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5. Psychological assessments: Personality assessments and evaluations have become commonplace in the interview process both at the senior executive level and below. Many firms including Perry-Martel have gone beyond the simple Myers-Briggs to include more sophisticated measures like the BAROn-EQ, which measures Emotion Intelligence. For many organizations, a personality profile will be administered in addition to thorough reference checks. It is designed to give the employer an extra bit of reassurance by assessing your “fit” with the rest of the team.

• What you need to know: Answer the questions truthfully. Do not try to outsmart the test. You will lose. The tests are set up to flush out cheaters. You will fail and destroy your chances to go further in the process. Fortunately, most employers only administer these tests when they are very interested in your candidacy. That is a good thing. Ask what the test is being used to measure and then answer the questions in that context. Read carefully any permission form you are asked to sign. Understand what they have the right to do with the information. Ask to have the original returned to you or destroyed.

6. Offer negotiation: Most recruiters will help negotiate the terms of an offer. Their job is to come to an agreement that is satisfactory to both you and the employer.

• What you need to know: Let the recruiter negotiate your package. It’s a whole lot easier for both sides to deal with the money issues through an intermediary. It’s easier for a third party to take their ego out of the equation.

7. On-boarding and guarantee: Most recruiters will provide a guarantee in the form of an insurance policy for the candidate’s performance. Guarantees run the spectrum from none to 6 months, or more. The norm is 30 to 45 days. This period acts as a buffer for the employer to determine your competency on the job and decide if you are indeed qualified. The recruiter may be required to replace you during that period or in some cases even refund their well-earned fee.

• What you need to know: The way recruiters are paid is often reflected in how much upfront work they do to understand the project, which is directly related to how long they will “guarantee” a candidate. In short, a firm that provides a yearlong guarantee, for example, is more likely to go to great pains to understand an employer’s needs and to make an exact match. Anything less is shortsighted. Understanding this will tell you how much “due diligence” you must do personally to ensure the opportunity is a good one for you versus a quick buck for the recruiter.

Note: Obviously, the longer the guarantee, the more risk the recruiter assumes for your performance and thus the greater their incentive to thoroughly appreciate the need for an exact fit. That means you can expect the process to take several months to conclude.

GUERRILLA INTELLIGENCE

Recruiters and Research

Donato Diorio

Most recruiters do what is called the full life-cycle recruitment. Finding a client is the sales portion of the process. With “job order” in hand, they do the initial name sourcing and then they recruit the best prospects. Next, they screen the prospects and present the best candidates to their clients. On top of all this, they must prepare both candidate and employer for the interview, debrief them afterward, and eventually negotiate a job offer.

Recruiters Who Are Successful Are Extremely Busy People

Recruitment and all its complexities tends to foster a level of impatience that is required to succeed. Whether recruiters came into the field impatient (and thus succeeded) or became that way due to the demands of the job is debatable. So prevalent is this trait among top recruiters, recruiting managers have put a positive spin on this trait, calling it a “sense of urgency.”

Help for the Recruiters

In the past few years, there has been a growing trend in the recruiting world. Emerging