Are we barking up the wrong tree by rewarding bad behaviours?

At home we are in the process of training a new puppy. She is a wonderful dog with a great character but, as anyone who has been through this process will know, she currently exhibits some bad behaviours. Intensive training is the only answer. The overriding principle with training this, and any other dog, is to reward them when the outcome matches the requirement. By doing this we can condition a dog’s behaviour to ensure that, in most cases, they respond to our basic commands.


In going through this process it has occurred to me that within the recruitment market we, and that is both the agencies and our customers, are creating a similar scenario i.e. one where only the outcome is rewarded. However, recruiters are not dogs, and candidates do not represent a simple task (sitting, fetching and returning to command!).

The essential problem here is the culture that leads a customer to put in place a competitive supply chain in the first place – the motivation to do this is often to access a wider market from a reduced number of vendors. However, with online attraction is this really needed? By operating in this way, more often than not when the customer releases a job role they create a flurry of activity in the “actively seeking candidate” market. What results is agency ownership of a candidate based on first submission, leading to whoever places the candidate receiving the reward. This reinforces the “first person to the candidate wins” behaviour, which often results in the employer brand being left behind as the race to be the first to find that winning candidate is on.

I am sure that underneath this every employer would like to think that their brand is fairly represented in the market place. Employers should expect that when someone is approached on their behalf, the time is taken to communicate the essence of the brand, the culture, the opportunity and the sheer brilliance of their organisation. On top of this the candidate should be assessed for their suitability and, probably most importantly, a quality sift of the entire market should be conducted to arrive at those candidates who are most suitable for the job.

By rewarding the first agency that speaks to the candidate that ultimately gets the job, customers prevent the above process from occurring. The agency has to cover a lot of ground quickly and make their submission before their competitor – the quality process gets diluted by urgency to get to the candidate that will result in an invoice – the rush is on!

Wouldn’t it be better to partner with one recruiter? Someone you trust to spend a considered period of time conducting an in-depth market sift, that will present your business favourably and provide an intelligent view of the candidates that you are presented with. If this doesn’t give a broad enough sift of the market to create the right candidate for you, empower that same recruiter, the one you have already invested time and effort in trusting, with widening the search to other agencies on your behalf.

Rewarding the first agency that provides a strong candidate may work in some cases, but it stops agencies doing what they do best – scouring the market to find the best possible fit, not just for the role, but also most importantly, for your organisation.