Why is this newsworthy?
Finding good candidates has never been so tough. According to a recent article by Forbes, ‘54% of companies worldwide report talent shortages’ Finding tech talent is particularly problematic as a lack of skilled employees delays companies’ digital transformations.
Companies are also feeling the effects of the Great Resignation; For example, UK open vacancies surpassed one million for the first time in 2021. Finding a good pipeline of talent is therefore absolutely imperative.
Is using a Recruitment Agency the right decision for my Company?
Given the challenges posed by the current climate, many businesses are turning to recruitment experts.
If you have always recruited in-house before it’s natural to have concerns about how effective an agency will be. Will the recruiter understand your company culture and the types of employee you’re looking for? Will an agency fully understand your sector and skills your roles require? Costs will also be an important factor and you want to be assured you will get good value for money.
In terms of costs it is important to look at the bigger picture.
Recruiting effectively means investing time and money in developing your recruitment process. To ensure you are achieving a good cost-per-hire requires experimenting and testing your recruitment channels and screening methods to avoid waste. Many companies would rather focus on business or don’t have the resources to do this.
In contrast, a recruitment agency is fully focused on searching and screening quality candidates to add to their talent pool. This means quality employees can be recruited much faster. Therefore, if it is not feasible to upgrade your recruitment process in-house, then a good, specialist agency can actually save you money by improving the speed of hire, cost-per-hire and retention rate.
Benefits of Building a Relationship with a good Recruitment Agency
Saving time
In comparison to posting vacancies on job boards which stand open for long periods, using an agency provides minimum disruption to business as usual. Having access to an agency’s large pool of pre-screened candidates removes the need to attract new candidates.
Good agencies are multi-channel experts in the talent search. This includes identifying ideal employees who are not actively seeking a new role. A good agency not only builds relationships with passive candidates but knows how to incentivise them to make a career move. This enables them to gather candidates based on their quality. Having access to an agency talent pool is therefore more effective in ensuring your quality of hire rather than hoping the right candidates will apply through a job board.
When you need to fill vacancy the agency will only deliver a select few profiles. When you consider that only around 2% of applicants from job boards meet requirements to go to the next stage, this saves you considerable time and effort.
Higher Quality Hires
Recruitment agencies are professionally trained to assess candidates and have years of screening and interviewing experience. A good agency won't just send all candidates that have applied to a particular position, but will also search out passive candidates who may not be actively looking for a new job and then assess them relative to the job requirements and cultural fit. A short list of candidates is then drawn up that will meet the client brief, so the interview process can begin and the client can proceed with confidence.
Building a long term strategic partnership with a good, specialist agency means they will spend more time getting to know the company, its culture, its products and solutions and therefore be able to provide a higher standard of service, including activities such as helping to identify the skill gaps in your workforce and build teams that flourish and enable your business to grow.
Knowledge of the Market
Your agency’s specialist experience in their market niche means they will already have good relationships with candidates, understand the market landscape and provide you with a wealth of useful information such as salary expectations and current hiring trends you may not be aware of.
Legal Guidance
Many issues can arise during the recruitment process, such as competition clauses and recruitment agencies can be a useful ‘sounding board’ and help give guidance on seeking the specialist legal advice, if necessary.
How do you identify an Agency that will Produce Great Results?
Have concerns whether an agency will understand the skills a role requires? Choose an agency with a specialist knowledge of your market sector, who has built a solid reputation not just with other clients, but also works well with candidates and has shown to give excellent advice throughout the recruitment process. In-depth, specialist knowledge combined with excellent connections enables these agencies to deliver on very challenging briefs, where others can’t. This expertise enables a specialist to deliver where generalist recruiters, or in-house HR staff struggle, as they tend to recruit more standard positions. Specialist recruiters also develop sourcing methods unique to the specialism which your in-house recruiter may not know about.
Building a Relationship with a good Recruiter brings long-term Business Benefits
When a recruiter understands your business and goals, their connections in your niche will enable you to consistently reach excellent candidates in a timely, cost-effective manner. Building a long-term relationship with your specialist recruiter will help your business grow by providing a stream of highly-skilled candidates to increase productivity and profits.
If you are reading this as a potential client, please take a look at our home page and ‘about us’ for further details on what we do and how we add value. Feel free to contact Graham Quinn to discuss how I can help. Please click ‘Contact Us’ for details.
