Since my first experience of recruitment (22 years ago) obviously much has changed and I’ve been considering if the point of a recruitment agency has been one of those things. The more I’ve thought and listened the more I think I might have annoyingly asked an unanswerable and maybe even pointless question! Still, that’s not stopped me blogging about it.
Firstly the “point of a recruitment agency” is bound to be different depending on who you are (candidate, employer, recruitment agency) and what your needs are; jobseeker wanting to find summer work vs looking for role as a CEO OR employer needing a marketing executive vs seeking a nuclear physicist!
Asking around I have collected some interesting thoughts and here are a few from Twitter:
“help with niche roles, market insights, benchmarking” via @AdditionRecruit
“Saves time , pick of an expert pool of candidates, pre-screening so only the best candidates are interviewed by the employee” via @fishtankteam
to be used for… “trusted expertise” via @fmcgcentral
“time efficiency- most clients barely have the time to do interviews let alone filter ad response, headhunt etc.” via @CharlesSW6
These two via our Facebook page focus on the idea of providing value:
“The point of any business is to add value. So agencies still have their place as long as they are innovating, providing access to candidates that corporates aren’t aware of and guiding companies to actually hire the right people .. Starting with helping scope out the profiles.. I have worked with lots of corporates in the last few years and I have no doubt that agencies are here to stay, as long as they recognise that recruitment is more than posting a spec on a job board and firing off some CV’s to see if they stick.” from Wendy McDougall
“..a good agency can keep delivering value by ensuring they have intimate market intelligence employers are not able to access (even with all social media tools), and a skill set that remains relevant, valuable, and cannot exist within the employers organisation.” from Stephen O’Donnell
I also sneaked a peek at the ‘Raising the Bar’ In the Recruitment Sector survey results from APSCo and Innergy/Elite Leaders.
When recruiters were asked what their key reasons for using a recruitment agency were they said:
1. Finding talent they can’t find themselves 2. Access to a wider pool of candidates. 3. Not enough resource in-house. 4. Speed and efficiency. 5. Saves time …and 6….Value for money
When asked “How do you see your recruitment agency?” 29% of respondents said “A necessary evil“. Which is massively depressing but hardly surprising. However, the positive responses mostly were along the themes of recruiters being “a useful extension of our management/HR team” or “a key partner who will help us deliver our business strategy”.
So, I’m going for the answer that the point of a recruitment agency is to correctly and successful match the needs of the situation. In a service industry doing this in a professional, responsive, efficient, reliable and trustworthy way is what is going to keep the client coming back.
Which has got to lead to the question “what skills does a successful recruiter need”. That’s one for another time I think…
I have been in recruitment now for 18 years, I am enjoying it more and more! I find that there is always a place for someone to be a bridge between a client and a candidate, a recruitment consultant who is able to really listen to both parties and carefully introduce people to each other who mutually benefit each other at a given moment in time. Of course demand needs to be there, as long as there is some demand to recruit and you are a good consultant and passionate about what you do then I do believe there will always be a place for us! 🙂 Gail
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