if they survived that they must be doing something right. Ask them to tell you how best to market yourself and how to overcome potential objections. If they cannot advise you in this way dont ask them to represent you. JJS formally Prime Partnership was set up in 2001 so we know intimately just how difficult it is.

It would be interesting to know how many Recruiters took part in the survey as there are a great many alternative databases. It might be worth repeating the exercise with a more "Search" focussed product to see if that delivers completely different or the same results