QUESTION: Should I present myself as a solo recruiter or as a company with my company name with marketing and/or sourcing candidates? – Gary
ANSWER: That is a great question. When I had my firm, I was always the Managing Director. The name of my firm was never Gionta & Associates. I bought an MRI franchise, so I was managing recruiters for a while and then we became the Hudson Consulting Group. The reason I used Hudson Consulting was because it sounded prestigious. It sounded like a company that would charge high fees. My office opened in the Fishkill and the Poughkeepsie area of New York, so it was in the Hudson Valley. It is how I justified the name even though most of our existence was in Connecticut.
Mike Gionta was always the Managing Director of the firm, even with things on my own desk. Something actually one of my recruiters taught me was when we got into fee negotiations we always had to check with the Finance Team. This was outside of whatever lousy fee proposal they were giving us was outside of the parameters of the things set in stone by the Finance Team, and when we had to do collection calls it was the Finance Team was on me for this.
Think about it, companies use it with us all the time. They need to check with their CFO, Controller, whomever, and the Controller comes back and says – oh, no, no no, and then we have to live by it even though we have never had a conversation with this mystical person. So we just created it. You could be the Finance Team. We never said who was on the Finance Team, nor were ever asked if we were the Finance Team. Your puppy can be the Finance Team. That is why I deflected to that.
A lot of time people would say, as the Managing Director you must have a lot of influence. I said, of course I do, but I am going to have a hard time justifying to lower our fee to your 20% and I do not even know if I am even going to propose that because our other clients who have already proven themselves to us are paying significantly higher. If you could give an argument, Mr. or Ms. Employer why we should give you a 20% discount off of our clients who have already proven themselves, with all due respect, for the privilege of working with you, what should I be relaying to not only myself, but the rest of team? It never diminished my authority.
The main thing is the recruiting industry is a boutique industry. I think you kind of elevate yourself by being a Managing Director over the President, Founder, CEO, COO, and CFO. I have seen some recruiters with all that stuff, and it tells me you work all by yourself.
Great question.
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