When it comes to investing your precious business resources in outsourcing your recruitment, having a good relationship with your recruitment partner is often key to a successful and happy outcome.

This partnership, when nurtured and managed effectively, can result in having a seamless recruitment process, hiring the right people, and fast tracking your business growth. Sounds great, doesn’t it?

But on the flip side, overlooking the importance of this relationship can lead to costly missteps, prolonged vacancies, and a disjointed candidate experience. Ain’t no time for that.

Today we’re diving into five strategies that you can adopt to cultivate and manage an effective recruiter relationship, including questions to ask your recruiter to make sure you’re set up for success.

1. Establish Clear Communication Channels

Effective communication is the foundation of any successful collaboration. When hiring managers and recruiters maintain open and transparent lines of communication, they set the stage for mutual understanding and aligned goals.

This enables recruiters to dive deeper into your company’s culture, values, and specific hiring needs, leading to more accurate candidate recommendations and a smoother recruitment process. But “good communication” isn’t just something two former strangers have from the get go. Instead, it must be cultivated.

Ask your recruiter:

• Which channels will we use to communicate?
• How often will we chat?
• When do you need a response?

We like to provide our clients with guidance on what we see as best practice, but remain flexible to the individual’s needs.

One way we do this is by understanding how each hiring manager best likes to communicate. And how frequently. Some folks prefer trusty ol’ email for key updates, whereas others choose to have more frequent and casual communication with us via Slack.

There’s no right or wrong, as long as you feel you’re not being kept in the dark, nor hammered endlessly with messages. Be honest and be clear.

2. Define Roles and Expectations

Understanding each party’s role and defining expectations is crucial to managing the relationship with a recruiter, especially if it’s your first time partnering with a recruitment company. This ensures that both parties are clear on their contributions and responsibilities throughout the recruitment process.

Clarity minimises confusion, streamlines decision-making, and prevents bottlenecks. Not to mention, the unintended stepping on toes which can lead to frustration.

Ask your recruiter:

• Who will organise candidate interviews?
• What should I do if a candidate reaches out to me directly?
• What do you need from me for us to succeed?

Because every business is at a different stage of growth and maturity, we offer support depending on their needs while advising on who we believe is best suited to do what.

For example, many of our SaaS clients typically have their own tech tests for assessing candidates, whereas an E-Commerce client who’s hiring their first developer will ask for guidance in selecting a tech test.

Another common point of confusion is when a potential candidate reaches out to a hiring manager directly. Establish protocol around what to do if this happens, and know there’s likely a clause that touches on this in the Ts & Cs you signed.

3. Regular Feedback and Collaboration

As a hiring manager, providing regular, thorough and constructive feedback is crucial to hiring the right person. We can’t emphasise this enough!

Providing timely feedback when a recruiter presents candidates to you, on interview outcomes, and on the overall recruitment process will help your recruitment partner refine their approach and make adjustments in real time to better suit you.

Imagine requesting feedback from someone you’re closely working with on a time sensitive project, only to not hear back from them for days or a week at a time. The more timely you can be with your feedback, the better and smoother the recruitment process will be for both you and the candidates.

Ask your recruiter:

• What’s the best way for me to provide feedback?
• How quickly do I need to respond?
• Will we use a shared project management system like Trello to manage candidates?

Transparency is essential to great collaboration and successful partnerships between a recruiter and hiring manager.

That’s why we create and share Trello boards with each of our clients that outlines the stages of our process, the candidates at each stage, their details, and much more. This gives hiring managers close to real-time data about the status of the project and creates a shared sense of accountability.

4. Streamline the Candidate Feedback Loop

Okay so this is similar, but deserves a point of its own for extra emphasis. Prompt feedback about a candidate from hiring managers enables recruiters to swiftly recalibrate their search and avoid potential bottlenecks in the hiring process.

Not to mention, potentially missing out on hiring someone amazing due to lack of interest or offers from other companies.

Ask your recruiter:

• When do you need my feedback?
• How quickly should we be moving along the process with each candidate?
• Is this candidate applying to other companies/interviewing elsewhere?

In recruitment, timing is everything. And despite many time-related factors being outside of our control (think: reference checks, candidate replies, interview scheduling), it’s possible to create efficiencies along the way.

We take into consideration public holidays, annual leave and other potential scheduling conflicts that could extend the timeline. We’re frequently requesting feedback from hiring managers and candidates alike. And we update our clients about any important changes as they happen.

5. Embrace a Long-Term Partnership Approach

Building and growing a successful business is a long-term endeavour, and so should be the relationship with your recruitment partner.

A lasting partnership allows recruiters to develop an in-depth understanding of your business’s evolving needs and culture, enabling them to proactively connect you with perfectly aligned talent.

Imagine that – someone knowing your business so well they’re able to introduce you to the exact folks you want to grow your business with? Beyond candidates, they’d even introduce you to the kind of investors, lawyers, journalists and other industry professionals you’d want to connect with.

Ask your recruiter:

• How do you foster and reward long-term partnerships?
• How do you provide support and keep in touch after the placement?
• How would you like to stay updated about my business needs?

One thing we love about recruiting for startups is the opportunity to be an integral part of their growth journey.

To us, success isn’t “filling” a role and calling it a day. It’s supporting a client when they need us, and continuing to cheer them on when they don’t. We stay connected in a number of ways, including regular check ins and invitations to community-only events.

Final thoughts

In the chaos that can be scaling your business, ensuring the relationship with your recruiter runs smoothly can bring you much-needed calm.

By implementing these five strategies, you can forge a strong relationship with your recruitment partner that’s beneficial far beyond the service they’re providing.

Keen to grow your team? If you want to learn more about how affix can help, we’d love to hear from you!