It’s no secret that today’s economy is one that people 10-years ago would be envious of.
People are spending more money than ever on products and services. Consumer confidence is up. The unemployment rate is sitting at a staggeringly low 3.8%.
What does all of that good news mean for your company’s recruiting efforts?
It means that finding qualified candidates to fill your open positions is nearly impossible!
When unemployment rates go up, candidates get in line to be considered for job opportunities. When unemployment is down, workers have options and consequently, courting talent can become a serious problem.
Fortunately, your local recruitment agency can streamline the hiring process for you, even in today’s economic climate.
Here are 7 ways that they to do that.
1. Time Savings
The amount of opportunity cost that goes into hiring a new employee can be jaw-dropping.
Think about it… How much time does it take you to write out your job’s description and details? What’s the amount of effort that you’ll put into posting your job on various job boards? What resources will go into screening resumes, interviewing and running background checks prospective candidates?
Translate all of those hours into a dollar amount and you’ll see why employee turnover is so expensive.
Recruitment agencies will either take on those draining responsibilities for you or steeply reduce the amount of effort that they require.
2. Access to a Select Pool of Talent
Not every great candidate has “open to new job opportunities” written in their LinkedIn headline. As a matter of fact, most quality candidates aren’t advertising their candidacy at all.
In order to engage those people, it takes a special eye and a broad range of recruiting connections.
A good recruitment agency has both of those things.
Agencies have access to private pools of candidates that they’ve worked within the past. They can reach out to those people directly with your position’s information.
Agencies also know how to scour LinkedIn and work with other their strategic partners to dig up information on new hidden candidate opportunities.
3. Every Candidate Is a Good Candidate
A recruitment agency isn’t going to pour every person that’s looking for a job on your company’s desk. They’re going to carefully cull through prospective candidates and present you with the very best ones.
That means that every single candidate that you interview will be somebody that, from a skill perspective, could successfully fill your role.
4. Simple Salary Negotiations
Have you ever had to deal with the horror of going through a lengthy employee courting process only to get to the final stage of salary negotiations and have everything fall apart?
If you haven’t, you’re lucky because this happens to companies every day and oftentimes hits the reset button on an organization’s hiring efforts.
Recruitment agencies help you avoid that by putting you in a much more transparent position when it comes to your candidate’s compensation expectations. Since agencies represent both you and your candidate, they can keep both parties privy to what’s likely to be offered/expected ahead of time and can even conduct negotiations on your behalf.
5. Quick Access to Interim Workers
Sometimes a company’s need isn’t to fill a long term position. Some companies just need to plug a fleeting productivity hole that they’re experiencing due to an employee taking temporary leave or a seasonal uptick in work.
In these situations, a recruitment agency is invaluable.
Recruitment agencies have a number of standby prospects waiting in the wings. One phone call and an agency can have resumes on your desk and you can get your temporary role filled within the week.
6. The Benefit of Broad Industry Insight
Insight saves company resources and keeps employees happier.
For example, let’s say that you’re going into a salary negotiation and you aren’t sure what sort of compensation and benefits would make for a good jumping-off point. Now, imagine if you could know the average of what all of your competitors offered for similar roles.
That kind of insight would be incredible to have access to, right?
Recruitment agencies make gaining that perspective possible since they work with a number of businesses that operate in your niche and will likely be able to share broad insight on how others have successfully handled situations similar to what you’re facing.
7. A Streamlined Process for Hiring Executives
Filling top-level talent is among the hardest tasks that a company can undertake. Executive-ready employees simply represent too small of a percentage when compared to the broader workforce.
That reality makes finding the right person to fill high-impact roles akin to finding a needle in a haystack.
Many recruitment agencies recognize this challenge and offer specialized retained searches to businesses. These searches are tailor-made to hunt down, court, and get world-class executives into your company.
Summarizing Our Thoughts on the Value of a Recruitment Agency
Sure, a recruitment agency will charge you a fee for its services. That fee will pay for itself 10 times over though when you consider the amount of effort that they save you and the productivity of the candidates that agencies will bring to your organization.
Bottom line: If hiring in today’s market is presenting challenges to your team, work with a recruitment agency, get over the hurdles that you’re facing and get back to making your company the productivity machine that it is!
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