When I speak with clients for the first time, they often say they don’t use recruitment agencies. To them, if they can find the right candidate without paying a fee, it is a no-brainer. Back in my accounting days, I felt the same way: Why would I pay an agency fee when I can get a candidate from my own advertising?
Since working in recruitment, I have come to see the value in using agencies, and wish I had taken advantage of them.
I see time and time again candidates who are found via advertising who were qualified for the role but who might not have been the best person for that role. There may have been a passive candidate (i.e., someone already in a job who is open to opportunities) whose values, career goals and work style were more aligned with the organization rather than the one who was hired.
Why should you use a recruitment agency?
Here are some good reasons to consider using the services of a staffing firm — things I wish I had thought of in my accounting days.
Economies of Scale. As a specialist qualified accounting recruiter, I only talk to qualified accounting candidates. This may differ from an internal recruitment team who may be working on several types of roles at any one time. They might go from recruiting an engineer one day to a receptionist the next, to an accountant another day.
PREMIUM CONTENT: MSP Market Differentiators
Get to the bottom of candidates’ motivations. Using an agency will enable you to get to the bottom of candidates’ motivations. Often, a candidate will say what they think I want to hear when I am talking to them about a particular role. When they know I have more than one opportunity to talk to them about, they tend to open up and tell me what they are really looking for rather than what they think I want to hear.
Access to the passive market. You get to tap into the passive market. As consultants, we are speaking to candidates all day, every day. Sometimes it is a client who is a potential candidate. Often, someone will say if specific job opportunity were to arise, they would be interested.
Save your time. It takes time to run a recruitment process. You are usually recruiting someone when you are extremely busy. There are many levels to the recruitment process including sorting through applications, phone screening, interviewing and reference checking. If you partner with the right agency, they will get to know your business and you will save time in most of the process.
Fill a temporary role quickly. For a temporary role where you need to move quickly and as an agency we have numerous people on our various databases we can contact and have candidates ready to start in a short space of time.
Market knowledge. If you have strategic partnerships with recruitment agencies, this can keep you on top of salary rates. We often generate salary benchmarking for our clients which can help with salary reviews etc.
These are some reasons I share with potential clients when they push back at the thought of using recruiting services. In my next post, I will explore how you can work with a staffing firm for the best results.
MORE: Why modern hiring practices require the human touch
