Do you have a vacancy in your team? Are you agonising over whether to hire directly or through a recruitment agency? These are some of the reasons we think that using an agency is a great idea:
Extensive Networks
Some roles are hard to fill and the perfect candidate can be hard to find. If quality candidates aren’t responding to job advertisements it may be because they don’t see themselves as the ideal candidate, or they simply aren’t checking job ads regularly. Agencies have many networks or ‘talent pools’ with candidates of varied experiences and qualifications. They have the potential to leverage their networks to help connect you to people with a range of skills and experiences, many of whom wouldn’t be actively job seeking and potentially missing your advert. According to LinkedIn, 12% of the workforce is actively looking, but 85% would consider a change if the opportunity is right. There’s a strong chance that a good recruiter will know how to reach them.
Brand Promotion
If you’re still not convinced on why using a recruitment agency may be the right move, the decision to do so can bring some added benefits that may be difficult to quantify immediately, but are nevertheless very real. Unless you’re Google or Apple, you probably don’t have thousands of qualified candidates camping outside your door and lining up to work for you. A good recruiter will “sell” your company to a candidate.
Quality of Applicants
If you have ever advertised a role directly you may agree that a lot of applicants may not be good matches for the role. On average, over 80% of CV’s received aren’t given serious consideration by hiring managers. Significant time will be invested in filtering, assessing, matching and communicating with unsuitable candidates. Internal HR/Recruitment teams that are time and resource poor may not be able to run a thorough matching process. Using a recruitment agency should mean that you only see job seekers who have been pre-selected to match all the criteria that you are looking for and who are worthy of serious consideration for an interview.
Time Saving
There are are time constraints to performing a thorough candidate search, so it is often easier for managers to interview from an agency shortlist – in fact many hiring managers, themselves possibly placed by recruitment agencies in the past, often favour third party recruiters. There is little doubt that a hard pressed HR or in-house team can benefit from the networks of a trusted agency partner. Many will see the recruitment fee as a worthwhile investment and a significant time saver, time that can be spent more effectively, working on strategic business initiatives.
The Guarantee
In addition to the recruitment help, all good agencies offer guarantee periods. If the hire doesn’t work out, you don’t pay and they start the search over, not you. If you look back at the staff turnover you’ve had, how much can be attributed to rushed hires, lack of screening, or settling/compromising just to fill that spot? When you use a recruitment agency you stop making those mistakes on your own, and start making them work in your favor.
Quality People can save you time in sourcing and short-listing candidates; find candidates who wouldn’t find you on their own; and allow you to spend more time focusing on your job. Contact us for a free and confidential discussion about the needs of your business.