3 Reasons to Use a Recruitment Agency For Your Next Hire
If you've been used to recruiting your own staff in the past, you may not be sure whether to pass your next hire on to a recruitment agency. However, using an agency can have a lot of advantages, especially if you need to hire someone to fill a newly created position. What are the benefits of getting help from an agency?
1. Market Salary Expertise
If you're hiring someone to take over an existing job, then you probably have a pretty good idea about the job's market level wages. However, if you're hiring someone for a new job in a department you're about to create, then you may not know where to set the salary level. If you work with an agency that has experience of recruiting in this area, then they can advise you on typical salaries in the sector. This helps you attract good candidates at the right market price.
2. A Network of Candidates
As well as having a steady stream of new applicants looking for new jobs, recruitment agencies build networks of candidates. If they don't have someone on their books who can do your job, then they may have contacts they can headhunt or use to refer other candidates. You're not likely to have this breadth of contacts, especially if you're making a specialist hire for the first time. For example, if you're taking on your first accountant, you may not have any contacts in this field. An accountancy agency will have all the contacts you need.
3. A Pre-Screened Shortlist
If you place an advert in a newspaper or online to fill your job, then you could be inundated with lots of applications. Not all these applications will be right for the job or for your company. You'll have to spend a lot of time whittling all the candidates down into a manageable shortlist. A recruitment agency will do this for you. They can interview all candidates that look suitable and then create a shortlist of the best candidates for you. They can check that shortlisted applicants can actually do the job.
Some agencies will also run screening checks on candidates to check factual information like educational qualifications and previous jobs. If you run tests on prospective employees, like psychometric tests, then the agency may also agree to administer these for you.
To find out more about the services that recruitment agencies offer employers, talk to local agencies with experience of hiring in your sector.