The critical question is - why would a company even hire a recruitment consultant if it has a human resources team ready to source talent directly from the market? If you have ever worked in a major company with several offices and teams - you might have the answer to that question.
Nevertheless, recruitment agencies play a critical role in the talent market. And here is every reason why!
1. Wide Reach and Job Marketing
Yes - it can be one. Instead of thinking about recruiting as an HR Function, consider it as a business development function. Once the recruitment agency has been provided the job description, budget, and the number of openings, its job is to maximize lead generation.
A common way to do this is by posting on LinkedIn, SimplyHired, Indeed, Monster, and every other job portal relevant to its target industry. But, that is something the company’s HR Team can take care of. The recruitment consultant reaches out to the segments in the market that the HR Teams generally cannot access - trade unions, graduate schools, immigrant settlement bodies, and even unemployment assistance bodies.
Sometimes, the lead generation process might require much more than posting a job on these portals. That is when the recruitment consultant accesses her applicant database and manually scouts people who might be eligible for the role, reaches out to them, and brings them to the interview process.
2. Standardized Screening and Minimized Inefficiencies
If the HR Team operates in a small capacity and has to juggle different administrative roles, it might not screen every applicant with maximum efficiency. And that is when it has to rely on Applicant Tracking Systems.
The ATS is a simple filtration system that looks for the variables and ranges set by the recruiter. For instance, if the job description has been set for a mid-career employee with 5+ years of experience, the ATS will filter every employee beneath that range. Such systems are designed for efficiency, but they do not bring the human touch.
Now, what if you are an applicant who has been promoted twice in 4 years and is now professionally capable of handling this role? Most probably, the ATS will not let you get through to the next round. While most enterprise-scale ATS platforms are not this rudimentary, they are not designed to understand the human element in recruiting.
A recruitment agency can look for qualitative variables which might not be accessible to the ATS. That is how the agency adds value - by standardizing screening at scale and ensuring that eligible candidates do not slip through the automated systems.
3. Low Cost of Hiring Per Capita
Most companies have a group of internal recruiters and external recruiters. And they are not given exclusive tasks to hire a specific group of people. This means that there is a possibility that both the internal and external recruiters are tasked with hiring for the same set of roles.
Such practices pressure external recruiters since they are usually paid only after the hired individual joins the company. This is why recruitment agencies and consultants run optimal processes to attract, scout, filter, and recommend employees to the hiring manager.
The efficiency and effectiveness often pair up and ensure that the total cost of filling the position is relatively lesser when an external recruiter is brought into the picture.
4. Market Research
There are several data points for applicants to get a salary check, ranging from organized platforms like Glassdoor to social networking platforms like FishBowl. But, for the hiring company, this data has to be substantiated and approved under a formal process. And that is where the recruitment agency comes in handy.
Most recruitment consultants have cross-sectional data on industries, positions, and geographies. For most engagements with companies, the recruitment agency does not have a non-compete agreement in place. This makes the recruitment agency the melting point of industry data.
Companies that want to make competitive offers can leverage this expertise, especially in verticals where high percentile talent is challenging to find.
5. Compliance Check
Major companies with internal HR Teams also have some form of in-house counsel available. However, smaller companies often have such functions rolled up into an outsourced relationship that delivers boilerplate contracts and on-demand consulting. But recruitment consultants have to ensure that every touchpoint in the recruiting process meets the government mandates and industry standards.
Whether it is unbiased hiring or checking for updated license requirements - the recruitment consultant can piece it together as a singular entity overseeing the recruitment life cycle.
6. Anonymity
Imagine this scenario - Microsoft posts an opening for 100+ game developers. Since these openings are posted on LinkedIn, anyone can track them - including Microsoft’s competitors. And it would be easy to make an educated guess that the company is trying to develop a new game or a gaming platform.
Companies that operate in tight-knit industries or verticals with scarce talent have to solve this problem. The recruitment agency can provide the necessary cover between the company and the prospective applicants.
For many posts, even on LinkedIn, you will see a recruitment consultant’s name instead of the company. The consultant would still describe the company in broad terms and provide some ideas on its industry. But the exact details will be shared only during the interview process. This anonymity helps the hiring company protect its competitive edge.
In Summary
Recruitment agencies do much more than help companies discover talent in the job market. The right recruitment consultants take absolute ownership of the hiring process and deliver optimal matching quality between the job's stated and implied requirements and the applicant's mentioned background and qualitative characteristics.
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