The saying goes that too many cooks spoil the broth. Now, I’m not a chef but I can tell you that too many recruiters can spoil the search. That’s why it makes sense to have an exclusive relationship for all your recruitment – and culinary – needs.

Folksy wisdom aside, there are many practical reasons to hire exclusive recruiters.

You Know Who Owns The Search

Nobody likes competition and recruiters will always work on an exclusive search above something you’ve given to multiple search firms. The more recruiters you have working on a search the less likely any one of them is going to have someone actively headhunting for the role.

You can still get positive results working with multiple search firms but it’s much harder to set your expectations when you haven’t got a guaranteed level of activity. It’s also difficult to manage a search when you have several contact points rather than one point person.

There’s Only One Process

Speaking of contact points, the more people you’re working with the more processes you need to keep track of. Every firm and every recruiter will have a slightly different process and their own approach to their search. You’ll either spend your time trying to keep them all straight or fighting to get them to follow your procedures.

It’s not impossible to manage it all but the more work you expect a recruiter to do on a contingent search, the lower the odds they’re going to dedicate time to that search.

No Candidate Conflicts

There’s a finite number of candidates that are suitable for your role. No recruiter is going to have every one of them covered, but if you’re working with multiple search firms there’s bound to be some overlap. This can lead to candidates getting multiple calls from different recruiters about the same role, which can get frustrating fast and sends mixed messages about the quality of the opportunity.

This might not be an issue for candidates eager for a change, but the top tier candidates don’t appreciate getting redundant calls.

The other thing to keep in mind is that there are a lot of ways to work exclusively with a partner while keeping your options open. One very effective tool is to offer a search as exclusive for a limited time (ie. 30 days) before opening it to other agencies. Another is to have different firms for different functional areas.

Are you ready to build a team that drives revenue? Our team of headhunters in Toronto can help.