With the retainer recruiter, just as with the contingency recruiter, you're way ahead if you get to the employer before he does. Consider these advantages:
The employer saves time and lots of money... $80,000 if the job pays, for example, $240,000, and proportionately more as you move up. No employer will hire you just to avoid a fee. But if you're right for the job, she's glad not to wait three months for somebody to find you. And not spending $80,000 on a retainer recruiter pleases her just as much as not spending $80,000 on a contingency recruiter.
You're a class of one. The retainer recruiter would present several candidates. You're good. But don't be overconfident. The employer just might hire one of the others.
There's no risk that the recruiter won't present you. We'll soon discuss six reasons a retainer recruiter may not present you. By getting to the employer before he does, you've bypassed all six roadblocks.
The employer is more open-minded and flexible. You may not have precisely the background the employer insists on getting in return for an $80,000 or a $ 150,000 search fee. But whatever you have that's not ideal may look quite attractive before firm specifications are written and lots of money is being spent to pursue them.
The job may be tailored for you. If you arrive when the employer is only beginning to analyze her business problems that require outside talent, she may include your availability in her thinking.
I can't overemphasize the benefits of reaching an employer before he or she is committed to either kind of search...retainer or contingency. By the time a search is assigned, a specific job is being filled. Detailed specifications have been written. Potential employees who show up at that late date tend to be thought of as either relevant or irrelevant. Try to arrive before you're considered a square peg, merely because the opening has been declared a round hole.
After a retainer search is under way, you're best off meeting the employer as one of the retainer recruiter's "finds."
Unfortunately, that's not easy to accomplish.
With our example of a retainer search in progress, $80,000 is being spent to have a consultant look for you. And with the money already spent, you're best off walking in as living proof that it was well spent. You have these advantages:
You're custom-selected for the job. Meticulous specifications have been drawn up, and you've been found in response to them.
You're expert-recommended. A professional commanding a substantial fee has identified, examined, and proposed you.
You confirm the employer's wisdom. She decided to hire a consultant. You prove she was right.
No question about it. If you can't get to the employer before the retainer recruiter does, then your self-interest is best served if the recruiter "finds" and presents you.
But will he?
Not unless you meet a surprisingly restrictive set of six criteria...three of which have nothing to do with your ability to do the job.
When all six of these criteria are present, your self-interest is served by the retainer recruiter.
His introduction is the best possible way to reach the employer in situations that meet the following conditions:
- When he's searching to fill a job you could perform exceptionally well,
- When he's searching for someone with exactly your qualifications',
- When he's personally convinced that you possess those qualifications;
- When you're not blocked by the You-work-for-a-client "Off- limits" Rule',
- When you're not blocked by the You're-allocated-to-another- recruiter-within-the-firm "Off-limits" Rule',
- When the recruiter doesn't already have plenty of other fine candidates.
Don't you wish there were just one criterion? And of course the one you'd cling to would be #1 ...a job you could perform exceptionally well. However, even #1 can be a pain. "Exceptionally well" doesn't mean "competently." Since the retainer recruiter is being paid upwards of $80,000 to "search," what he finds had better be something special.
But suppose you are special. And, at least in your opinion, you're absolutely the right choice for a specific position you know is being "searched" by a retainer recruiter. Suppose, too, that you've found out his name and his firm's name. Should you call him? Or should you go directly to the employer instead?
You know that you could perform exceptionally well. That's the harmless chamber in your revolver. However, even then you may be wrong...not about your abilities, but about the job content, which may be differently defined for the new person sought than for the former one, and for people with similar- sounding jobs in other companies.
With respect to each of the other five criteria, you don't know if it's "no problem," or possibly a fatal shot.
For you to get to the employer through the retainer recruiter...admittedly the ideal route...you've got to survive all six potentially eliminating criteria. How different from regular "Russian Roulette"! With only one chamber loaded, and only having to pull the trigger once, the traditional game is as safe as badminton when compared with trying to get a retainer recruiter to "present" you on a job you know he's "searching." Then, five of the six chambers may be loaded, and you've got to pull the trigger on all six, hoping that none of them is.
We've covered #1. Forget about whether or not you can do the job. Let's look at the remaining five of these invisible threats to your candidacy. You should have gone directly to the employer, rather than playing with your Retainer-Recruiter-Revolver, if even one of the other five chambers has a hidden surprise for you:
2. If your qualifications and experience aren't EXACTLY as specified. For $80,000, the recruiter is expected to hit the target. If others match the specifications more closely, he'll present them, not you. On the other hand, if you get to the employer directly, and he meets and likes you, he may observe special abilities, or experience, or fine personal characteristics that outweigh your deficiencies. Even if he merely forwards your mailed-in resume to the retainer recruiter, he's implicity expanding the specs to include you.
3. If the recruiter isn't personally convinced that you've got the right stuff. You may seem more appropriate to the employer than to the recruiter. If so, let's hope you meet them in that order. Meet the employer first and you're in the running. Meet the recruiter first and you're dead.
4. If you're blocked by the You-work-for-a-client "Off-limits" Rule. Then you must go to the employer. The recruiter's "don't- bite-the-hand-that-feeds" problems mean nothing to the employer.
He'll ship you to the recruiter...or deal with you himself, if the recruiter refuses to touch you.
5. If you're blocked by the You're-allocated-to-another-recruiter-within-the-firm "Off limits" Rule. The only way you'll ever hear about two appropriate-for-you jobs simultaneously within the same retainer firm is if YOU go to Employer #2. No recruiter will ever tell Client #2 that you're his at a cost of $80,000, but he may have a hard time hiring you, because the firm is also providing you to Client #1.
6. If the recruiter already has plenty of other fine candidates. Whenever you're one of a great many people who'd be appropriate, ordinary statistical odds will usually kill you. The recruiter doesn't need you, because he already has a full slate.
Go directly to employers.
So, as a general rule, going directly to employers is your smartest move.
When you're not interested in changing jobs, of course, you won't be contacting any employers. But when you're very interested in a change, it's in your self-interest to contact as many employers as possible, as effectively as possible.
