Every industry is open to disruption. Recruitment is no exception. With the seeming march of Social Media, Big Data and ever-sophisticated ATS software to keep track of candidates, on the face of it, the much-maligned recruiter could be starting to find it difficult to justify their existence.
They can no longer boast that they have a secret network of candidates to tap into. They no longer have the advantage of exclusively “knowing” their candidates as much of their lives are now on social media. With CVs increasingly optimised for key words, a company ATS system can often pick up the required qualities.
The technical aspects of recruitment have changed a great deal. However, this does not get even close to the crux of recruitment. Recruiters find people for people – they deal in stories, they deal in emotions, hopes and dreams. They are translators of visions, communicators of culture and mediators of relationships.
Well, the best ones are anyway. I won’t waste much space here on the guys that often give our industry a bad name. Yes, there are some cowboys out there, as in any industry…
So, imagine I am an HR Director. Why should I bother employing a recruiter when my internal HR team can theoretically do the job?
I need someone to be a consistent face of my employer brand.Recruiters promote their clients in the market and act as brand ambassadors. They often talk about multiple opportunities to their candidates and can act as objective advisors rather than theoretically self-interested internal HR teams.
I need someone with access to both active and passive candidates.When a candidate comes onto the market, recruiters are their first point of call. It is a symbiotic relationship. They are often a source of perfect fit candidates who otherwise would not be on anyone’s radar. Their ability to find passive candidates through referrals is second to none. They maintain relationships with their best candidates throughout their careers.
I need to find the right people, and I need them fast. Time is money in recruitment. The cost of every open vacancy is huge. As recruiters are often incentivised by a successful placement, for them, speed is of the essence as well as quality.
I need someone to facilitate the complicated process. I need someone who has the experience of managing hundreds of similar assignments. They need to be able to mediate when issues arise and smooth out all sorts of potential problems.
I need an objective expert in the market. I need to be told who is right for my company, but it I equally important to be told who is not right. I value the opinions of recruiters who work in the wider industry – they help to inform my opinions on the types of candidate that we should be attracting.
I need to manage the risks of hiring the wrong person. This is the big one for me. The costs of a bad hire are prohibitive. Recruiters often have a probationary period guarantee, and many of them provide a replacement for no fee should someone leave within a certain period. The quality of their candidates is often that extra bit higher than internally sourced people. They are ultimately accountable for the quality of hire.
In terms of the personal side of things, good recruitment has changed very little over the past couple of decades. It is a people, relationship focused industry and will always benefit from the trusted recruiter adding tangible value to successfully onboard new employees that stay with business long term.
We’re passionate to facilitate our partners make more effective, strategically beneficial hires. Do you feel this could help your future team growth plans? Reach out to one of our team, we’d be very happy to help.
