Bye Bye Recruiters Wed, Nov 08, 2017

So in case you haven’t been one of the lucky ones relaying phone messages to me in regards to the constant recruiters trying to get our business, here’s the nutshell version of SlideBelts’ dealings with recruiters recently:

1. We post a job online
2. The recruiters in the area from various companies (there were about 7) see the job, and immediately bombard many of us through email, phones, and even dropping by unannounced to get our attention, all to tell us that they can fill that position quickly and efficiently!
3. Sounds great at first, but what lies beneath the surface is that 9 times out of 10, the recruiter “sells” the candidate to us, painting them in the best light possible, and feeding them exactly what to say to us interviews. Not to mention, using recruiters can get very expensive very fast.

For years, even way before I came aboard, SlideBelts has struggled with the decision to use recruiters or not. We have tried them, and even been successful with them in some circumstances. And in other circumstances, the experience has been awful. So, perhaps you can see why we’ve been so back and forth about it.

Recently though, we’ve come to the final decision to not use recruiters anytime in the near future.

Why am I telling you this exactly? Well, for two reasons, and only the first one is a bit selfish

1. Now that that’s settled, if a recruiter ever asks anyone about working with us, you can simply tell them: “Nope. Recruiters do not fit our business model. Go away please.”
2. In coming to this conclusion, we recognized a cool mindset that we need to have for hiring, but it really applies to many areas of the business. This mindset, simply put, is that while using outside recruiting is sometimes faster and less painful than mustering through a need while we find the right fit, it doesn't fit us as a company. We're not ones to back away from a challenge, and outsourcing is something we're trying to eliminate in all departments, little by little. While we all may not have years of experience in hiring each new specialized skill, we've found that it's best for our growth to dig in, research, try, fail, etc., instead of panicking in the face of a time crunch or lack of skills to the point that we reach out to recruiters.

So when you’re faced with something unfamiliar or daunting, remember that even if you try and fail, it’s usually better in the end than delegating it to someone else right off the bat just because you’ve never done it before. We may not be at 100% in-house operating this second, but taking those small steps to get there is what will grow each of us individually and as a team in the long run (: