Why on Earth Would I Pay a Recruitment Agency?

It's an age-old question.

How hard can it be to fill job vacancies? "I can do it myself and paying an agency is a waste of money."

We've heard it all before.

Yet new recruitment agencies are incorporated at Companies House every week, so there are plenty of hiring managers and recruitment teams that use them, having discovered many good reasons to.

In fact, I'm going to quickly give you six core areas to consider when you're deciding whether you should hire the next person yourself. Or outsource it to a professional.

Time

Recruitment is very time-consuming indeed. It involves many processes and layers and keeping a suitable applicant interested from initial application through to them starting on their first day in their new job takes many hours of work.

How much is YOUR time worth?

Experience

Unless recruitment is your area of specialism and, even then, if your area of specialism is limited, you'll likely find you lack the necessary experience to deliver results.

If you're used to filling jobs in the customer services department, where will you start when the new requirement is for a Finance Director? Would you know where to look, how to manage the selection process and whether you were offering a position and package that's attractive to the kind of person you want?

Reach

Unless you're hiring for one job type or genre frequently AND talent pooling for future requirements, it's likely that your ability to get access to those types of people quickly in the future is very limited.

Where do you go for those hard-to-find talented people that your competitors seem to attract?

Focus

Juggling tasks that you understand fully is one thing.

But if recruitment for the company is not your full-time job, what is?

And how do you prioritise which is most important and deserves your time on any given day?

Will other areas of the business get neglected when you invest hours elsewhere, within something that's not your forte?

And if you sit on applications for several days, having allocated some 'recruitment time' in your week, have you considered that, in a candidate short market, you've already lost them to another business?

Guidance and Support

The world of employment and recruitment changes frequently. A job board that worked last year may not work this year, for example.

Where do you get information about the market, to understand if you're attraction exercise will work, how to understand what motivates your ideal candidate to apply?

Guarantee

There are many things you can do to reduce your chances of a bad hire

(see my blog https://www.clarityappointments.co.uk/view-details/36162/Reducing-the-Chances-of-a-Bad-Hiring-Decision.htm)

But occasionally things can still go wrong. Your time, energy and advertising costs have all gone down the drain.

Why wouldn't you consider using an agency that offers a guarantee on that hire? Whether it be cashback or a free replacement?

Just in case ....

Clare Wight is the founder and Managing Director of Clarity Appointments, an independent recruitment specialist. She served as a Regional Director for The Employment Agents Movement, supporting other independent recruiters.

She remains an active member of Recconnect (formerly Members Only), a recruitment leadership network promoting high ethical standards, collaboration, diversity, equity and inclusion.

She believes business owners are more fulfilled and higher-performing when they provide emotional and professional business support to other business owners, even those they deem to be competitors. She does this actively, whilst challenging and updating her skills and knowledge of the recruitment sector, enabling her to offer the best advice to firms looking to make their next hire.