Bad press from a lack of understanding

If you’re a Hiring Manager or you work in internal recruitment, the thought of involving external recruiters might concern you. Criticism of recruitment practice abounds and, on occasion, that criticism is justified. After all, who wants an email inbox filled with skim-read, word-matched CVs, leaving you to do all the work?  This is certainly not the way to elevate someone’s view of the profession. However, working with a professional recruiter who precisely searches for your next employee by understanding you, your company and your specific requirements can be a pleasure.

To address a negative view, we must understand what a good recruiter actually does. In a recent blog by The Undercover Recruiter, “What do people think recruiters do?” opinions on the profession are noted to differ quite widely. Recruiters can believe that they are the “Cupid of the jobs world”*, others believe that recruiters spend their lives trolling through social media sites and clients sometimes believes that recruiters are magicians who can find just about anyone for half the going salary.

To value the recruitment profession, an understanding of their skills will not only improve expectations, but may help you to pinpoint a good recruiter and reap the rewards.

Remember, using a good recruiter makes your job easier and who doesn’t want that?

Return on your recruiter investment

There are some startling facts concerning the cost of poor hiring choices. The Chartered Institute of Personnel & Development (CIPD) stated that, “on average an incorrect appointment in a job costs the employer two and a half times the annual salary of the employee concerned.”* That’s substantial and commonly avoidable.

This is where a good recruiter can add value and security to the hiring process. We must remember that recruitment is a specialist practice, requiring in-depth knowledge of the industries in which they operate.

Free up your time

In some professions and with certain role types, you could be on the receiving end of hundreds of CVs if you advertise directly. Alternatively, a good recruiter can work to review every applicant and provide you with a shortlist of those who are most relevant. They may do this after they have qualified the candidates, met them in person and developed an understanding of their capabilities and career interests. They can shorten the process for you by passing on crucial information prior to interview and answering any specific questions to fully support your decision process.

Shortlisting only the most relevant people for interview reduces your risk of employing the wrong person. If we recall CIPD’s comment, this can save you a lot of money down the line.

What if you your problem is different?  What if you aren’t receiving the applicant numbers you need to make a choice? Assuming your pay scale is within tolerance for the industry, you may experience this issue within specialised industries or for highly skilled positions. The good news is that a professional recruiter can help you find relevant people by tapping into the passive job market.

A good recruiter is connected

Good recruiters are connected people.  They have dependable relationships and may use social media to broadcast their way to the perfect individual. Their networks span past candidates, Hiring Managers in other companies, relevant hang-outs, groups and societies. 

So, it makes sense to use a specialist recruitment company for specialised roles because their industry knowledge and their contacts can all be harnessed to help.

A good recruiter is a marketer

If you just advertise a vacancy on your company website, only people who travel there will find it. A good recruiter knows where to advertise your vacancy.  This can include select job boards, their own website, social media platforms and more.

But, results aren’t solely dependent upon where a recruiter advertises your vacancy, but also on the description of your vacancy. Good recruiters don’t simply take your job specification and paste it into an advert. Instead, they describe the role, challenges, mission, reporting lines, level of personal ownership and more. Good recruiters also back up their advert with enviable levels of knowledge about you, your organisation and the vacancy.  That makes for an interesting, traction-building conversation between your recruiter and the more able candidates.

Reap the benefits

There are plenty of bad apples in the recruiter barrel, but it is clear that good recruiters can add significant value to the hiring process. They are your channel to market, often reaching the parts that you may not. They can keep your inbox tidy, speed up the process and reduce recruitment risk. 

Now, if that’s not adding value to the hiring process, I don’t know what is?