How do you choose a staffing firm?

I frequent geeky new technology events and the most common question I get right after I tell people that I work for a staffing firm is - what am I doing there?

Why, I’m there to learn about new technologies and meet new people. In that order.

Most assume that when someone from a staffing firm comes to a tech event, that we’re there to harvest leads. Why it’s so unbelievable that I’m there to actually learn is beyond me. What’s there to learn? Plenty. Why learn? As someone who earns a living placing people to work on your stuff, doesn’t it only make sense that I know what your core business is about?

Which brings me to another myth about staffing firms. A recruiter’s job entails more than just matching keywords with resumes or making sure that our candidate has great communication skills to impress a hiring manager during the interview.

The staffing firm is an organization’s representative to a candidate. It’s cliche but considering the number of hiring managers who have told me that all they really care about is whether we can find the people for a reasonable price, maybe it isn’t so obvious.

There are so many things that ride on the hires we bring in. The cost of each wrong hire can mount quickly and the damage that the wrong staffing firm can bring to your company’s employment brand can be irreparable.

How do you choose a staffing firm? I will write posts about this, but just to start, “the right staffing firm” isn’t going to come in the form of the lowest bidding responder to your RFP, nor will it come as the vendor with the best looking brochure or website.

But before I put in my two cents, if you have found The Staffing Firm for your organization, how did you find them and how did you know they were The One?