This isn’t a long sales blog, of me selling you, why you need a recruitment agency for all recruitment needs.
I believe you don’t need me, you don’t. Most recruitment you can do yourself, hence this series of helping you build your recruitment process.
Where do you need an agency? Specific jobs, that don’t bring candidates to a normal advert, or when your business is struggling to attract the right people OR time, you just don’t have the time to do your own recruitment. That is where we come in and enhance your process.
Even us recruitment businesses have support from outside our business from what we call Recruitment to recruitment agencies. The important part of realising we have this in our sector is, we all need help at some point with recruitment.
We need to maximise this help though, get the best out of the service. It’s a bit like getting a painter around your house, and you want them to do all the work, you don’t want to do. Painting is boring. And frankly – we have better things to do? BUT we need a nice fresh colour in our lives. And that’s what recruiters do, is bring a fresh perspective to your business (sadly we won’t paint your lounge).
Recruitment companies – Come in different flavours, on how they are run, and how they work.
- Most agencies tend to have a target driven orientation – which is handy for you (will explain in a bit).
- Large, Medium and Small agencies can bring to you the exact same thing. There is no difference. Not even the marketing budget or methodology to find the right person.
- The methodology of how they are paid – can be broken down to upon placement or retained (part upfront and the rest paid either at stages or all at the end).
- The differential between all the agencies can be within they work with you
When should you use a Recruitment Agency?
Like I said above, Time, need, ability to attract – are the main drivers to use a Recruitment Agency.
However – Classically we agencies get involved somewhere in the middle of the recruitment process. Normally – the company has advertised and has had a few goes of finding the right candidate. Or want to see what is out there in addition to what has come forward.
When this happens, the urge is to engage with as many agencies as possible. Which is called a Contingency. We hear it used a lot of recruitment talk on social media, Contingency recruitment the pro’s/cons of multiple agencies.
10 agencies, all working the same vacancy = Higher chance to find that candidate. Right?
Well, no. What tends to happen, because of the aforementioned – there isn’t much difference between how we find candidates and our methodology – which does work really well FYI. We all fall over each other. Then you get the duplicate applications, the badly represented agencies, and the worst-case scenarios – that the candidate you hire, has 2 agency representations – which could lead to you paying twice. It’s happened. I have witnessed it a fair few times in 16 years.
TIP 1 – First off, Only use 1 agency at a time. 2 agencies at max, but any more than that, the quality and number of good candidates decrease. But mostly, you or your staff – having to explain to an agency, each time what you are looking for. You only need to explain what you need Once, max Twice. Also, you can work closely with that agency – which I will go into.
SO How do I use an agency to my advantage?
We are a needy bunch – we like everything put on a plate to make our jobs easier. But what i mean by that is. We want to know everything about you. Your job is important to us, for 2 reasons. 1. We want to fill your job. 2. This is what we do for a living.
My personal opinion is, a good agency will want to hear the following about you (not limited),
- What does your company do?
- Who does it do business with (the type of businesses)?
- Why is this job live?
- Why do you work for this company?
- What is the typical day to day working at this company?
- What makes this company special would you say? (all companies have something!)
- Who is your competition?
- What is the job?
- What are you really looking for?
- What do people say about you?
- What do your staff say about your business?
Those are just the basic questions we need to know to build a picture. I also like to ask, what personally does this hire bring to you? And get you to think about how it will enhance your role? This will help you frame the right candidate in your mind, and give us the need, before the want.
Once we discover what you are seeking, what the business is like, why you are looking, and importantly – the budget and future of the role. We can then set off to find the right person.
My advice to you to maximise this is –
- Bring the recruiter into the process as early as possible – You don’t need to get them to engage, and start a search, but lean on them to find out what the market is like for that type of candidate? Get their opinion on what you’re looking for or the concept of hiring someone. That way you can factor in cost.
- Weekly/2 weekly updates, call the agent and see how it’s going. Now, have an expectation set here, that you are not looking for detailed feedback, as some jobs won’t yield a candidate for weeks. This is more to do with you building that relationship with that recruiter – and this is where the Trust builds, this is where you are hearing the words used or how they work with you.
- Be honest with everything – If you have an internal option, or there are 2 direct applications that look good, be honest with the recruiter. In the past when this has worked for everyone, I’ve had an overview of who is in the process, and why. This helps me on my search – to figure out that ballpark candidate you need.
- Meetings – Meet your recruiter, is my best policy. In the strange pandemic world of 2020, that hasn’t been always possible – but into the future, have a zoom – speak face to face.
- Have time set for reviewing CVs – we recruiters like to say 24-48 hours turn around time, especially for good candidates on the market looking. Even in markets where its candidate rich, good people don’t stay around long.
- Talk through each CV they send. Have a conversation with the recruiter, get a feel for what they are doing, what questions they are asking – but also guide that recruiter to ask the questions you want asking at that
- Interview within 1 week – Have dates/times set to one side for interviews in your diary.
- Always give feedback to the recruiter – this helps the recruiter find the right person, and makes you look good to the candidate.
- Offer within 24 hours – Offer jobs within 24 hours.
I said I would answer the WHY? part of using a recruitment agency in this blog.
We’re a service, we are here to help businesses find the right people. Given, we are not a cheap service, and you do get what you pay for.
But like all services, you have to work with the agency to discover what you need. We’re not just a job receiving service and are there as experts in recruitment. Finding and attracting future employees to your company.
Most companies use us, because they are struggling to find people, and in that time of trying to find the right people, a job is left open. And in a lot of circumstances that role being open = loss in revenue. Especially when you need a skilled person to fix/sell/develop something for you.
But that’s the watered-down version. What you’re really buying using a recruitment agency, is less hassle, stress, and TIME. Like what you gain from not painting your lounge yourself.
Find a great agency, and you’ll make money. That I promise you.
Thanks for following this series!