Wednesday, June 17, 2009

Do you know how your job is being recruited?

In this economy, where price is king, is the notion “You get what you pay for?” even more accurate?

We all know that sometimes you need to advertise for low incidence respondents. This can truly be done in a blind manner without jeopardizing the integrity of the research. An advertisement asking people to call in if they have one of 5 or 6 health conditions, when you are only looking for one of those listed is a great way to advertise. Especially when even if they have the condition, they need to use certain products. But asking for Allergy sufferers who use Allegra, is just asking for trouble.


Credibility and you get what you pay for comes into play when recruiting companies lead their respondents on how to answer questions OR place all the correct answers on-line or in a advertisement. This leads to unintentionally (or intentionally) creating professional respondents. Doing so may allow the company to complete a recruit at a lower cost, but at what cost to the project? My question for you is “Does the low cost justify the means? And are you getting tainted results?”

As someone who believes that, I would rather give a client a spreadsheet full of holds that truly reflect the screening criteria, versus “fitting someone in”, it astonished me what some people will do to get a recruit done. While we use social networking and mass e-mails to help with low incidence recruits, I for one believe that they should only be used when you are able to do so in a blind or indirect manner.

Take for instance a Craig’s List Ad that ran this month in Chicago. It was up for probably 2 days before someone realized “This is probably not a good idea.”


Imagine, all the firms that bid this project as a true recruit from database or POLK list at reasonable pricing and were astonished to see how the selected company (most likely chosen on price) went about recruiting for the project.


So, as you look at your RFQ’s and your estimates, all I ask is you remember one thing….You get what you pay for.




See the Craig's list ad below that really made my hair stand on end!  (to enlarge photos, just click on them to read)