Choosing a Recruitment Agency: What to consider

What should companies consider when choosing a Recruitment agency?

A company in its purest form is a group of people working in collaboration to reach a set of objectives. That could be money related, unless of course the business is a not for profit organisation, but will typically involve products or services of some kind. Therefore it makes sense to ensure that those people are not only the best that they can be in their specific job function, but also that those people work together as effectively as possible to help the company reach its objectives. This sounds obvious and seems simple, but is very difficult to implement and maintain over a prolonged period.

Consider some typical challenges. Staff turnover – The average employee lifespan of an individual remaining at the same company has been steadily reducing over the last decade and some reports are estimating that the average period is now under three years and shows no sign of letting up. Competition – The best people may already work for your competition and for some reason are not looking to come to work for you. Company culture – It is an increasingly discussed and analysed subject; how to create a great and appealing company culture. The larger the organisation the more difficult it is to control and it can hinder the collaborative effectiveness if personalities clash.

The typical challenges and considerations go on and can easily become over-analysed and complicated. So how do you avoid the complexities and keep the solutions simple?

First and foremost when hiring you need to get the right people on board. Often the first mistaken assumption is that the right person is purely the one who can do their job better than anybody else. Although true the assumption fails to recognise another important consideration; just because someone has the skills to do the job, what if they do not fit into the team? Most decision makers will have worked for several companies during their career. Ask yourself to recall working in a team where one of the team members was skill wise very good, but clashed or had differences with other members of the team that had a negative impact on that team reaching its potential when it came to achieving objectives. How many sports teams have had great individuals, but they don’t work well together? The same can occur in companies.

It is fair to say then that there are two considerations when hiring the “right person”; 1-that they have the best skills and 2-that they fit into the team and therefore benefit its collaborative efforts.

Going back to the original title question, why is this important information when considering who to choose as an effective external recruitment partner? Put simply, that recruitment partner not only needs to be capable of sourcing and finding people who have the skills needed to do the role, but equally need to understand what type of person will compliment your team and your companies culture.

There are recruiters that actively pay attention to this and there are those that don’t. One sign may be regarding the adverts that they write and how they are constructed. How many job adverts do you see that pay no attention whatsoever to the motivational aspects or culture of a company? Why is it that when you use two recruiters, who both say that they are experts in your industry, that they can deliver such contrasting results particularly when you see their candidates at interview? How about their levels of customer service and attention to detail?

Again, there can be quite a few considerations here when choosing a recruitment agency. To keep it simple a good recruiter is one that not only knows your industry, but knows enough about their technical area to gauge effectively whether the candidate can do the job needed skill wise as well as understanding the type of character who will fit in culturally with your company and add to its collaborative efforts. That recruiter also values your company, wants to build a long term working relationship and is prepared to work diligently behind the scenes making your life easier by you being safe in the knowledge that they tend to have a habit of popping up with just the results that you want with minimal fuss.

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