Posted: 08/12/2011 at 16:28
Why should I use an agency when I can advertise my own jobs?
Why should I use an agency when I can advertise my own jobs?
It's a good question. One that many people ask, and rightly so. Why pay someone else to do something you feel perfectly capable of doing? There's no doubt that if you feel capable of something, then your probably are. However, it's not just about carrying out a task, it's about how well that task is carried out. And whilst yes, there could nothing wrong with the job advert you've written, having industry experience, years worth of contacts and and an eye for a good CV can mean quite a lot! In order to answer your question, there are a few ways below in which recruitment agencies can excel and improve your recruitment process.
- Time
Everyone knows the phrase “time is money” and this is never more true than when you are at work. Going through page after page of CVs, organising interviews and carrying out admin tasks when employing someone can take up a lot of your time. Using an agency allows them to take this burden off of you, allowing you to concentrate on what's important: your business. This comes into play even more if you are hiring temps, as an agency can organise the payroll, tax and legal aspects of taking on more staff.
2. Trust the experts
A reputable recruitment agency will have seasoned staff with years of experience in the recruitment industry and your company's industry sector. In short – they know what to look for. Years of looking at CVs and sourcing candidates for clients means they have a nose for what's good and bad, and have experience in finding the best person for the job, as quickly as possible. Unless you have worked in recruitment yourself, it's unlikely you'll have this experience and if you've ever hired someone only to have them leave the company a week later, then its likely you'll understand how important this experience can be.
3. Candidate rapport
Recruitment agencies speak to hundreds of potential candidates every day, it's their job. Especially good candidates will be kept in mind and remembered. Every person's CV is saved with their details recorded. This means that before the job is even advertised, there are already thousands of possible candidates the agency will have on its database. The great thing about this is that in many cases you can begin interviewing immediately, as the chances are the recruiter will already have several people in mind for your job. Using an agency can greatly speed up the recruitment process.
4. Resources
Something that many companies with internal recruitment procedures will lack is resources – in terms of software, CV searching tools and job portals. Recruitment agencies will have existing agreements to multiple job boards and in many cases will use the latest CRM software and CV tools. This gives them an obvious advantage. For example, instead of advertising your role in one place, they can advertise it in ten places or more. They can scan millions of CVs at the touch of a button. What this means is that agencies have access to a greater range of candidates than most companies ever could, and can do the job quicker to boot.
5. Cost
This is a big one, and in such economic times companies like to know they are using their money as efficiently as possible. On the face of it, agency fees seem far more expensive than the cost of a job advert. However when you look a bit deeper and analyse it, it is not necessarily the case. For starters agencies will use multiple job portals to advertise. The admin overheads involved in recruiting can be incredibly high too. When you consider the admin, as well as the cost of posting the ad, potentially re-running the ad and the entire process if you don't find the right person... it can suddenly become quite an expensive exercise. Furthermore, how can you be sure your candidate won't leave after the first 2 weeks? Not only has the entire process been a waste of time, but the time and money you spend training that person has also been lost. Recruitment agencies usually offer a refund service, whereby you will get a full or partial refund if your candidate leaves the post within a certain time-frame.
If you're interested to know more, why not give us 1 opportunity and see how great our service is? Call us for a chat on 02380 813001