I bet if you look at all of the candidates you have placed over the last couple of years you would probably come to realize that the vast majority of them shared a number of common qualities. This is important information to realize because I bet the majority of candidates you recruit and have interview with your clients do not share these qualities. I am not even talking about personality qualities, I am talking more about the way they interact with respect to you THE RECRUITER.

The nature of the realtionship needs to be driven by the recruiter. We need to be in charge of how things go, not the candidate. This does not mean that the candidate should have no say but since we as a contigent workforce work on a contingency basis, we cannot afford to knowingly walk a path that will lead nowhere.

As a recruiter you need to know what type of candidate behaviour is going to lend itself to a successful placement. Obviously, the needed skillset is going to be the right one and obviously the personality of the candidate is going to have to be the right one but there is so much more that goes into placing a candidate than just skillset and personality.

There has to be rules of engagement when working with a candidate. These rules need to be out in the open as soon as possible when working with a new recruit. You need to let them know the service that will be provided and what the expectations are.

If there is not a meeting of the minds on this, move on. You can always make another $100 bucks if it falls out of your back pocket but try getting back the weeks spent with a candidate who ended up going nowhere