The Top 5 Reasons Candidates Hate Recruiting Firms

What are the main challenges in recruitment? These can be anything from hard-to-fill vacancies in a specific niche, sourcing the best talent within a competitive field or knowing how to pick the right person for a role where no formal education is needed — all within time and budget constraints. Choosing to work with a professional recruiting firm can help face these and other common recruiting challenges.

As much as companies may gain by dealing with headhunters as their intermediates — saving them money and unnecessary headache — candidates don’t always share that feeling. In fact, candidates may often view recruiters as their enemies when it comes to their job search, not as their friends. If you want to make sure that your company ends up with the best employees, it’s important to understand the top reasons candidates hate recruiting firms and follow up with your recruiter, to see that they are doing everything they can to get on the candidates’ good side.

Five Reasons Candidates Hate Recruiting Firms

1. They Never Call Back

Ghosting is one of the most common recruiting challenges on both ends of the spectrum — candidates and recruiters alike. However, with the job market being so candidate-driven, when they don’t hear from the recruiter for a week or two, most candidates assume the job is no longer relevant. Moreover, if the recruiter says they’ll call and they don’t, they reflect badly on your company’s brand, especially if it’s in later stages of the vetting process. Make sure that the recruiter you hire makes a habit of contacting all of their candidates, which is easily done with the right ATS.

2. They Have No Idea What The Role Is About

True, HR people are not expected to know how to code if they are hiring developers, or every letter of the law if they are recruiting lawyers. But in order to find the best person for the role, recruiters must know the specifics of the role, know your company inside out and also be able to answer some industry questions. For this reason, for niche roles, it’s better to hire specialized recruiters.

3. They Don’t Understand What I Really Do

One of the main reasons candidates hate recruiting firms comes from being forwarded to roles that have nothing to do with their actual profession. Dealing with headhunters often means interacting over LinkedIn, where the headhunters simply use a keyword search to find their candidates and they don’t bother reading their entire resume. If you want to get the best person for the role and ensure your applicants are also happy with the process, make sure your recruiter does their due diligence.

4. They’re Just Trying To Make Their Commission

It’s no secret that the candidates are the bottom of the recruiter’s totem pole. If the recruiter wants to get their full payment (doesn’t matter if they work in a contingency or retained firm), they first have to make the company happy, then the hiring manager and the candidate is the very last on that list.

Often, that hierarchy makes the recruiter act like an aggressive salesperson, trying to meet their quota; attempting to convince candidates to go for roles that are below their level, that they are unqualified for, in faraway locations, etc. When hiring your recruiter, try to assess how pushy their tactics are, and if it’s worthwhile for you, with losing qualified candidates along the way.

5. They Don’t Provide Any Feedback

Job hunting can be draining on the candidate, both physically and emotionally. Sometimes they may be applying for months at a time, without any positive reply — or any replies at all. This can lead them to believe there is something wrong with them. When dealing with headhunters who keep forwarding them to interview after interview without giving them a reason for not getting the job, they may decide to stop working with headhunters altogether. From your end, you can ensure you always provide feedback after an interview or even the testing stage, and as for the recruiter — make sure they deliver it to the candidate in due course.