The Two Headed 'Monster'

In response to the new 'supply driven' job market, an interesting phenomenon is occurring with some corporations that have traditionally (and still do) used search firms: In the past week, several affiliated recruiters have run into new corporate policies that amend previously enacted fee agreements, stating: If 'company' does a name search on Monster Board and your submitted candidate is listed, 'company' will not pay a fee, as they have already purchased that candidate's information with their Monster Board subscription.

Say what? When Monster Board was initially rolled out, it's CEO announced that Monster was going to 'put the search industry out of business.' What Bulletin Boards and Resume Distribution Service Providers actually did was create work for the search industry. Because: IT STILL COMES DOWN TO RECOGNITION.

Access to information that is not identified, filtered and acted upon is irrelevant. The idea that a resume residing on a website 'rented' by a corporate HR department is 'owned' by that corporation is ludicrous. The notion that after a search firm contracted to locate, identify, qualify and interest a candidate in a particular opportunity ISN'T awarded a fee AFTER sharing that information with the client corporation is a blatant attempt to subvert the very premise the search industry is built on: 'BUT FOR'. But for the recruiter's involvement and value added to a resume document, Corporation X wouldn't have had a clue that the asset they sought was already residing in a rented database.

Prior to the rise of internet-based resume database, bulletin boards and distribution tools, companies utilized Resumix internal databases to try to ascribe 'candidate ownership' and where these candidates were coming from. Often when our best clients did Resumix searches and, in fact, turned up that candidate from a previous submission (direct or 3rd party), we've still ALWAYS been paid our fee, BUT FOR . . .

The truth of this matter is--Corporate HR doesn't effectively manage the resume asset, whether internal or external. This is why 3rd party search firms are invited to participate in the first place. By assuming that 'ownership' of a database containing a potential hire IS a potential hire, the corporation misses the point.

Information is simply data until it's identified and acted upon. Search firms' value to our clients has always been the value added TO THE RESUME, not simple transmission of the resume. That is the Two-headed Monster.

So, what's the solution? Companies must honor value added submissions of all qualified candidates, regardless of their origin, regardless of that document's residence on a job board. The point is, if not identified and acted upon, that document has NO VALUE in making a hire. Monster Board IS NOT a Monster. Monster Board can be an invaluable tool to corporations, search firms and professionals alike. But, it's not a title to 'ownership' of anything, except access to that info. Until an internal recruiter makes the same connection to an open employment req, there is NO VALUE in that document. We are paid on the value we provide AFTER identification. Where we sourced that document has NO BEARING on our value or our right to be paid for our search.

The upshot? If the Fortune 1000 uniformly adopts this 'policy', everyone loses. First, statistically, it's been proven that only about 6% of all professional hires occur as a direct result of an internal HR recruiter identifying a resume from a resume bank and actually bringing that information to a successful conclusion: a new hire.

But, in the meantime, with restrictive policies like the above, all faith in client goodwill and fairness will be breached. And, trust me, the corporations implementing this new 'policy' will be back, hat-in-hand, begging us to do our jobs. The scary part about this 'policy' is, companies actually believe they can release a search to our industry on contingency, accept the qualified referral and then reject the same referral with a claim of 'prior ownership' of that candidate. No, no, 1000 times, NO!

Search industry response to this new policy should be as a unified front: If you as a corporation amend your policy to use the value added information we supply in good faith as a simple lead to a document you have access to, but to which you've made no connection yourself, you've defrauded us. If no search firm will work under your restrictive 'policy', you will quickly find that your Monster Board affiliation has next to NO VALUE without the value added info we provided.

So, if you won't pay us for the identification, be sure to pay us for the rest of the process. You won't ever be sorry. Good hunting.


Previously: 'Free Agency, The New Paradigm'