Dear Recruitment Agency,

(Yes, contingent recruiters, I'm talking to you)

Working as part of an in-house recruitment team, you receive a lot of approaches from contingent recruitment agencies all offering the same 'solution'.

The main selling points in an initial approach from said agency are exactly the same. They are industry experts, work with my competitors and can provide a recruitment solution which is better than agencies we currently work with. When challenged over this, they go on to profess that they are different from other agencies without any real ability to provide a differentiator.

Never being one to criticise without offering an improvement, I'll cover why these selling points don't appeal to someone working in-house and also suggest something which you can sell more effectively.

We are industry experts

The difficulty you face here is that everyone I work alongside are industry experts. Most have more industry knowledge than the recruiter contacting me that has been working in my industry for less than 12 months. The difficulty for your agency is that you can't sell something I already have access to. Knowledge of the industry is a minimum expectation rather than a selling point.

We work with your competition

The fact that you work with my competition is for the most part unappealing due to the fact you'll be sending me and my competitors the same candidates and working with the highest bidder. In most cases, the hiring manager I work with wants to hire directly from the competition. If my competitors are also clients of yours in the true sense of the word, then you shouldn't be poaching from them, limiting your ability to effectively recruit on my behalf.

We offer a recruitment solution

Working on contingency, there is no plausible way you can sell your service as a solution. The solution would be a successful hire which you can't guarantee through a contingent recruitment model. Recruitment firms working on a retained basis usually sell two things very well: commitment and process. The very nature of how they work means that contingent agencies will never be able to sell commitment, leaving one area that they can use to differentiate their service.

The only thing contingent recruitment agencies are able to sell (and usually do not mention) is the process they follow. Understanding your process including the sourcing methods you use, your ability to market roles effectively, what you offer to the candidates you represent and the process you use to qualify candidates would be something you can sell much more effectively.