Recruiter VS Candidate Prospect Who Holds the "Power"?

What really gets me fired up, though, is when these same people are giving advice to the general public about how to approach, or work with, recruiters. I came across a comment online the other day written by someone who you would probably expect more professionalism out of - they are a director level leader at a fortune 500 technology company. This person specifically wrote about how candidates hold ALL of the 'power' throughout the recruiting process, and that since recruiters typically are paid to make placements, candidates need to "walk away" from them more often to "show them who is boss". I use quotation marks because he said these things exactly how I have written them. I literally lost my breath when I read this. Is this really how people operate? Although this person's advice was ludicrous, it sparked a good question - who holds the power between a recruiter and a candidate prospect? I'd be very interested to hear what people have to say about this in general.

What needs to be better understood both by recruiters and candidate prospects is that their relationship absolutely must be one of equal respect if they are to move forward with each other. This balanced relationship is born out of equal levels of interest in one another. The candidate prospect should have enough interest in the proposed opportunity that they respect the recruiter, and same goes for the recruiter's interest level in the candidate's skillset and overall candidacy. If interest levels are out of balance, then both parties should agree to either move on or continue dialogue until interest levels become more balanced. The fact that people actually think they hold some sort of "power" through the recruiting process is bizarre and unhealthy. Either party has the ability to walk away immediately, and they will (or at least, should) do so as necessary.

I have to assume that this mentality (coming from the candidate side at least) is driven by the shortage of technical talent in today's business world, and I can somewhat understand that. However, candidates that act this way are definitely doing themselves a major disservice. And vice versa, if a recruiter is disrespectful towards a candidate prospect because they feel they have power over them, that candidate will find another opportunity.

What candidates seem to forget about today is our economy. There's always the chance of another major recession in which case, many people will hope they did not burn bridges in the recruiting world. In my eyes, both parties hold equal amounts of power however no one should be calculating or even thinking about that in the first place.

One thing that I truly hope to experience in my lifetime is more of a relational approach to the recruiting process from both sides of the coin. The hope is that recruiters stop seeing dollar signs and take more of a human-centric, consultative approach to headhunting. And on the flip side, I hope that the talent pool understands that recruiters aren't all "bad" people and that they too are working professionals trying to make a difference just like you. I know we'll get there someday!