Where does it all go wrong when recruiting recruiters?

I've been helping a few recruitment friends look for work and develop in their roles.  Within a few weeks the information I gathered through each one lead me to the conviction in my belief that as an industry, we HR professionals really need to brush up on our own attraction strategies and employee value proposition.  It actually starts with the very first conversations - even before bringing someone in for an interview with your firm.

What's concerning to me before and during this exercise; is the more I interact with other recruiters, I find this industry is literally bursting with people who don't like people.  You would likely all agree there are recruiters around who are just in it for the money and have very low professional standards.  It's a cycle of bad managers shaping consultants and our industry.   I believe we can change the perception of our valuable work if we are willing to accept we need to alter our own recruitment process and appoint people who are in it for the long haul!

Here is what I found to be the main questions recruiters are asked again and again, often by the same people in varying ways from the initial to the final stages of their employment process

• How much do you bill? Or, how many roles do you fill each month?
• How do you deal with difficult clients?
• Tell me how you turned a bad situation into a good one?
• Describe yourself as a manager?
• What is your biggest achievement?

I'm not saying these questions are redundant - they are just easily anticipated and don't necessarily assist you to understand if this person wants a long term career from this amazing profession or just a job where they can earn lots of money...

If I was to employ a recruitment consultant for my team right now, here are the other aspects besides sales ability I would focus on uncovering:

• How much time do you invest in self education or learning more about recruitment?
• What companies do you admire most for how they treat their staff and why?
• Describe what makes you a 'people' person? How do you measure this?
• How do you ensure consistency in your billings / placements?
• What do you know about my business and do you have any observations you would like to mention?
• What would the support staff of your current company have to say about you? What processes do you have in place to ensure you collaborate successfully with them?

If I was to further define the process I would implement a very structured research project around the potential candidates I had in mind for the role. Of course many will say there just isn't enough time in the day and all this work could result in little gain (people ALWAYS say that about sourcing - my answer always is - skip the TV show tonight and put that Boolean search to work!)

On a side note:  I feel very blessed to have met the wonderful people I have in my recruitment career, there are professionals out there who are greatly successful, have long term careers and remain agile as recruiters, but they are different because they happen to remember this is a people business and they have a humility and understanding for talent that others may miss.