5 Questions to Ask Your Recruiter and 3 Questions You Can Skip When Using HirePort
A great product and a great vision is brought to life by having the right people in your team.We believe that finding the right people for your vision requires the right recruiters. Finding those right recruiters and even just knowing when you have found a good recruiter, could be quite challenging. Especially when you don’t know what to look out for. Knowing what the right questions to ask are can make that a lot simpler. Increasingly we’re also seeing recruitment platforms, such as HirePort, simplify the recruitment process even more and could, for example, allow you to complete skip some questions.
5 Questions to Ask:
How would you describe our company to a candidate?
The recruiter you are working with will be the first person to introduce your company to the candidate you want to hire. You want to make sure that they understand your story and what you’re really about. Although they may have already read your story, it helps to make sure that their understanding is really concrete. Having a recruiter think about this answer can also highlight some questions and information they may still need to get from you.
How will you sell this opportunity?
This question reveals whether the recruiter understands what makes this opportunity unique and what the key selling points are. Two Data Scientist positions at two different companies may look quite similar when you read their responsibilities and requirements. They’re at two different companies though and therefore, there are differences to those opportunities. Your role may offer a chance to build up a team in the near future or offers the chance to work with some really new and exciting tech – those nuances are important for your recruiter to know.
What is your success and retention rate?
This question may be quite self-explanatory. It shows you how likely you are to achieve success working with this recruiter and how likely you are to retain a hire you make with them. What isn’t as obvious, is that this question also reveals how honest and realistic your recruiter is. Nobody has a 100% success and retention rate and if they portray themselves to, it may be a reason for concern. If they say they do, ask them about one time where they couldn’t fill a role and what they could’ve done differently.
How busy are you?
Freelance recruiters’ availability varies. When starting to work on hiring for a role together, ask them how busy they are and how much time they can commit to you. This helps you to plan and to know exactly what to expect and when to expect it.
What do you think the challenges in filling this role will be?
This question can show you how much the recruiter knows about your industry, this type of role and the market as a whole – in short: it shows you how experienced they are. It also prepares you for some challenges you may have when looking to close an offer and find candidates. They may even be able to suggest some small changes for you to make before you start hiring that can save you a lot of time.
3 Questions You Could Skip When Using HirePort
How and where can I expect communication?
Every freelance recruiter may have their own process and their own ways of communicating. They may have their own systems of sharing information and collating all this information into a central platform can ease this. Using new recruitment solutions can keep all your communication, information and feedback in one place – and in one format – so it’s a lot easier to keep track of it all.
What are your rates and terms?
Negotiating terms and rates can take some time and quite a lot of fine print. This again is where using a central platform saves a lot of time because you can agree to one fee upfront and you don’t need to renegotiate every time you want to work with a new recruiter.
Most of the questions you’ll have about your candidates
There’s a lot of key information you’ll need about a candidate. But when working with a recruiter, it may take some back and forth until they know exactly what the information you want is. Making use of technology really allows us to smooth this process and make sure that all the information you need is right at your fingertips – in a format you can get use to and recognise.
The important things you need to know when working with a recruiter include how experienced they are, how successful they are, whether they know enough about you and your position, what it’ll cost you, and what you can expect from them and when. Asking these questions (and having us ask some) will cover the key bases you need covered and then you can sit back and take comfort in knowing that finding the people to bring your vision to life is in good hands.
