What Working With a Recruiter Is Like
What Working With a Recruiter is Like
New to working with a recruiter or frustrated by past experiences with other agencies?
Rust Belt Recruiting offers a personalized, manufacturing-industry specific approach to helping you fulfill your talent needs by following our Proven Process.
Keep reading to learn about the four key stages that we utilize to fulfill your talent needs and create lasting improvements to your recruiting strategy!
Discovery Stage
The goal of this stage is to identify your needs and gain an understanding of your business. Once an inquiry is received, our team will reach out to schedule a 30 minute discovery call. During this call we’ll seek to gain an understanding of your business and learn about:
- your current and past recruiting strategies
- your history with other agencies (if applicable)
- the challenges that you are facing
- what you hope to improve upon
After gaining more context on your company, our team will be able to share more about our industry-specific approach and how it relates to your unique situation. Here are some of the core focuses of our Proven Process:
Human First - Before anything else, we are human first. Forming long-lasting relationships built on support, authenticity and integrity is at the core of our business. Our consultative and collaborative approach is designed for long-term success.
“We’re highly consultative. We like to be hands on with our clients and be more of an extension of their talent team if they have one or be their talent team if they don’t, as opposed to just being another vendor in a stack of recruiting agencies trying to fill a role.” - Taylor Evans, Founder & Owner of Rust Belt Recruiting
Solution-Oriented - We are direct hire only. Temporary or temporary to permanent hires are not the candidate pool that we represent. Our team has decades of experience within talent acquisition and human resources in industrial settings and we know that in order to be successful, we need to provide our clients with solutions, not temporary fixes.
Engaged Partner - An important part of our business model is that we aim to work as an engaged partner. We take on a limited amount of work so that our team can focus on filling your roles. We choose our clients carefully because we aim for mutual success from our partnerships.
Transparency - We don’t make promises that we can’t keep. You’re dealing with the most expensive and complex business asset that there is - human capital. Quality is of the utmost importance to us here at Rust Belt and we aim to select partnerships that will offer results and open doors to success for our candidates.
During the discovery call, we will also review engagement fees, rates and payment terms to ensure that we are aligned. We offer flexible fee structures that meet the needs of your business. Some of the main points regarding terms include:
- Engagement Fee - We charge a modest engagement fee to start a first search for your company. This allows us to onboard your company properly and get the search started on your behalf. Like a deposit, this fee is credited back after the first placement.
- Rates - We offer different rates for production, professional/technical roles and executive roles.
- Payment Terms - We offer two payment models depending on the roles that you are looking to fill. Our Direct Staffing model is for production/hourly roles under $30/hour and our Direct Hire model is for professional/salaried roles. Direct hire searches come with a Placement Guarantee.
From here, if fitting, our team will schedule an on-site visit. This is so we can gain a deeper understanding of your production environment in order to better communicate what the role will be like to potential candidates. This is also a great opportunity to further connect with your team.
“None of the staffing agencies who we had worked with in the past had done that. I don't think that any of our staffing reps had done a plant tour or anything like that, so having the people we work with have in-depth knowledge of what we do was very important.” - RBR Client
Once this meeting is completed, assuming that all parties are ready to move forward, we’ll send the decision maker a copy of our standard recruiting agreement. This is a document outlining our terms and some of the legalese that we have around those terms. Once signed, our accounting department will invoice for the engagement fee, which is due upon invoicing. Candidates will not begin to be presented until payment is received.
Onboarding Stage
The onboarding process begins with an intake call. This call will happen within five days of the agreement being signed. Our Director of Recruiting and a member of our recruiting team will schedule a video conference with your team. Once a time is confirmed an invite will be sent directly to your team and will include an attachment with important questions that will be asked during the intake for you to review before the meeting. During the call our team will ask in-depth questions about the roles that we will actively be recruiting for. At this point a workflow will be established for candidate presentation/review and the interview process that will be utilized.
Delivery Stage
The delivery stage begins the candidate search period. Our recruiting team will begin to actively recruit for your open roles, post to appropriate sites and source externally for passive candidates.
Depending on the role, we aim to have initial candidates sent to you within 7-10 business days. Executive and professional roles may take more time to engage, particularly passive candidates at a higher level. Our benchmark goal is to have a search completed within 45 days but this can vary greatly depending on the nature of the search.
Once a fitting candidate is sourced, the recruiting team will complete an in-depth phone screen, review the candidate's resume and send a brief written introduction of the candidate to your team. Due to the competitive market, we ask that a candidate’s information is reviewed and feedback is given within 1-3 business days. Feedback is important, even if the candidate is not a fit, so that we can take this information and recalibrate our search efforts. Depending on the scope of your engagement with us, we may ask to place a recurring call on your calendar to discuss any candidates in process or feedback on our recruiting efforts.
If you are interested in a presented candidate, the next steps in the interview process will have been laid out during the initial intake meeting. Our recruiting team can either help to schedule an onsite or virtual interview with the candidate, or you may move forward in coordinating next steps as you see fit (interview, phone interview etc.). If you choose to communicate directly with the referred candidate, our recruiting team should be copied on any written communications in order to maintain consistent messaging with the candidate throughout the process. This will help tremendously once a candidate has been selected to receive an offer.
During the screening process we will have asked for the candidate’s compensation and benefits expectations, which is then relayed to you. When we reach the offer stage with that referred candidate, we will use this past information to reach out to the candidate again and re-confirm salary expectations now that the interview process is complete.
Once you are ready to make an offer, we are happy to extend the offer verbally and relay the candidate’s response back to you. Once accepted, you will send out a written offer and connect with the candidate on any preliminary hiring requirements (i.e. background and/or medical checks). Because the referred candidate will be an employee of your company from day one, Rust Belt Recruiting does not perform any background or medical screening.
Once a candidate is confirmed for start, you will need to send us a copy of the written offer letter (ideally countersigned) and/or offer details (such as compensation package, start date, etc.). We will send this information to our accounting department to manage invoicing accordingly and to close the search. Hereafter you will receive a one time invoice for a Direct Hire placement or a weekly invoice for a Direct Staffing placement.
Recalibration Stage
As mentioned in the previous stage, ongoing feedback is important so we can recalibrate our efforts as the search progresses so we consider the recalibration stage as ongoing. However, a post-search review will happen within five days of a candidate starting and/or an accepted offer. This allows for open discussion on our recruiting efforts and the candidate pool. This is also an invitation to discuss other opportunities to improve your workforce through recruitment and/or refined talent strategies.
Our purpose is to be the facilitator who drives you forward while teaching you along the way so that we can eventually hand off the steering wheel. We are an investment, not an expense because we offer a consultative experience that leaves you with a broader solution.
We help you learn more about your business which provides you with the insights needed to run it better and we aim to leave you with a better understanding of how to develop and execute hiring strategies so that you can continue to thrive.
Interested in becoming an engaged partner? Submit an inquiry on our Services page to get the conversation started today!
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