An article from absolutely business (PDF) focuses on how organisations can use recruitment consultancies effectively and is a pretty straightforward realistic advice piece. Here’s what I took from the article:
- The importance of the organisation’s culture and ethos and how this is communicated to the recruitment consultancy – to effectively understand the “brand” of the organisation is paramount when trying to recruit new employees – how does the organisation differentiate themselves from the competition and attract new employees to them rather than their competitors
- Well documented job specifications and personal requisites, inviting the recruitment consultancy in if necessary to give the full rundown on the requirements. There are still a lot of organisations that don’t make this investment upfront and if the recruitment consultant has no access to the line manager they’re pretty much working on the barest specs.
- Asking for references – we’ve never been asked for references by any of our clients – something we would definitely welcome
- Getting the best deal doesn’t mean the lowest % rate available – the way any business works (and that includes recruitment consultancies) is to make a profit whilst delivering a quality service. I agree with the sentiment that all parties need to feel like they’re getting what they want – everyone goes away happy. I also agree with the authors opinion “I am constantly amazed that HR professionals can push prices down to next to nothing and
then bemoan the fact that the service is lacking” and ” If you negotiate too low, you might have to compromise your service levels and, if your staff (the recruitment consultant) then struggle to earn the same income levels, they might turn their attention to other, more profitable clients.” - Getting closer to the recruitment consultancy or consultant and thinking of them as an extension to the HR department really does reap rewards – the close working relationships we have with some of our clients not only means we have higher success rates but our clients have additional benefits – they use us as a sounding board, take advice on salaries in the market place, see our pick of the best available in the marketplace before their competitors do etc
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