Bad, inept recruiting is my pet peeve, probably because it’s more difficult to work around than mediocre moderating or reporting. As a client, we go to great lengths to identify the types and mix of folks we want in our group, whether recruited from a list we provide or not. And we try to do our homework on our end to understand the implications of every criterion we request. We always ask for quotes based on several more recruits than we need with the understanding that we want our minimum of good respondents to show—we don’t mind paying for extras to be sure we have the minimum. And we always allow three-plus weeks for recruiting—so if there is a problem, we should know with still enough time to make adjustments and adheres to our schedule. 

We challenge our vendors to tell us up front if they think the honorarium is too low for what we want. We beg them to let us know immediately of any recruiting problems so we have time to assess and redirect most appropriately. Despite paying the recruiting subcontractor and the vendors to check the quotas, we always recheck the quotas since we’ve learned not to depend entirely on the vendor or recruiters to do so properly. Sloppy or inadequate recruiting isn’t just about ignoring instructions; it can have a significant impact on the usefulness of the groups. For instance, if we ask for the person who takes the child to the doctor, that’s who we need in the groups. The reactions of a father of young children to new pediatric office visit requirements might be very different than a mom’s reaction, and if mom takes the children to the doctor, what she thinks is more important than what dad thinks. 

Questions:

1. Why is recruiting so important for focus groups and other forms of qualitative research? 

2. Do you think that paying respondents will bias their responses? Why or why not?