The Recruitment Battle: 4 reasons why a specialist recruiter is the only option when recruiting technical roles.

Whether you’re a client looking to recruit or a candidate looking to climb another rung on the career ladder, there are an infinite number of approaches you could take to get the job done. So what makes a recruitment consultancy the only option when sourcing your next technical member of staff?

So you’ve recently decided to bring a new member of staff into the business, but trying to decide on the right method can sometimes be overwhelming. Recruiting directly via referrals is an option, advertising via online job boards or social media is another, or you could engage high street or technical recruiters— there are pros and cons to all of the above and no doubt the direction you take will be largely governed by the type of role you’re recruiting for.

With this in mind, using an established, specialist recruiter is the only answer when recruiting for technical roles.

Here’s why:

1) Candidates, not applicants

Your time is precious; you don’t have time to be sifting through a mountain of irrelevant applicants on the adverts you put out. As a candidate, you could well apply to 10 or more jobs and never hear anything back. Is that because you weren’t right for the job? You’ll probably never know.

A technical recruiter establishes great relationships with candidates and clients, allowing them to assess skills or requirements before creating the perfect match through pre-screening phone calls and interviews. This assures you that you’re time will be used as efficiently as possible throughout the recruitment process.

2) Market knowledge

Any good technical recruiter should work a specific skillset or market within a particular industry. This allows them to keep their finger on the pulse of market trends and nuances within the industry; great for you whether a candidate or a client searching for invaluable insights regarding your future recruit or role.

A recruiter is more than just a service provider. Instead, they should provide continuous advice and guidance with regards to salary trends, career and role expectations and any current hiring issues within the market.

3) Extended Reach

A technical role can be difficult to find or fill. Gaining the right talent pools or opportunities can often be a challenge, particularly if it isn’t something you do regularly.

Enlisting the support of a specialist recruiter will provide you with access to an extensive network of candidates and opportunities, opening doors that you wouldn’t have otherwise been able to find, let alone open! More importantly these recruiters have existing relationships with a range of passive candidates who otherwise might have slipped through the net.

4) Budget/Resource

Back to that role you’re looking to fill. It’s more than likely you’re either looking to replace an existing member of staff or grow your department to increase business output or effectiveness. Think about the cost implications to the business of not having that employee. Your department has no doubt been juggling plates trying to keep up with the workload in the absence of your employee, or it isn’t at the point at which it should reasonably be.

Without a technical recruiter, that role could take a long time to fill. Why would you limit the effectiveness of your department and ‘make do’ without when you could get the right person in quickly and effectively with the support of the right strategic partner? The cost implications of not having the role filled could be far greater than the cost of engaging a specialist and, put simply, getting the job done.

Technical recruitment is about people. The consequences of making the wrong decision can have significant commercial and personal impacts, so utilising an experienced, knowledgeable recruiter is surely the obvious option, right?

Austin Fraser is an award winning, specialist IT and Engineering recruiter who specialise in sourcing specialists. It's our mission to break the perception of 'stereotypical recruiters' and demonstrate that recruitment, when done well, is an excellent and consultative process.

View the original article here: http://blog.austinfraser.com/

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Comment by Steve Levy on February 17, 2015 at 5:03pm: This post reads like a Top Recruiter session without the huge upfront fee

Comment by Austin Fraser Ltd on February 18, 2015 at 3:39am: Thanks Steve!

Comment by Nicholas Meyler on February 18, 2015 at 4:16am: Whatever happened to the idea of a 'diversified porfolio' of clients so that the recruiter is less impacted by slowdowns in specific industries? Specialization is a good thing, up to a point, but if Leonardo da Vinci had specialized only in painting, the world would be a much less interesting place. Instead, he made enormous contributions in a multiplicity of fields.

I think any truly skilled recruiter can work in pretty much any field, with some allowance for 'ramp-up' time. My preference is only to work searches in technologies that interest me. Nonetheless, it's always good to keep busy, and industries can become very slow for extended periods of time.

I definitely have areas of specialization, where I have worked for a decade (and longer), and still know people I first contacted 15 years ago (one of whom I finally placed late last year). Still, I think that because of the enormous cross-over between different areas of technology, the idea of specialization is somewhat doomed. Sometimes I prefer to think that I specialize in Search, itself.

However, let me also say that I rarely (if ever) conduct any searches outside of the world of Technology or Engineering/Science. Still, that field is so vast that I don't feel 'restricted' in the sense that I can only work in one area (like Ceramics, for instance). Rather, I would work in fields like materials science, manufacturing, chemistry, nanotechnology, etc. (often simultaneously), with a fairly large amount of cross-over -- so much cross-over, indeed, that I often have candidates who are possible fits for more than one position, even though those positions are ostensibly in 'different fields'.

Comment by Austin Fraser Ltd on February 18, 2015 at 9:22am: Hi Nicholas,

You make a very interesting point. As with anything, there are pros and cons to specialisation. As a business we've always specialised in IT and engineering recruitment and interestingly, the digitisation of the business world with concepts such as Industry 4.0., demonstrate the merging of engineering and IT to create more efficient and streamlined manufacturing processes. We're seeing an evolution from the hands on engineers, to more specialised data analysts (see our article here).

What does this mean? Industries evolve and change over time, but in our opinion specialisation is still always the best approach. Your network of contacts sounds well established and this gives you the flexibility to adjust your area of expertise. However, for newer recruiters looking to learn the art of truly consultative recruitment, we always encourage a single market focus; the more specialist the better!

Thanks for sharing Nicolas!

Comment by Nicholas Meyler on February 19, 2015 at 12:14am: Hi Austin, I totally agree with you that new recruiters should specialize for several years in one area, before branching out. Interesting that you point out the trend towards CIM, which is an interesting intersection of Robotics, Software, Systems Engineering and Manufacturing where I have made 4 successful placements in the past year. However, to be fair, it's not an area I did work in previously, so despite while I was very successful at it, it wasn't really my 'specialty'. Now, however, it is one of my specialties. So it goes.

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