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Michael Glenn is Glennlist. Nerd Herder, Geeky IT Recruiter, and Social Media Addict.

Should Recruiters Be Accountable for Bad Hires? follow this blog post

posted by on Sept. 27, 2009

Remember college? Or maybe you can't. You slept all day and partied all night. You had zero accountability except making good grades. Then you got a job, spouse, house and kids. And then, Boom! You're responsible for a lot of things, pal. Like a mortgage, college and keeping your job.

Agencies are accountable for every hire they make, if the person bails or is terminated, then the company can recoup placement fees.

Accountability, it's the word of the day. And, it may be the Recruitment word of the year. Here is why.

Corporate Recruiters were never accountable. Until now!

HR Departments have shifted their focus on finding and retaining top notch employees. A lot of emphasis has gone to interviewing process for Recruiters. Wiping away poor excuses for bad hires.

Hiring Managers are looking for HR and Recruiters to solve this problem by finding the right candidate - the first time. Using successful interviewing techniques to weed through candidate pools, Recruiters are now responsible for their New Hires too.

But, should Recruiters be held liable if a New Hire is fired? What happens is the New Hire leaves after one month?

Is it the Recruiters responsibility to help retain New Hires too?

Your thoughts and comments please.

accountable bad hires boom glennlist.com recruiters
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17 comments

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  • 1 point 50 days ago

    As recruiters, whether corporate or third party, we should be accountable for asking the appropriate questions of candidates based on our "interview" with the Hiring Managers.  When determine what is important to them, only then can we find the right people.  With a series of appropriate questions we can dig into the backgrounds of candidates and find the truth, get around the canned answers .  Of course, there is always something else that comes up after a few candidates are interviewed that we didn't know about or that the Hiring Managers change their mind about or want to add. So, we again sit down with our hiring managers, ask the whats whys, hows and whos to determine what it is that is important based on what we know now.  This is the collaboration piece of the job and is subject to change through out the search, sometimes several times.  This is indicative of the fact that we as recruiters only know what they want to tell us. We are not mind readers and shouldn't be expected to be one.  In other words we can't sell what we don't know.  "Hiring Managers" are called that because that is what they are.  They ultimately make they decision on who is best for their department/company and that is where the accountability should lie.  

    To quote one of the greatest recruiters I have ever worked with and learned so much from (he knows who he is) "The only thing we can do is serve up the candidates; we can't make the decision on whether or not to hire them."

    Regarding retention, some organizations have recruiting and retention lumped together but the question is what part do we play in retention?  Are we to take problem calls from the newly hired employees 6 months down the line?  What if the problem is with the fact that they feel the quota's are unattainable? We cant change it so is that something we should be accountable for? We have dug into their background verified their stated track record through paystubs, awards and references etc; is it really our problem that they cant meet the goals or that the initial stated goals have been changes sometimes multiple times?  What about if they get sick and have to step away from their job even though they got a clean bill of heath from an extensive pre-employment health screening?  Many companies include extensive behavioral testing before a candidate is hired, they avoid or welcome certain personality types based who has succeeded and who has not in the past or the personality of the Manager.  Where does the accountability fall when the candidate is determined to be an ideal match on a behavioral test but is then fired or quits?   Yes these are extreme examples but "liability" is a very broad and extreme concept.   

    In actuality, really the only part  of retention we can be responsible for is coming up with ideas to improve it.  But if Hiring Managers and other higher ups choose not to implement even the most basic and time tested methods of retention it can not be our fault and we should not be accountable for it.

  • 1 point 52 days ago

    "Corporate recruiters were never accountable."  Oh really?  Not in my experience!  In more than twelve years on the corporate side of the desk I can assure you that I was held accountable for a number of things ranging from objective (turnaround time, cost-per-hire) to subjective (perceived candidate quality).  Was I able to directly affect retention?  Only by telling the truth about the job the person was to fill, about the manager, the department, etc.  Past that point, the old maxim "people quit managers, not jobs" applies.

    As far as accountabiity for hires facilitated by various types of recruiting firms, my 15+ years as a TPR has shown me that a new hire is guaranteed for a finite period ranging from 30-90 days for contingent placements to one year for some retained placements.  Reasonable people on both sides of the desk understand that there are WAY too many independent variables in managing people for new hire accountability to be open ended.

    Ultimately, the recruiter (whether internal or external) can only reasonably be held accountable for getting the right person to the job on day one; the rest is up to the organization itself.

  • 1 point 51 days ago

    Richard - When you say "the organization itself" do you include the recruiting group as being part of it?

  • 1 point 54 days ago

    As the Manager of Talent Acquisition for a small but rapidly growing biotech firm, I face constant challenges to match not only very technical requirements but also organizational fits in providing viable candidates for a multitude of positions. I am ready to accept accountability for the "quality" of my hires--up to a point. The recruit-to-hire process is--and should be--a collaboration of Staffing, hiring department management and department peer-level personnel. All contribute to the job requirements definition and the interview process. If a candidate gets through the interview process, is determined by the majority of interviewers to be a good fit, gets hired, and then doesn't work out, the "blame" may well fall on any or all of the participants, mostly dependent on the thoroughness of their respective interview process and the sharing of that information.

  • 1 point 51 days ago

    Terry - An excellent post that conveys your message succinctly. Your organization is fortunate to have such a clear thinker on their team.

  • 1 point 54 days ago

    Responsibility is and must be shared during the interviewing process and even up to onboarding the new hire but I don't see why a recruiter should be held accountable beyond that.  At minimum the recruiter needs an accurate job description and participation from the stakeholders. In my opinion usually the best hires are made when all stakeholders in the process are actively engaged, working toward the same goal. But this doesn't mean you'll have good hires 100% of the time because as long as we're dealing with people there will always be exceptions good and bad.

    What I hate is the shifting that some hiring managers do, as in "bad hire = blame it on the recruiter, good hire = a great find by the hiring manager". 

    Ultimately the HM bears much of the responsibility once the onboarding process is completed. As a recruiter I shouldn't be held accountable for a hiring manager's deficiencies - and many of them have countless deficiencies let's face it!

  • 1 point 54 days ago

    If your goal is to act as a significant player/partner in the overrall success of the business, then yes!  You should feel and have a portion of accountability when it comes to a mis-hire. 

    If you want to shrugg your shoulders and push blaim elsewhere, then no, you won't feel accountability and you likely never will.  Accountability is a result of your make-up and character.  Do you want to see success and quality in the service your provide?  Then yes, accountability should be on the shoulders of the recruiter (in addition to others in the organization).

    The fundamental characteristic is what separates A players from B and C players.

    KS

  • 1 point 54 days ago

    All of you make excellent points.

    A partnership must be in place between the client and recruiter. Responsibility for a bad hire is never one sided. Our job is to match the right candidate with the right job. In order for us to do so, we need a complete/accurate job description from our client and a complete assessment from the candidate on what they are seeking. Without both, failure is eminent. 

    Is it our responsiblity to attain that information, yes. However, we need willing participants, assistance, to attain that goal.

    The job boards do not give any type of guarantee period,  provide a skill level assessment or can boast that they have met the candidate. We as recruiters/staffing firms can.

    Offering a "trial period" is a selling point. The period of time is between the recruiter and client company and should be agreed to upfront. I do not like surprises.

     

  • 1 point 55 days ago

    For accountability, what does that really mean in a corporate setting? If there is an instance where one recruiter's placements seem to fall out, then it seems to me there's a red flag that something is amiss. An assessment should be done and should consider the following:

    • Is there more than one recruiter supporting the same business group(s) and are they having similar results?
    • Is the recruiter qualified to recruit for the positions and/or has the recruiter been trained in that business area (i.e. sales, technology, legal, accounting, etc.)?
    • How much control does the recruiter have in selecting the candidates who get interviewed? (Does the hiring manager get to select from all resumes received, is it through a VMS, etc.?)
    • Are the retention failures within one business group or multiple groups?
    • Are the hiring managers who have high turnover new or seasoned managers?
    • Has the recruiting department invested in training the recruiters and hiring managers on interview best practices?
    • Does the recruiting department have a good relationship with the business groups experiencing the turnover?

    At the end of the day, the most important areas to focus on are recruiting quality and constructive communication between the recruiting department and the hiring managers they serve.

    Whatever it takes, the company must recognize that they succeed and fail as a team. Solutions should come from an overview that takes in all pertinent information and includes all of the parties involved in each process.

     

     

  • 1 point 55 days ago

    I am a third party recruiter, and we do offer both a standard 6 month and an extended 12 month guarantee.  We know we have no control over the work environment once someone starts, but we also know that a TON of information flows during the interview sequence, and nothing clarifies the mind like knowing you are "on the hook" for re-doing the search if it does not work out. 

    I say accountability rules, even if it is a shared accountability with others.  

  • 1 point 55 days ago

    I agree with Thomas Gray's comments on TPR's and I tend to get indignant when clients ask for extended guarentees (6 months to 12 months).  Our job as TPR's is to find, source and intially screen, sell and present candidates based on the knowledge shared for the client.  Once an employee, we have NO CONTROL over what happens on the company site.   

    Since this was written to focus on the internal recruiter and thier responsibility for retaining a candidate I believe the same applies.  The hired individual does not report to the HR group - why do they have to take responsibility for keeping them happy?  They may never see that person once the interview process and onboarding is completed, they may even be located at a different site. 

    You can only be responsible for what you can control and you can never control another persons thoughts and actions.   I can't think of a single instance when HR hired someone for a different department that did not also interview with someone in that department.  The responsibility for hiring someone goes to the person that "pulled the trigger" and said make the offer.  That is normally a hiring manager - it is and always will be their responsibility to keep that person "happy" as they are the ones that have the day-to-day responsibility for the employee! 

  • 1 point 55 days ago

    Before we assign responsibility for any outcome let's ask ourselves three questions:

    Was there anything we could have done to predict the outcome?

    Was there anything we did, directly or indirectly, to cause the outcome?

    Was there anything we could have done to prevent the outcome?

    If we did not cause the outcome and we were unable to predict or prevent the outcome then we should neither hold credit or responsibility.

    I once placed a technician with a major capital equipment company and he went on to become director of service and enacted several policies that saved the company millions within 10 years of being hired.

    Would you like to bonus me on that performance?

    Obviously not.

    So why would you propose that I am responsible for poor leadership in a department or perhaps even that someones high school buddy starts a company and out of the blue offers our new hire 250k a year more than we were paying them?  Would I loose my fee if the new hire was hit by a bus and killed?

    There are too many people looking for a guarantee in life but there are none.  A manager must take responsibility for retention of the team they manage.

    I know how to find people and get them interested in speaking to you.  You have to take it from there and make it work.  My fee is charged to cover the time taken to weed through all of the people you don't have to meet.  I only send you 3 resumes and historicly an offer is made to one of my candidates over 90% of the time.  You can keep doing your job because I do mine.  If I spent my time trying to retain your employees for you too then you can expect my fee to increase accordingly.  I am happy to provide the service of contracting them for you.

  • 1 point 55 days ago

    At my former company, retention was a key driver, so I do believe that recruiter should be held responsible for a bad hire up until a certain point -90 days at my former employer. I have even asked for one of my performance measures to be the retention of employees who impact the business.

    If the manager sucks, the recruiter needs to make sure that the candidate is strong enough to work for a challenging manager and help them find a friend or mentor in another department. If the work environment is challenging, tell the candidate about the pros and the cons. Its up to the candidate to make a decision about the crappy manager or the environment. If the job is challenging, ask the candidate to sample the job. Recruiters need to give candidates enough info about the real situation to make an informed decision.

    We've all been surprised by the candidate who doesn't show up on day one, or who left for personal reasons (mine was called by God, seriously). It's going to happen. But if recruiters do not take ownership of important scorecard measures that impact the business, they will never get the respect and attention of senior management.

  • 1 point 55 days ago

    Recruiting should only take responsibility if they failed to do their job which is present only the most qualified candidates who have the technical skills and potential team fit into the organization. 

    HR has a mark on their head because we are always making decisions for management.  Most job descriptions will show a bullet referring to "attracting, recruiting, and retaining potential employees".  Therefore, Hiring Managers should always be held accountable whether a corporate recruiter presents or an agency recruiter presents candidates.  We are still seeing a huge applicant pool for every position we recruit.  A recruiter's responsibility is to listen to the hiring managers' needs, seek candidates to those needs, and present to the hiring manager.

    I agree with Laurie's comments regarding retention.  Give it about 6 months and retention will be out the window for quite a few companies as A players feel they were treated crummy (that's being nice) during the down time.  What we need to look at is employee engagement - find out what they want, look at the costs surrounding their needs -growth, balance, ingenuity, training -and let that be the retention tool.

    If you are not holding your hiring managers accountable for their hiring decisions, you are in the wrong business.

     

  • 1 point 51 days ago

    Michael, I like not only your attitude, but the juxtaposition of the phrase "mark on their head" and "bullet."  Have worked both corporate and independent gigs - good to great hires often leave the recruiter forgotten, but a bad hire often returns the individual to recruiter responsibility.  I believe we're responsible to vet them by a careful read of the resume and a careful check of their references, present and negotiate with them and thank those  not hired.  That's where the recruiter responsibilty ends, although I usually call new hires at 3 months and 6 months to check in with them.

  • 1 point 55 days ago

    Conceptually, it takes a village to raise a child. It takes everyone -- from corporate recruiter to CEO -- to retain the best and brightest talent within an organization.

    I think we do a disservice when we shift responsibility for retaining the employee from the day-in-day-out manager to other functions such as HR and Recruiting. Should we blame the janitor if an employee quits? If only the toilets had been cleaner, maybe he would have remained with the company.

    I'll also say this much: retention is overrated. There is a cost associated with hiring & losing good people, but there is a cost when we keep good people too long. The days of long-term employment are gone, and companies succeed when there's a diversity of talent and voices. I think we need to look at costs and benefits a little differently in the future.

  • 1 point 55 days ago

    I agree that retention is a function of day-to-day employee satisfaction, not just finding "good genes" in a new hire on day one.  I fundamentally disagree with the "retention is overrated" comment, though.

    I've had amazing people and people that just didn't work out in the exact same roles, and the difference was night and day.  I'd do pretty much anything to retain the good ones.