A friend of mine who is connected within the Seattle Startup community, sent me this post by Marcelo Calbucci on the Seattle 2.0 blog discussing the frustrations and shortcomings that Startup Managers have of recruiting agencies in general.
I felt compelled to respond, having gone through a similar process, while recruiting for my Company as an internal Seattle HR Manager.
My response is below:
I am the Recruiting and HR Manager for a Social Media startup in Seattle. In the past six months I have personally recruited dozens of employees.
Being in-house, I have a distinct advantage because:
1. I passionately care about the future and well-being of my Company.
2. I recognize that I am the first person a potential candidate hears outlining my Company and our products. I take that responsibility very seriously. If I am not passionate to be here why would a candidate? People want to work at a Company people are passionate about; this gives me a huge advantage over some of those Companies you listed in your post.
3. A lot of candidates don’t use recruiters, nor care to. I work with contingent recruiters and recruiting agencies at times. There are some good recruiting agencies out there but most only try to fill the req and don’t have a large stake in the fit.
4. Recruiting agencies rarely (and I mean rarely) go below 20% placement fee structures. Their candidates better be 20% better than anyone I can source (which is not a normal occurrence – again I know the culture and fit of my Company and evangelize it passionately).
If you plan on hiring more than 5 or 6 employees in a year, do yourself a favor and hire a good fulltime HR and
Recruiting Manager, not only you will get better candidates, but you will also reduce liability (which there is, and don’t kid yourself, a lot from a HR standpoint), and save money.
Plus every candidate who doesn’t get a job, now knows our Company from someone who loves it and they have a positive lasting, impression, which has cascading effects in the long term.
Dan Hall
Seattle Human Resources Manager
