The Wonderful (And Not So Weird) Reasons Why You Should Hire a Recruitment Agency

I know what you’re thinking:

“Wait. What? A blog titled ‘The wonderful (and not so weird) reasons why you should hire a recruitment agency’ that’s been written by a recruitment agency. This I’ve got to see.”

Am I right? Either that or you’re generally interested in hearing us bang on about why we’re so good and how we can help you hire the best talent, save you time and money and negotiate salaries.

So let’s go.

Like a berry picker, but for talent

Just like a personal shopper knows how to find the best garments and a berry picker knows where the ripest berries grow, recruitment agencies know how and where to find the best talent.

And it’s not just people who are searching for a job. No. Because recruitment agencies have access to people who are currently employed but are open to a new role if the ‘right’ one comes up. And believe it or not, it’s often these people who come through as the ‘ideal’ candidates — which explains why they’re already sitting cushy in a role.

As well as the actual hiring part, recruitment agencies come with bags of knowledge and a professional phonebook fuller than Kim Ks they can tap into to help connect you with the right people.

Free up your time

Unless you’re in recruitment, sifting through a pile of resumes will feel about as tedious as teaching a kitten to sit. Luckily, your recruitment agency will take care of this, so you can focus all your attention on the candidates who make the cut.

Scheduling interviews can be stressful and time-consuming, too, especially if you’re as busy as a politician at the smell of money. If you hire a recruitment agency, all you’ll need to do is turn up, smile, listen and be nice. Because here’s another thing, we can do the talking on your behalf if you want us to — you know, if you’re shy. But more on that a few points down.

Keeping candidates in the loop when hiring is massive, whether it’s to pop them an update or let them know they haven’t got the job. Thankfully, this industry is full of chatterboxes (you should hear our office at lunchtime), and recruitment agencies are pros at delivering bad news, so they’ll make candidates feel loved — even the unsuccessful ones.

A big bag of tricks

Recruitment agencies don’t just hire people. No. They’ve got a big bag of tricks that, to businesses, are very appealing. These include conducting interviews, following up on references, and making sure candidates aren’t telling fibs on their resumes. You know, all the things you’d love to be able to do but can’t because you don’t have the time, skills or data.

A recruitment agency is another pair of eyes and a second opinion, too, which you can use for things like narrowing down a long list of candidates. And, because of the provisional tests recruitment agencies use, businesses feel assured that any candidate they meet in person is good.

You’ll save money now and in the future

Let’s be frank. When we say a recruitment agency will save you money, don’t expect to see thousands of dollars rolling into your bank account overnight. Instead, we mean small savings here and there that add up over time.

The biggest saving will no doubt be on job adverts. And yep, you guessed it, because we’ll use your ad sparingly and only in places that we know will get a good quality response. One other short term saving will be on overtime. Temp hours through a recruitment agency are generally cheaper than asking staff to work overtime. Plus, it saves you from having to have that awkward chat with your team, you know where you ask them to do overtime, and they’re really nice about it and say yes, but inside, their blood’s boiling. Yeh, that.

We should mention the long-term savings, too. Using a recruitment agency to hire can be quite long the first time around, you know, while they get to know your business and its requirements. But they’ll only need to do this once, so every hire after the first will be quicker and less expensive.

Salary negotiation? Consider it done

Salaries aren’t always easy to negotiate, and money talk, in general, can be awkward. How do you know what to offer? What happens if the candidate wants to negotiate? Do our job ads feature all the right benefits? These questions will most likely cement themselves in your head when you’re hiring.

And the last thing you want as an employer is to get to the final stages of hiring, having settled on a candidate, only to realise the salary on offer is planets apart from what the candidate wants.

As well as being your personal negotiator, a recruitment agency will help you benchmark the salary against other businesses in your industry, to ensure you’re not charging too high or too little.