How can I tell if a recruiting agency’s job postings still attract candidates?

Postings are the front door of a recruiting agency. If they stop working, recruiters spend more time searching and less time placing. Ask the seller to export posting data for the last several months: when each ran, where it appeared, how many applied and how many were worth a call.

Read the postings themselves. Are they specific about the role, the employer type and the pay range, or do they read like generic filler? Do the same ones keep returning because nobody was found? Ask which postings recruiters still use and which they have stopped using.

Next, ask where candidates actually come from. If most placements rely on the recruiters’ own contacts rather than postings, the postings matter less, but you should know that. Compare a few postings with competitors’ in the same niche, and look at the candidate database: is it fresh, or full of people not contacted for a long time? Speak with recruiters about what has changed in candidate response, and ask how the seller’s approach has changed in reply. Ask also whether the agency has changed how it writes postings recently, and what happened to response afterward, as that shows whether the team tests its own work.

Key takeaways

• Ask for application data by posting rather than a general summary.
• Check which roles keep being reposted without success.
• Find out whether placements rely on postings or personal contacts.