Yes absolutely. Following years of a candidate-led market where skills shortages meant it was often difficult to recruit for many IT disciplines, it has perhaps never been easier to secure quality permanent candidates without having to break your salary scales. This market also presents a good opportunity to secure good IT contractors for more modest daily or hourly fees.

First let us first consider direct advertising. On initial inspection this may seem to offer the most cost-effective route to hire. It is true that the cost of advertising a role directly (either in a newspaper or via the web) is likely to be initially less expensive than using an agency.

However, there is a chance you may need to pay again to re-run the advertisement if quality candidates do not present first time around, or if indeed you do not recruit the right individual. There will be the added time involved in advert preparation, candidate filtering and candidate communications. You will very likely be selecting from a much narrower candidate pool too with a direct advert.

Instructing an agency to assist with recruitment on initial inspection costs more. However there are some good benefits. Whatever way you look at it, whether the market is candidate rich or skills are scarce you will receive a greater quantity of good and appropriate candidates by using an agency. Given that all organisations are really only as good as the people they employ, is it not a good idea to select from the widest selection possible to better ensure you secure the best person for the job?

Most agencies will advertise your role on multiple job portals ensuring greater visibility for your vacancy and will also have access to significant candidate databases (their own and pay-per-view job portal databases). A good agency will work diligently to ensure maximum exposure for your vacancy to attract the best individuals.

Although an agency placement fee is likely to be greater than the cost of a direct advert, most agencies will operate a "no placement, no fee" model. Furthermore, reputable agencies will offer a good refund period so if you do successfully recruit and your new employee leaves, you get money back.

Quality of service is much more important than cost. Absolutely! You have a role to fill and clearly you want to ensure that the most appropriate individual is hired, every time. After all, a bad hire will end up costing your organisation so much more than any agency fee. You need to get your recruitment right.

You need an agency that knows IT intimately, knows recruitment and one that is fully committed to working hard for you to secure the right candidates.

You also need an agency with the resources and tools to deliver. However it is prudent too that you look closely at agency fees when deciding which agencies to partner with. Those agencies that are looking to agree relatively high placement fees will defend their fee structure on the pretence that their service will be better than lower-fee agencies or they may claim to have a larger candidate pool from which to source candidates or that they have a greater marketing spend or have better trained Recruiters etc. etc.

These are weak arguments that cannot be substantiated and are just used as a smoke-screen to encourage you to feel at ease with their high placement fees. We believe many agencies simply over-profiteer from placements.

We keep our fees at modest levels because we can achieve sensible (not exorbitant) profits on each placement and we want to build long-term relationships with all clients. Allow us one opportunity to show you how great our service is.

We would suggest that you consider using between one and three agencies depending on your specific requirements. You will likely achieve a cost saving in terms of recruitment fees if you choose to partner with just one agency, as most good agencies will look to apply a lower margin fee for sole agency status.

In the current market where availability of candidates for most roles is good, you should not need more than one agency. If you decide to agree a sole agency arrangement for a particular vacancy we would not recommend agreeing to sole status for greater than a 14-day period and you should ask for regular status updates and set expectations in terms of how many CVs you would like to assess.

Often the easiest answer is to work with the agency that presented the CV to you first. However we would recommend that you first ask each agency to show evidence that they have correctly communicated and sought agreement from the candidate prior to them sending the CV in.

A good agency will be able to provide time dated email evidence confirming that good practice was followed before CV presentation stage.

We do not rush candidate screening and follow strong and correct process. We will first spend time talking to an individual at length about both their expectations and work requirements. We then provide full information of appropriate open client vacancies, discussing full details.

Once we have spoken to an individual that expresses a keen and genuine interest in a role (and if we consider them a worthy candidate) we will send them full and complete details on a vacancy role (role spec, person spec, benefits details and a link to our client's website). We then ask each candidate to complete a bespoke questionnaire and an equal opportunities form.

The use of our questionnaire mechanism ensures a) all candidates are genuine candidates who have made a considered and positive effort into their application, b) there is clarity of information, minimising the propensity for information to be "lost in translation" between candidate and agency c) all common and vacancy-specific questions that a client may have are answered at CV presentation stage (e.g. Why do you consider yourself a good match for this role? Why are you seeking a new job at this time?).

We never present a candidate's CV to a client unless we have clear and unequivocal email authorization from a candidate. With all CVs we present we will detail why we consider the candidate is suitable but also highlight any perceived weaknesses too. (For every five CVs we send to a client, we donate £1 to charity).

We have full and unfettered access to all the leading subscriber-based dedicated national IT CV databases and all sector CV databases from which to source appropriate IT work-seekers.

Added to this is a very refined and well maintained "opt-in" internal IT candidate CV database of just over 100,000 individuals. We advertise all vacancies on all the leading niche IT and all-industry job portals (taking time and great care to produce jobs advertisements that are legally correct, factual, interesting and Boolean search friendly). All adverts are refreshed very frequently (in advance of expiry date) to ensure high positioning. We advertise on our own site too of course.

As an established agency (now in our 13th year) pre-dating the advent of job boards, we continue to draw candidates to us due to our visibility in the marketplace, our marketing methods and a strong referral programme. (We reward individuals for successful referrals with gift vouchers and charitable donations).

We operate a strong referral programme which generates "sleeping" candidates. For every successful candidate referral we place we give the referrer 5% of our fee in gift vouchers and donate a further 5% to charity. For every 5 candidate CVs we present to a client, we donate £1 to charity.
Our approach to prospective candidates is always gentle, informative, respectful and supportive. Our approach lacks any element of "sales" which we feel unfortunately is endemic in our industry. Our method of approach builds trust and generates positive results.

We have developed our own recruitment software in house for our exclusive use. Our system tracks and logs every out-going communication (be it e-mail, SMS or phone conversation) and links this communication to the relevant candidate and vacancy. Our system acts as a "super-memory" for our recruitment consultants, ensuring good candidates are not forgotten about and can be tracked easily. Over time our system also builds a unique talent pool peculiar to each individual client's skill set.

We wish to build long-term associations with recruiting clients by offering an efficient and intelligent service that delivers real value.

When Deerfoot emerged in 1997, we built our business model around a very visible and modest fee structure. It has served us well and our established clients know that low fees do not equate to poor service.

Where we are given just one opportunity, we typically go on to become an established, successful and highly trusted supplier.

As consumers, all of us, either as individuals or as organisations want to receive an efficient service in an honest and professional manner without having to pay a premium. This is what we strive to do.