In my last post, I discussed how some companies question spending money to have an agency do their recruiting for them, and outlined several key reasons agencies can in fact be the better option in hiring.
But choosing the right supplier is an important task that must not be underestimated.
When using agencies, be mindful that they are an extension of your brand. You want the agency to represent you as a manager and the organization you work for in the right way. If this isn’t done well, it can cause many misperceptions in the market — and perception is everything. If the process is too long, or candidates don’t get feedback, they may blame your organization. If candidates are called multiple times for the same role, then this can sometimes create a negative perception about the organization as well.
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Some important steps to take:
Partner with someone you can trust. You want to work with a recruiter you can trust and one who wants to get you the best person for your organization. Try and work with recruiters who are not just transactional (ie only care about the fee), who want to partner with you in the long term, and who want to get you the best person for the role, team fit and organization.
I often get feedback from candidates saying that the way the role was sold to them was totally different to when they started so they are often looking after 3 months.
Don’t use too many agencies. Often organizations thing going to multiple agencies will attract more candidates, this sometimes can have an adverse effect.
Going to multiple agencies can cause confusion in the market. I recently ran a role where a number of agencies were working on the same job. The candidates started to question the organization as they had been called a number of times about the same role.
Keep everyone informed. If you are a line manager and you have an internal HR team, keep them informed that you have reached out to agencies. We understand that you have an internal recruitment team and we want to work with them to provide you with the best possible outcome.
The worst thing that can happen is that candidates get to the interview stage only to have the role pulled because the internal processes were not followed. This wastes everyone’s time and doesn’t provide a pleasant experience for the candidate.
Keep the process timely. More often than not, clients miss out on good candidates if they don’t move quick enough. If a candidate is a viable candidate, then they will be snapped up quickly.
Give feedback to candidates. The beauty of going to an agency is that you only have to interview a select few candidates. We have already done the hard work by creating an extensive list and then a short list so you will only need to give feedback to the candidates you interview.
You want to ensure that every candidate has a great interview experience with you, even if they are unsuccessful. The biggest complaint candidates have about the recruitment process is that they don’t get feedback.
At Davidson, we are focused on workplace performance and I like to have long-term partnerships with clients. I don’t want to compete with your advertising, I want to supplement your candidate pool and work with you to provide the best outcome for your process.
