Ever wondered why companies use a recruitment agency to find new employees when they have their own HR staff inhouse? Read the top three reasons why they do.
If you work for a company that has its own Human Resources (HR) department or team, you may have wondered why they use a recruitment agency to find new staff when theoretically they could do it themselves.
Of course, not all businesses that have HR staff use an external agency to find the people they need, but a great many do and in this article we’ll explain the top three reasons why.
1. Time
Ask any member of your company’s HR team about running a recruitment campaign to find new staff, and the first thing they are likely to say to you is that they don’t have the time for that.
They know that hiring staff can be very time consuming and involves many different processes, including those below:
- Define the job specification
- Create a job advert
- Arrange its advertising on job sites
- Manage candidate applications and respond to questions
- Filter CVs and potentially talk to the best candidates to find out more about them
- Create an interview shortlist
- Arrange the dates and times of interviews with candidates
- Provide post-interview feedback whatever the outcome
Despite their best efforts, most internal HR staff just don’t have the time for this. They are already busy working on a wide range of other staffing and human resources activities including performance management, learning and development, resource planning, and the management of pay and benefits.
But of course, not every recruitment company takes on all of the different processes and steps listed above. Many agencies just focus on a few of them – such as creating a job advert and arranging its advertising on job sites – whilst others end their involvement once they have provided a shortlist of candidates.
However, the best full service agencies will manage every stage of a recruitment campaign, from working with the employer to define the job specification to liaising with candidates after the interview process.
And some will also provide additional added value services to their clients, such as arranging personality and psychometric tests if required, and even joining interview panels if requested.
2. Expertise
The best recruitment companies will be true experts on the local and national (and even international) jobs market and will have a deep insight into what’s important to both employers and job candidates.
They will know what typical salaries need to be paid to staff in particular sectors and geographic areas, what benefits a company needs to offer to attract the very best talent, and most importantly what factors make for a perfect fit between a business and a candidate.
As they deal with employers and candidates every day, they also know how much competition there is for certain staff locally or nationally, and will understand how changing work practices – such as working from home or hybrid working – impact businesses’ resourcing strategies, as well as candidates’ expectations and requirements.
For this reason, many internal HR staff rely on an external recruitment agency not only to find them quality candidates for the vacancies they have, but also to keep them up to date on the recruitment trends in their sector.
The very best agencies will have deep expertise in specific sectors, such as healthcare or IT, or the area they are based in, meaning they will be aware of the factors that are key to employers and staff working in that industry or location.
At Anne Corder Recruitment (ACR), having operated in Peterborough for more than 25 years, we are experts in the local jobs market but also recruit nationally for clients. And as well as having deep expertise in sectors such as HR and Finance, we run successful recruitment campaigns for a wide range of industries and roles, from admin to marketing.
3. Cost
As highlighted above, running a recruitment campaign involves numerous different steps, each of which is time consuming.
Due to this, when a company decides to recruit staff directly themselves, they often soon find that the time needed to do this is far greater than they imagined.
And put simply, the time they are having to spend managing their recruitment process is time away from doing other important activities for the business, such as making sales or delivering their core products or services.
Unsurprising, this time has a cost to the business, not just in terms of the hours (or days) actually spent on the campaign, but also in terms of the lost business productivity or sales that result from staff being assigned to management of it.
This ‘opportunity cost’ can easily run into far more than it would have cost them to use a recruitment agency to find the staff they need.
In addition, the costs of a recruitment agency are clear and understood before a role is advertised, whether this be a fixed fee, a retainer, or a percentage of the new employee’s starting salary.
This means the employer knows exactly what the cost will be to recruit a new member of staff, rather than guessing the financial impact if they decide to do it themselves.
Read the article ‘Are recruitment agencies worth it?’ to understand the value of recruitment agencies or the article ‘How much do recruitment companies charge?’ to find out more about costs.
Conclusion
It may seem counterproductive for a company with a HR department or team to use a recruitment agency to source the talent they need, however, there are compelling reasons why so many do.
Even the largest companies in the world that have large (sometimes international) HR departments often rely on recruitment agencies rather than managing recruitment campaigns themselves.
And as specialists in employment and recruiting, the best agencies provide much more to their clients than just finding them new staff.
