Anyone can do it themselves, but will only hire the best of who has applied to that ad – not a particularly comforting thought now is it for long term competitive growth through aggressive talent acquisition

Earlier posts have discussed which clients to fire, and this is an excellent way to work out who is worth investing in.

I would like to add one further point about what an agency can offer even the very best in-house recruitment team- information on what the rest of the market thinks of candidates. What do I mean by this? Well, one thing that we are doing all the time that in house recruiters are not doing is talking to their competitors and peers who move in the same industry circles. In-house teams engage two dimensionally, i.e. company to candidate. We engage on a whole new level- company to client to competitor to peers to candidates, the entire market top to bottom.

Often we come across people who have the gift of the gab, they look good, appear to be fantastic and during the process of speaking with them and helping them find work, information slowly starts to come to light from other industry peers. Peers who may never act as referees because they left the company that our seeming perfect candidate was working for. The relationships we build with people allow for free and frank conversations and I have often had calls from candidates I am very friendly with who have said thing like, ‘Be careful, I wouldn’t touch that candidate with a barge pole. Don’t stake your reputation with so-and-so’ etc. I work in a very small market and having inside knowledge is vital. During the recession when firms preferred to, or had to do recruitment themselves, my colleagues and I often received calls asking us to run our eyes over the final shortlist, just to make sure there is something we might know about the candidate that they didn’t. We gave our opinions freely and honestly with the company’s interest in mind and it has really paid off. Many of our clients have gone on their own, made the hires and lost the money and time because they have got it wrong (how were they to know that they were being duped by a candidate who was misrepresenting themselves??) These companies now find the money in the budget to pay our fees and have us manage the process with them in a consultative way.

Hope that makes sense. Thanks for another great article.

William

Good question. The truth is that smart recruiters need to assess where it is that they bring most value. Not all companies will need recruiters equally. Certainly a corporate with an effective in-house recruiting team MAY need third party recruiters less. But that is seldom totally true. Many of our biggest clients have large in house teams of very effective recruiters

I think the value still comes where the recruiter is deeply specialised. Even for a client with a team of recruiters, I feel its true that a company like Aquent who have 70 offices around the world, focused on a niche (marketing and design) is better equipped to access highly specialised talent – especially passive or internationally based people. So there is a big value-add in that capability.

Its also true that no in-house recruitment team I have ever encountered can match the talent pool and all-round effectiveness of a quality recruitment company when it comes to temporary and contract needs. Having highly specialised, tested, referenced checked short term resources available at less than a days notice is a facility few corporate recruiters would be able to match. No criticism of those recruiters obviously, but it’s a massive task to build an effective temporary staffing business.

Other areas that a good recruiter adds value, even to an in-house team, include

• Skill set availability — what skills are hot in the market and who has them?
• Industry demand — which sectors are competing for the best talent?
• Project “sex appeal” — what do the best talent like to work on (our designers want “cool” work for e.g.)
• Required turn round times-how quickly can we access key hires ( speed at which packaging designers get snapped up for e.g)
• Salaries and benefits and trends in reward and compensation
• Retention and staff development strategies
• Corporate perceptions — of your client that is. Where are the gaps in the clients employer brand?
• Hiring and retention ratios-how many people should they interview to hire. What is staff turnovers like in THEIR industry
• New techniques and tactics emerging — what are their competitors doing to attract staff? To retain people? To reward staff?

In summary though this is the point. To sell to a corporate client (any client actually) the recruiter must firstly identify the clients needs. What do they lack? What do the need to achieve their talent goals? Then it’s the recruiters job to showcase what THEY have that meets those needs. And it may not be “just resumes”

Cheers

Greg

Enjoyed the post. How about when the company has an internal Recruitment Team. ie full time Recruiters, not procurement or frustrated HR types, but actual Recruiters?

I’m interested as I am one of those in house Recruiters, and essentially it is my job to do all the finding and develop attraction strategies. What above and beyond do you offer my type of companies. I am always interested in well thought out, value add, different spiels.

I love the last line though.. definitely something missing a lot in our industry. Trust in your value add people and don’t be afraid of letting people know.
Cheers Dan