In today’s competitive (and pandemic-shaped) job market, finding and hiring the ideal job candidate can prove to be quite difficult. That’s why many companies are turning to professional recruitment and search firms to help them recruit and hire the right people for their open job positions.
Should you do the same? How can a recruitment agency help you fill your open job positions?
There are several benefits that come from using services of a professional recruiter.
A good recruiter can help you:
Hire candidates faster
There are two leading ways in which a recruiter can help to hire a candidate faster. First, a hiring process can be quite time-consuming. Put simply, using a recruiter can help you conserve your company’s valuable time, allowing you to put it to better use.
Second, recruiters are professionals who recruit for a living. Most likely, they already have candidates in their applicant pool who are exactly the right fit for your job opening. This is a huge advantage that can significantly shorten the full cycle recruiting process.
In other words, you can hire the best candidate faster!
Did you know? According to various sources, Caesar offered soldiers a financial sum for recruiting others to join his army. In fact, they could receive an amount equal to 1/3 the annual salary of an incoming soldier. In addition to recruiting soldiers, the army also needed doctors, surveyors, veterinarians, and other professionals. Ultimately, many of the recruiting processes still in use today originated from that time. This includes equal employment opportunities and more compensation for riskier jobs.
Reduce costs
Reducing costs usually rises to the top of the to-do list in most businesses today. Besides labor costs, the costs related to recruiting activities might include advertising on job boards, background screening, applicant tracking systems and recruiting technology. These costs are all rolled into one when companies outsource recruiting. And it’s usually less than trying to conduct an efficient recruiting campaign inhouse.
Cost-per-hire is a key HR metric and when companies outsource recruiting to a recruiting firm, cost-per-hire is most often reduced, along with time-to-hire, because of dedicated recruiting resources.
Other ways costs get lowered through outsourced recruiting include shared risk and streamlined processes. Passing the task of your recruiting needs to a dedicated outsourced recruiter eliminates employing unnecessary staff for recruiting or being short of staff when business spikes.
Did you know? Not only is the army responsible for creating the recruiter, it was a driving force leading to the need for job boards. After both World Wars, the shortage of workers meant companies needed to be creative. To recruit more workers, they started to advertise through employment notice boards.
Be more specific
Sometimes, your job requirements might be rather specific. Requirements might be so tight that you need an expert who understands the candidates in your niche and has a database of them to call upon.
In this case, making use of a recruiter means that only candidates who are fully qualified for the job will be shortlisted for the position. A recruiter will manage the process for you, eliminating any unsuitable candidates and handling any inquiries about the role.
Did you know? According to Korn-Ferry, by 2030, there will be a global human talent shortage of more than 85 million people or roughly the equivalent of the population of Germany. Left unchecked, in 2030, that talent shortage could result in about $8.5 trillion in unrealized annual revenues.
Fill jobs, not interview slots
Recruiters get paid to fill jobs, not book interviews. You’ll likely get fewer candidates, but each will better meet your criteria. Professional recruiters get to know their clients. Moreover, companies will not only advise the recruiter of the desired skill set, but over time, a top-notch recruiter would learn who would fit well and who wouldn’t.
While you certainly don’t want to discriminate, you can certainly inform the recruiter about any necessary soft skills. For example, a quiet department may not be looking for someone who’s easily excitable. Or maybe you’ve had a lot of turnover because everyone is looking to move up quickly, so you want someone who would be satisfied with this job for a longer term.
A recruiter would be in a much better position to recognize this individual.
Here’s an example: A recruiter had a client who kept hiring every six months or so for the same spot. While the recruiter welcomed the commissions, he felt bad they had to keep rehiring. In talking with the hiring manager, he offered a suggestion. Stop hiring new grads and look at more seasoned workers (upping the salary a bit). You want someone who knows what they want to do all day and isn’t looking for a springboard to another job or a dazzling spot on their resume.
The result? A long-term hire that cost the recruiter commissions but gained him a relationship with the company. Good recruiters will do exactly that. They’re in it for the long haul. They want to establish a rapport with you, and they’ll do what it takes to make it happen, even if there’s a short-term loss.
Focus on core business
Whether or not a company has a dedicated recruiter or some type of recruiting function, most are not in the recruiting industry. Any recruiting tasks and activities will be outside the core business functions and take resources from core business operations. This is especially true for smaller companies who might not necessarily have someone on staff to just recruit.
When the recruiting process is outsourced to specialists, it doesn’t take anything away from core business activities and enables employers, big and small, to find the talent needed without distraction from business operations.
By outsourcing, a company can level the playing field and not have to worry about losing good talent because the competition did a better job of selling the position or offering better benefits.
Did you know? According to Career Builder, nearly three in four employers say they’ve hired the wrong person for a position at one time or another.
Help reduce turnover rates
A high turnover rate can hurt a company’s bottom line and is often a signal that there are bigger problems with the company’s recruiting process, problems that aren’t necessarily fixed by increasing the salary or by doing a better job interviewing (although both might help). In this case, a company may outsource its recruiting to not only reduce the turnover rate, but also help fix those bigger problems.
Did you know? Ikea launched a recruiting campaign several years back and managed to gain thousands of applications while barely spending any money. They put their recruitment ads on the walls of their store restrooms.
Offer market knowledge
Search and recruitment professionals are not only experts in hiring, they also have entry to a large network of candidates to help locate the best candidate for every position. Their knowledge of the job market and what’s important to job seekers is unrivaled. With this information and know-how, a professional recruiter can offer a variety of important services.
This market knowledge and what’s important to job seekers enables recruiters to provide consultation, resources, and current trends on salaries. They also have a deep understanding of candidate expectations that let them offer tips for negotiating for both the candidate and the company.
Did you know? According to LinkedIn, 70 percent of professionals in the U.S. would not work for a leading company if it meant they had to tolerate a bad workplace culture.
Work outside the box
You may know your industry well and the people within it, but your ideal hire may not be working within your network or even in your industry. One attraction of recruiters is that they have extended connections. They will most likely be aware of a candidate who is an ideal fit for a job you want to fill even though he/she might be presently employed in a different industry.
Did you know? 39% of employers say their biggest frustration is when unqualified candidates apply for positions.
Why not to outsource your recruiting functions
Of course, as with all processes, a recruiter needs to be engaged for the right reasons. Here are several wrong reasons to outsource your recruiting functions:
You don’t want to fix the recruiting yourself
Outsourcing recruiting shouldn’t be viewed as just an easy way to dump your recruiting problems on someone else. True, a professional recruiting firm may be better suited at recruiting, but if you don’t know why your recruiting isn’t going as well as expected, then you can’t hope for someone else to deliver as well as or better than you can. If you’re not committed to fixing and improving your recruiting, then outsourcing your recruiting function might not make a difference.
You only want to save money
As noted in our advantages above, outsourcing your recruiting can reduce costs, reduce the time it takes to make a hire and streamline your entire recruiting process. However, you should also want to outsource your recruiting to make it more efficient, to improve the productivity of your current recruiting staff (if you have one) or allow them to work on other things.
This type of outsourcing shouldn’t be seen as a way to cut people from your payroll, as recruitment outsourcing is a consultative partnership that works with your company and recruiting staff (not just doing their work).
You need more candidates
Although outsourcing the recruiting function can help with this because professional recruiters have a larger network to work with, your small network might not be the reason (or the only reason) why your company isn’t getting the quality candidates it needs.
Similar to the first wrong reason for outsourcing described above, if you’re not willing to investigate what’s wrong with your recruiting process, or to do what it takes to make the necessary changes, then outsourcing may not help your situation.
You see recruitment as simply finding and hiring people
Recruitment is much more than this, including everything from the employment brand to the onboarding process, from how current employees feel about the company and why some people don’t stick with the position after a few months.
If you don’t see recruitment as including all these things, then outsourcing your recruiting functions will only cause problems because these professional recruitment firms have an all-inclusive approach to talent management. They will look at those other attributes mentioned above and won’t just find people to fill your empty positions.
As successful as an outsourced recruiter can be for some employers, it’s not for everyone. And it certainly isn’t for those who are contracting out their recruiting function for the wrong reasons. If any of these reasons apply to you, then you need to rethink what a professional recruiter is for or why you want to outsource in the first place.
Making your recruiting easier through a partnership
Our clients don’t come to us because they simply want to hire someone. They pick up the phone looking for solutions, for a partnership that helps them streamline their recruiting processes, lower costs, or just make their lives a bit easier.
Contact PDDM Workforce Solutions when looking for your next new hire at (724) 788-4048. Please contact either Kim Dulkoski (x2002) kdulkoski@pddmsolutions.com or Sonya DiGiorno (x2004) SDiGiorno@pddmsolutions.com for further information on how we can help your company hire your professional staff.
