Many industry commentators have long been forecasting the decline of recruitment agencies, in the face of growing competition from job boards, internal recruitment teams and social networking, but the relevance of the recruitment industry continues to grow, and offer an important route for sourcing the best talent while managing the time, skill and resource heavy details of recruitment. ‘’Although corporates are under the belief they should manage their recruitment in-house, it must be emphasised that recruitment is not simply about finding and reading a CV. Recruitment is a long and complex process, it’s more than just finding a candidate who meets a specs requirement. Recruitment is a major time and resource heavy task and you need to possess the skills to truly understand people and the dynamics of a candidate.’’ Says Isha Mboyisa, InvesTong Human Capital Operations Manager.
No matter what size organization, a recruitment agency can help meet the changing needs of your business by finding quality candidates and assuming a variety of staffing needs.
So what are some of the main advantages of using an agency now?
Saving you time
Sourcing for candidates is the most time-consuming, complex and detail orientated part of recruitment. For example: You are looking for 3 new staff members. In order to short list the candidates, you will need to source approximately 70 - 90 candidates. With this example, you will need to analyse each cv. Sourcing is highly exhaustive and takes a level of skill to source smart and fast. Of those candidates, you will likely only short list about 15 – 20 (possibly even less). Then the time-consuming interviews, internal processes etc will take place. While the list goes on regarding the topic of sourcing, interviewing, doing checks and assessments, you have to ask yourself – do I really have the skill, time and resources to take this role on? ‘’InvesTong Human Capital specialize in the process of finding and matching clients with candidates and our aim is to take that stress off your hands by saving you time. We have proven large corporations wrong about whether recruitment agencies are still relevant. The mere ‘’time saving’’ factor has proven to be one of the biggest benefits to our clients. ‘’ adds Mboyisa.
Candidates not applicants
A lot of talent attraction is aimed at attracting applicants, whether they are responding to an advert, applying on spec, or through your website. A lot of these people may not be good matches for the role hence a lot of time will be invested in filtering, assessing, matching and communicating with them. When we talk of a bad candidate experience it’s normally an applicant experience that we are referring to. Using a recruitment agency should mean that you see only candidates – job seekers who have been pre-selected to match all the criteria that you are looking for and who are worthy of consideration and interview.
Deeper understanding of people assessment
Agencies make the effort to train their recruiters and know about successful methods in the market to properly question a potential employee in the specific areas and competencies that your company needs. ‘’ By building the initial relationship with you as the client and understanding the company and needs, we are able to go back and use these tools to specifically assess important qualities in candidates and to check things that you won’t have the time to do. By the time the candidate reaches your office for an interview the agency already made sure those boxes were checked. ‘’ adds Mboyisa.
Help grow your brand
Yes that’s right, we can be your brand ambassador. Large companies invest a lot of time and money in developing and marketing their employer brand, but many SME and smaller businesses don’t have the same resources. If you choose your agency wisely then they can give potential candidates a real insight into your business – what it’s like to work there, benefits and career openings available as well as culture. We can also represent you as an employer of choice.
The focus is on serving the client first
Most of the work a recruiter does happen before any potential payments, that means you get a lot of upfront attention and work for free. Only once a candidate is offered a position does a recruiter get paid for the work done. If no candidate is placed the client wont be charged for the work done. A recruiter’s outlook is thus one of serving and giving and the focus is on finding that solution for the candidate and client.
Extended Reach
Some candidates are hard to find. They may be passive or they may be selective. If they aren’t responding to job advertisements, don’t see them as part of your ‘talent pool’ and are too busy to search full time then the chances are that they may have relationships with trusted specialist recruiters in your sector. Even if they aren’t currently active, there’s a good chance that a good recruiter will know who they are and how to reach them. Agencies have many networks – each consultant, candidate, client or collaborator has the potential to leverage their networks to help connect you to people with a range of skills and experiences, many of who would be off the radar of an in-house team.
