I was reminded this past week that recruiting is very hard.

No, it’s not hard to post a job on your careers page and wait for a resume that you won’t screen and just pass along to the hiring manager. That’s not hard.

Recruiting is hard when it comes down to finding talent that really doesn’t want to be found and has no desire to go to work for your bad culture and crappy manager who turns over people constantly – that’s when recruiting is hard!

What separates good recruiting from bad recruiting

I think there are three big differences that separate good recruiting from bad recruiting. They are:

1. Good recruiters have the ability to change your mind about an opportunity before money is even discussed. Bad recruiters lead with the money. Good recruiters believe in their organizations, believe in the position, and believe in the hiring manager as a great leader. Then they make you a believer!
2. Good recruiters know your rejections before you know them and address them as such. Relocation is probably the toughest one that comes to mind, next to relocation and a spouse who doesn’t want to relocate (that’s like kryptonite to a recruiter!). Getting someone to relocate for a new position, new company – when they are a great talent with a great organization – takes a recruiter with an exceptional ability to connect the dots for the candidates. This becomes the “this is why you need to be here, right now” kind of moment that great recruiters come up with instead of just hanging up the phone and calling someone else.
3. Good recruiters know how to dig and love to get dirty. Let’s face it: mining the Monster database isn’t recruiting. I can easily find a $10/hr administrative type who can do that and they’ll actually be more engaged doing it! Good recruiters love the search. Yeah, it can be frustrating and heartbreaking, but when you uncover that hidden gem, it very much is worth the work!

Why good recruiting is invaluable

The last four or five years have given us an environment where newer recruiters just coming into the industry didn’t have to be good – they just had to be present. Being present isn’t a qualification, necessarily, to becoming a good recruiter. High unemployment and a low number of jobs available gives you an abundance of candidates, and usually qualified candidates as well.

This doesn’t make you a good recruiter; it makes you a good screener. In many industries, we are now seeing the value of good recruiters come back as certain job markets are opening up in a big way and candidates, even bad ones, are no longer advertising themselves as available.

Good recruiting is invaluable to a good HR shop – and bad recruiting is the quickest way for your HR shop to lose credibility with your leadership. So, what can you do? Don’t allow bad recruiting to live in your barn!

Good recruiting is hard, and it shouldn’t look easy and it doesn’t work 40 hours per week, 8 to 5 pm, Monday thru Friday. But, bad recruiting is betting on the fact that you don’t know the difference, or, you are to lazy to do anything about it.

This was originally published on Tim Sackett’s blog, The Tim Sackett Project.