I get all sorts of questions by phone and email. Many are interesting, relevant and ones which I’m happy to help with.Some are ridiculous (“I want to set up a horse breading centre in Minehead; can you help?”). Others have me scratching my head as to where to start.
How on earth do I respond to this email which has just come in….
Hi Louise,
The job seeker doesn’t get to see the company they are applying for in most cases. And it makes the application process much more difficult for job seekers when they have to go through a middle man (recruiter), as your application often disappears into thin air, and you hear nothing.
Thanks for the insight!
Mike
I was just wondering why all the jobs on sites like Reed, Monster, CV-Library, are all posted by recruitment agencies?
The job seeker doesn’t get to see the company they are applying for in most cases. And it makes the application process much more difficult for job seekers when they have to go through a middle man (recruiter), as your application often disappears into thin air, and you hear nothing.
Why dont companies advertise their jobs directly?
Thanks for the insight!
Mike
Hi Louise (and Mike)
I think there are a number of reasons.
One the job is not a qualified position and the recruiter is trying to gain a calibre of candidates that they know they can do business development off the back of.
Two the companies themselves have tried advertising and not had any luck so have passed onto a recruiter. Some specify not to have the company name mentioned so that they do not get chased if the candidate is rejected at CV stage.
Three the company always uses a recruiter due to not having the time/facilities/HR to recruit themselves. If its a very specific technical job then to pass on to recruiter that will spend time searching for the right candidate can benefit the hiring party. Or if the hiring party know the role is going to attract a lot of interest, often people do not have the time to look through all responses, intially interview and shortlist.
As for not getting back to the candidate. I think that is poor practice. Regardless of whether you are going to work with the candidate or not, everyone deserves so sort of response IMHO.
Natalie
Louise
This could be as a result of poor responses in the past (or too many inappropriate response). Unfortunately there is the ‘Pay & Pray’ approach. A direct employer that recruits small numbers may not know which job boards to use. So has advertised on a ‘name’ such as Jobsite, TJ, Monster, Reed et al. They pay for a one off job at a high rate, post a job description rather than an advert and don’t get a good response. Then they still have go to a recruiter. It was the same with print, in the nineties.
The other aspect to consider is perception. Direct employers do advertise, but recruitment agencies advertise huge volumes of jobs, so the perception can easily be that direct employers don’t advertise.
Personally I think that it has changed dramatically in recent years, but there is still a way to go with direct recruitment.
DJ
The answer to this question is capacity and prioritization. In-house or corporate Recruiters are experiencing high volumes and simply do not have the time to post and respond to all applicants via job posting services. They therefore prioritize which are most important for them to hold on to and shift those which can be adequately supported by a third party to the organizations you see posting these opportunities. It boils down to workload management. Not the ideal situation for job seekers but is the reason.
To add another opinion and one from the employers perspective.
Many companies that place ads on the generic job boards get inundated with superfluous and irrelevant applications that they may simply not be staffed to manage. In my experience it is rare that an advert placed on a job board yields anything other than quantity, whereas we are more interested in quality. Due to the volumes of responses there is not the time or resources to wade through potentially hundreds of CV in the ATS to find that one or two who do offer the quality sought. I am not saying it is right, just the possible reality of workload management and economic balancing.
The majority of employers now have decent careers sites, either as part of the corporate website or under a separate URL, and whichever is used they are usually cleverly optimised for search engines (SEO), thus making the posted jobs more easily accessible to likes of Google, Bing etc.
Also I would suggest that employers may tend to look more favourably on someone who genuinely wants to work for them and seeks out and then applies for a specific job through the career site.
If however we decide to use an agency and the agency places an advert and is able to spend the time wading through the volumes of enquiries and applications and is able to screen suitable candidates for us, then they deserve their fee…………………………maybe? (thought it was going soft there didn’t you?)
It’s not a perfect answer just another view point
Hi Mike
To add an analogy – Companies dont recruit for themselves for the same reason that the majority of us dont try and sell our own houses – We aren’t the experts in that particular field so give the job to someone who (alledgedly) is.
1. We dont want to waste our time seperating the wheat from the chaff (so to speak) so get someone to do the leg work for us and wade through the volumes of CV’s. (ps – It also means that the recruiter pays for the advertising, not us!)
2. Once the recruiter has spent their time shortlisting (screening, interviewing, reference checking etc) the 100’s of applicants down to the very best 3 – 5, we get a nice email with 3 – 5 (hopefully) exellent, suitable candidates along with indepth analysis from the recruiter who’s job it is to know what a good candidate looks like in their chosen specialism (hopefully).
3. Then we dont have to even manage the candidate (salary expectations, counter offers, other ofers, potential drop outs) because the recruiter does it all for us.
4. Sometimes we let recruiters advertise for us as it keeps our identity hidden (which we need to do every so often for confidential roles)
This is all well and good and the picture I paint is that of a recruitment company that actually knows how to do it’s job correctly and be a true partner to the Company – They are few and far between…. But the ones that are good also provide a great service to their candidates (back to analogy – the reason we dont try and sell our own houses) in marrying them to the right oppotunities and managing a stressfree process for the candidate through to your first day in your nice new job.
I am a performance trainer for the recruitment industry and know that a good recruiter can save time and money for both candidate and client – If they know what they are doing and do it to the best of their ability!
Hope this gives another perspective Mike! (Hi Louise!)
Jo Gregory
Mike/Jo
A lot of great points here, particularly by Jo who has hit the nail on the head for many of the reasons we hear as to why they want to use a consultancy rather than go direct.
The other ones that I’d add are:
1 – Time to Hire – why spend 3 weeks advertising before starting an interview process when the need is urgent? A good recruiter who knows their market can speak to relevant people and come back to you in 1-2 days with an initial shortlist, those responding to the advert supplementing those already identified?
2 – This often depends on the level they’re recruiting at, but many are not looking for a ‘bum on seat’ – they want to know not just someone who can ‘do the job’, but the ‘best person’ in the market to do it. Any specialist should be doing their best to know the best people in the market, and also should know what ‘the best’ actually looks like. The recruitment advert should highlight people they already know and also ensure no stone is left unturned and the best people are presented, but in reality, a good recruiter will have already contacted the majority of the good people before the ad is placed.
3- Many people, particularly HR, hate doing recruitment! They outsource it because it isn’t what they enjoy doing. With recruiters doing the leg work, it saves them the worst bit!
My previous employer, a well known recruitment brand, believed that if you advertised for a client, they should get all of the response you receive, regardless of relevance. At the point this was announced, I left. If thats the response of the recruiter you employ, there genuinely is no real reason to use one.
Hope that helps!
Hi Louise and Mike,
We operate purely in the IT sector (we’re a direct employer job board) where the negative affects of many recruitment agencies is, arguably, felt strongest.
Andy and Jo in particular have highlighted the benefits of using a GOOD recruitment agency. The problem is that there are so many out there that operate with a total lack of transparency. This frustrates job seekers and leads to employers paying larger margins than they realise.
Sorry to shamelessly plug, but the two most recent posts on our blog (http://blog.emptylemon.co.uk/) outline the tricks used by recruitment agencies, some of which are outlined in this thread, and a viewpoint from a job seeker.
Mike, my advice would be to sign up with a recruitment agency that comes recommended or use a direct employer job board. Also check your account settings with the major job boards you have signed up to, to ensure they cannot share your details with 3rd parties.
Good luck Mike, thanks for posting Louise.
For many companies it is more cost effective to have an agency do all the leg work and filtering of irrelevant candidates than to tie up the HR dept. However haveinf sat on both sodes of the fence I know how frustrating it can be from a candiates point of view.
Hi Louise,
I’m based in Dublin. I use IrishJobs, RecruitIreland, Monster, Jobs.ie, LinkedIn etc. At the bottom of every job posting is either an Apply button or an application form. If a agency advertises a job which interests a jobseeker, what does the jobseeker do? If the agency has their CV on file but hasn’t called, yet the jobseeker feel that he or she has the skills and experience for the role, what do they do? Apply? Should the jobseeker need to respond the to advert with their CV in order to convey their interest and availability? Personally, I think the Apply button and application forms should be removed from all job adverts by agencies. To say because not all jobseekers are registered with a particular agency they need the application form would be irrelevent if all recruiters did a proper search, they would find the candidates’ CV. Just a jobseekers perspective.
We have always advertised our company directly. I have found that’s the best way to go.