If you’re leading talent acquisition (TA) at a large company, chances are you’re juggling multiple agency relationships, managing internal pressure to deliver on speed and quality, and trying to make sense of vendor performance across functions, geographies, and hiring managers.

And yet… you’re still not seeing the consistency you need.

 

Adding more vendors isn’t solving the problem. In fact, it’s probably making it worse—duplicated intake calls, inconsistent candidate pipelines, too many touchpoints, and no unified accountability.

If that’s your reality, and you’re reevaluating what a real recruiting partner should look like—or wondering if your current one is doing enough—this is for you.

Here are the five things every high-performing recruiting partner should be doing for you, and how to know whether you’ve got one that’s worth keeping.

1. Strategic Alignment (Not Just Resume Dumping)

Top recruiting partners don’t just take reqs—they understand business context and align their effort to workforce planning goals, not just open seats.

What it looks like in practice:

• They come to intake meetings prepared with labor market insights (e.g. comp ranges, location trends, competitor activity)
• They help prioritize roles based on hiring class, role criticality, or business impact—not first-in, first-out
• They ask about the success profile for the role (not just qualifications), tying it to team structure, reporting lines, and growth trajectory
• They tailor search strategies for evergreen vs. backfill vs. net-new roles

What good looks like:

• Your recruiting partner understands your org structure, key initiatives (e.g. a new GTM strategy or regional expansion), and how roles ladder into those goals
• They recommend hiring sequence shifts based on known dependencies
• They suggest adjustments to intake data (e.g. reworking the employee value proposition (EVP) for a hard-to-fill function)

How to drive this behavior:

• Share your quarterly or annual headcount plans, not just current openings
• Include recruiting partners in kickoff meetings for new business units or initiatives
• Ask for their input on prioritization and pipeline design—not just candidate delivery

2. Consistent, Proactive Communication

Strong vendors don’t wait for you to ask where things stand. They stay visible, offer useful updates, and help manage hiring manager expectations.

What it looks like in practice:

• Weekly updates (or better, biweekly dashboards) summarizing pipeline activity, key risks, and next steps
• Candidate feedback loops with timestamps and decision outcomes
• Proactive nudges when a stage stalls (e.g. panel scheduling lags, interviewers not submitting scorecards)
• Transparent communication around search pivots, close-call turndowns, or feedback trends

What good looks like:

• You’re never caught off guard by a hiring manager asking for a candidate status update
• Vendor updates are timely, structured, and aligned to your team’s cadence—be it in Slack, your ATS, or scorecard reports
• They escalate blockers before they become executive escalations

How to drive this behavior:

• Set communication expectations during onboarding: what to report, when, and where
• Invite vendors to join hiring manager debriefs for high-priority roles
• Reward signal over noise—prioritize insights, not just candidate volume

 

 

3. True Market Reach (Beyond the Database)

Anyone can post a role and forward resumes. The best recruiting partners know how to build a pipeline—especially in niche, senior, or high-volume roles.

What it looks like in practice:

• Dedicated sourcing infrastructure: Boolean search, passive candidate outreach, CRM/nurture campaigns
• Expertise in engaging cleared talent, licensed professionals, or hard-to-reach senior ICs
• Relationships with specialized recruiters or agencies (e.g. healthcare, federal, tech, high-volume retail)
• Experience filling roles with complex compliance, multilingual, or on-site requirements

What good looks like:

• Candidates are sourced, not scraped—many wouldn’t have applied organically
• You’re not just getting the top 10 from LinkedIn—you’re getting the top 3 who are interested and informed
• Partners can show you channel breakdowns (sourced vs. inbound vs. referral) and conversion metrics by source

How to drive this behavior:

• Ask for sourcing methodology during vendor selection (who does what, how, and where)
• Share what hasn’t worked in past searches—failed searches can guide smarter targeting
• Require visibility into where candidates are coming from (e.g. sourced, referred, applied), not just how many they send

4. Process Partnership (Not Just Compliance)

Great partners don’t push their process—they plug into yours. And then they help you optimize it.

What it looks like in practice:

• Willingness to work inside your ATS—using your structured scorecards, following internal SLAs, and even integrating with your ATS or HCM if needed
• Respecting chain of communication—not bypassing TA/HR to go directly to hiring managers
• Coaching hiring managers on calibration and candidate communication
• Bringing up process friction points (e.g. too many stakeholders, unclear ownership, conflicting feedback)
• Building alignment across DEI standards, structured interviewing, and role-specific rubrics

What good looks like:

• There’s no drop in candidate experience whether they come through internal or external channels
• Vendors know your interview stages and push back if too many steps or misaligned evaluators creep in
• Partners help reinforce interview discipline and drive post-interview decision-making forward

How to drive this behavior:

• Provide vendors with your current workflow, not just a job req
• Clarify process ownership: who schedules, who evaluates, who closes
• Make space for vendor feedback—invite them to share what slows things down

5. Performance Insight That Actually Helps You Improve

Reporting shouldn’t just justify a fee. It should help you hire better.

What it looks like in practice:

• Candidate funnel reports: applied, screened, interviewed, offered, accepted!
• Interview-to-offer ratios segmented by recruiter, role type, or function
• Retrospectives on closed roles (especially those that took longer than expected or turned over quickly)
• Scorecard completion and interviewer feedback trends

What good looks like:

• You can tell which vendors are adding the most value—not just the most resumes
• You spot trends in quality (e.g. drop-off between second-round and final interview) and use that to improve
• Reporting helps TA make stronger cases to the business (e.g. realistic timelines, compensation shifts)

How to drive this behavior:

• Share which metrics matter to your CHRO or COO (e.g. time-to-fill, source-of-hire quality, pipeline diversity)
• Standardize what every vendor reports back post-hire
• Ask for candidate feedback summaries—especially when offers are declined

The right partner doesn’t add work—they give you results

Hiring at scale will never be “easy”, but it can feel a whole lot lighter when you’re not carrying the entire load alone.

Your recruiting partner should not just check boxes or show up when you’re in a pinch. They need to help you get ahead of the chaos. They move in sync with your team. They understand that hiring isn’t just about headcount. It’s about momentum, business impact, and trust.

And when you find a partner who gets that, your team stops chasing candidates and starts making confident, fast hires. Feedback loops tighten. Scorecards get used. Hiring managers stay engaged. And TA gets to lead with strategy, not just service.

You don’t have to choose between volume and quality. You don’t have to chase candidates and manage chaos at the same time. You can do it differently. And when you do—it shows. In the talent you attract, the teams you build, and the way your org sees the value of TA.

That’s what the best recruiting partners help make possible. And it’s well within reach.