There are many reasons why both companies and candidates turn to a recruitment consultancy to help with their role filling or role seeking requirements. The process can often be a time consuming and difficult one for both parties - the addition of a professional recruitment partner can be a useful aid for a number of reasons...

Candidates:

When thinking about recruitment consultancies, most people would attribute the immediate benefit to the organisation hiring. However, engaging with a recruitment consultancy could result in a very different outcome for your job search too.  

• Unseen vacancies. We are experts in our industry. It is our job to keep up to date on the market, and this means we are often ahead of the curve when it comes to companies hiring plans. Whilst they may not be openly advertising a role yet, if the right candidate comes to light, our relationship allows us to make that introduction. This could mean you’ve been interviewed and accepted the role without it even coming onto the open market, before you and everyone else would usually be aware of it.

• Recruitment expertise. We are not only experts on our industry, but also on the recruitment process. The interview process can be stressful and time consuming, having a middleman to help organise interviews and potentially alter the process will reduce some of this stress. Not only this, but they will be able to elicit feedback and provide preparation for your interview, in a way you may not be able to do directly.

• Offer negotiation. Similarly to having the confidence and ability to gain useful feedback, candidates faced with an offer situation directly, are often inexperienced in this type of negotiation, which can result in a less desirable outcome. (Good) Recruitment Consultants are handling offers day in, day out, so can advise firstly, on the strength of the offer but also how to manage further discussions, if required.

Companies:

Every company will understand the importance of recruiting the right individual and most will also understand how taxing recruiting can be. In a recent survey, hiring managers' primary reason for working with staffing firms include the desire to shorten the hiring process (42%). Whilst partnering with a recruitment specialist can achieve this, there are a few other reasons worth considering.

• Cost saving. Of course, there is a fee attached when using a recruitment agency, however with all things considered, it is likely to be the cheaper option. Recruiting takes time, this either needs to be that of a dedicated recruitment team, or from the hiring manager. A dedicated team can be costly and so can the impact of taking a manager away from their daily duties. Due to recruitment specialists having a developed network they are likely to be able to attract talent quickly, therefore decreasing the time of the team functioning at a lesser efficiency.

• Recruitment expertise. This one crops up again here. 54% of companies have lost out on a qualified candidate because of an unsuitable process. In such a candidate heavy market, it’s important this doesn’t happen. By partnering with a recruitment expert, we can offer advice on how best to manage the process, from start to finish, to ensure the best result.

• Access to the best. We pride ourselves on our unrivalled network and ability to source the best active and passive candidates. This is through proactive approaches, developed relationships and typically, access to more resources. All this teamed with being solely dedicated to finding the best talent for your company, means we often reach people that internal teams can’t.

It is important, for both candidates and company, to invest time into choosing their recruitment partner. The more you work with them, help them build a great understanding for your requirements, the more fruitful and effective the partnership will be.

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