Why do companies use recruitment agencies?

CCFC_80

DKLS wrote: »

Agencies may be expensive, but when compared to advertising costs and the time taken to process up to 300 applications, get distracted by the muppet animations filled in with crayons, then work that down to an interview list, do the first round of interviews etc is a pittance.

I would much rather pay the agency to action everything up to the 2nd interview, which I will do.
A well briefed and talented recruitment consultant is an absolute boon to my company. (They are out there)

Yeh right !! in my experience to every good recruitment consultant there are 99 bad uns. If I owned a company I wouldn't touch these people with a bargepole if they wanted to recruit for me.

Deep_In_Debt

When I dealt with recruitment at my last company, I found it useful having agencies recruiting. I ran an advert in a local paper for staff and was flooded with over 300 applications and only about 5 of them were suitable. I had to wade through all the applications to find 5 and I had to take the applications home at the weekend (as i didn't have time to look during the week) and my company agreed to pay me overtime to do it so paying agency fees probably worked out no more expensive. Also, working for a large, blue chip company, we got mega good preferential rates and the agencies wanted our business so would bend over backwards for us.

barnaby-bear

movilogo wrote: »

How the recruiting agents, who are often non-technical people, ensure that the candidates they have turned down, were not more suitable for the position?

I don't care if they turn down 2 dozen better people really as long as the short list has mainly adequate / suitable enough. An awful lot of jobs just need someone good enough not "the best"....

TazR

I have to say having worked in recruitment for over 15 years, starting as a consultant to most recent as a business development & stratefy manager, after being made redundant as an automotive design engineer i would say that depending on the nature of the role, agencies play a major part in modern recruitment......until i myself was made redundant a month ago!

I would say agencies come into there own when working in specialist fields, manned by consultants with a background specific to the sector they recruit for.

Like myself, i went from working as a designer in the automotive industry into automotive recruitment, my knowledge of the clients needs and candidates proved invaluable.

The problems occur, when agencies setup divisions manned by staff with no background in the sector they are working in, therefore just searching for keywords and unable to read between the lines on a job spec to find those candidates that would otherwise slip through the net.

Agencies do save the client money 'on the whole'.

The biggest fault agencies have is not providing feedback to candidates on applications and in cases no communication at all.

movilogo

I don't care if they turn down 2 dozen better people really as long as the short list has mainly adequate / suitable enough. An awful lot of jobs just need someone good enough not "the best"...

If you simply select people whose name begins with A only, chances are you'll still end up getting the qualifed people you want People often complaint about wading thru 100s of CVs but what makes you believe that recruitment agencies are actually wading thru CVs?

They just run a keyword search filter and brings up 5-6 CVs which have all those keywords.

An example of this:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1215303/Hero-BA-crash-pilot-new-job--crash-CV.html

DKLS

andy46 wrote: »

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Yeh right !! in my experience to every good recruitment consultant there are 99 bad uns. If I owned a company I wouldn't touch these people with a bargepole if they wanted to recruit for me.

You sound like an old MD of mine, he had the interview skills of a 3 toed sloth and always hired the wrong person for a role, wasting yet more money.

The agencies I use are specialist who know the market inside and out, and have IME had a pool of excellent candidates.

Also there are various perks and incentives available to those who use agencies, this year I have had, 4 lunches out, a trip to the casino and York Races with gambling cash given, a pack of designer socks, and assorted other small freebies.

CCFC_80

DKLS wrote: »

You sound like an old MD of mine, he had the interview skills of a 3 toed sloth and always hired the wrong person for a role, wasting yet more money.

The agencies I use are specialist who know the market inside and out, and have IME had a pool of excellent candidates.

Also there are various perks and incentives available to those who use agencies, this year I have had, 4 lunches out, a trip to the casino and York Races with gambling cash given, a pack of designer socks, and assorted other small freebies.

Yes, and agencies with their recruitment consultants always sort out the excellent candidates don't they ??

If I was an employer I would much rather give the person Who was hired an extra £2000 a year in their pockets rather then the agencies pocket

liney

andy46 wrote: »

Yes, and agencies with their recruitment consultants always sort out the excellent candidates don't they ??

If I was an employer I would much rather give the person Who was hired an extra £2000 a year in their pockets rather then the agencies pocket

And that is your opinion. Not everyone shares it obviously, or there would be an awful lot of unemployed RC's about.

What it boils down to, is that you don't agree with a business making a profit out of finding people work. Naturally it should be a charitable activity :rolleyes:, not a business.

Another very good reason that firms use Agencies is that they can have them Headhunt the person they want for their job without getting involved in the politics.

dave4545454

companies use agencies so they can pay £12 an hour for mininum wage staff then wonder why they go bust when they ain't competitive. personally i'd ban all agencies.

dave4545454

andy46 wrote: »

Yes, and agencies with their recruitment consultants always sort out the excellent candidates don't they ??

If I was an employer I would much rather give the person Who was hired an extra £2000 a year in their pockets rather then the agencies pocket

absolutely, why waste money on agencies when all the money should be going to the successful candidate