Assessing a New Recruiter

I'm often amazed at how few candidates spend any time asking about my background experience vs. the details of specific job posting. Most just zero in on the details of one position they saw or heard about.

A good recruiter will probably have a number of openings at any one time. Probably a number of them of a similar type (see discussions of a recruiter's 'space' or specialty).

Before you bare your soul to a recruiter, it might be worthwhile to ask the recruiter a few questions about his/her background.

If it turns out they do have some experience, you may want to find out more about their relationship with the specific client in question. Some questions to ask:

Are you on contingeny, retainer, contract or a company employee?
How long have you worked with this client?
How many placements with them?
What is the company culture like? Profitability? Turnover? Growth?
What is the hiring manager like? Style? Personality? Background?

They may not wish to answer all these questions immediately if they are on a contingency search, preferring to qualify you as a candidate first. The process should be a give and take, and if they insist on extensive questioning of you without divulging any information about available positions, you may want to proceed cautiously.

Some recruiters may represent that they have positions available that they may not. This could include positions that have been filled, may potentially be available, but are not yet, or in some cases, that are totally fictitious.

In other cases, they may have legitimate openings, but be new, ill-informed, or working with a client who uses multitudes of recruiters while providing little information for the recruiters to go on other than the printed job spec. Recruiters in these situations are generally either inexperienced, or not very capable, and generally provide little value to the candidate. Experienced, capable recruiters also work with new clients from time to time, and they should be willing to inform you if that is the case. A capable recruiter, even one working with a new client, should stand apart in the quantity and quality of information he or she can share, from those that simply have a job spec, and are pressuring you for details and to commit to interest in a position about which you know little or nothing.