Recruiter bashing

tizerbelle

It's all relative though. Many employers don't consider they get a good level of service paying the normal rates so just imagine how bad the sub-standard would be in their eyes compared to the poor/not good service.

As we don't use recruiting agencies (a decision I was involved in from past experience) I honestly can't tell you why some companies do use them. You would have to find one and ask them!

smileylondongal

As a former in house recruiter, I see the value of agencies only when a) there are technical/very senior roles that companies need help with b) outsourcing costs are less expensive than hiring in house staff c) there isn't enough in house staff to source these placements. You have to remember that in today's market, companies do not have the money to spend on recruitment which is why many are either freezing their headcount or their HR departments are picking internal talent to inform succession planning.

As lovely as a fresh campaign sounds each time you have a new vacancy this costs money. You also have to remember that to interview just a handful of people for one role already means costs in potential venue hire, time costs for those interviewing, costs in providing the right selection process if done correctly, travel expenses, relocation expenses if applicable, and that's not on top of the usually vast agency fees. Agencies are now recognising this and coming down on costs in order to be part of a PSL.

As a recruiter, I rarely used agencies unless to look at niche roles. I used free advertising, made my own industry contacts, used my internal database and marketeers to source the best candidates and we rarely got it wrong.

In this market, employers are becoming wiser and wiser and realising that if they just look internally they can cultivate their own talent so whilst they may be using agencies now, they may not in the near future.

Agencies do have their place, but they do need to change the way they operate and become either niche technical recruiters or widen their offering to be more useful to employers. They can no longer rely on the service they used to provide.

heretolearn_2

We've never used agencies for our recruitment but I can see their uses in some circumstances. I wouldn't rule out using them in future, depending on the role and our budget!

We do get cold calls every time we advertise a vacancy but they've always accepted a polite 'no thank you' without problem.

Wellery82

I've worked in recruitment from an agency and in house. I agree they are an irritant at times, but i always treat them with respect when i have dealt with them inhouse.

They do also add value in my opinion -

For technical/skill shortage roles they can understand the market and get higher calibres of CVs in a quicker timeframe than i could source myself. Where it is a high level position then a fee of £10,000+ isn't actually that much when you consider the risk of hiring someone who isn't as good for the job - the agencies give you the chance to tap into a bigger pool, and thus more talent. They also help in reducing workload. Often recruiters will have a huge volume of roles at any given time, and the amount of CVs to review isn't feasible, so recruiters can do this for you. They can provide advertising campaigns saving time, and can also do a better job of selling your company to prospective candidates when a HR function again may lack the time to do this.

I always tried to minimise my agency use, but definitely thought them worthwhile, and think a good consultant is worth their weight in gold to an in house recruiter

InsideInsurance

For high volume, low skill roles I can rarely see the point in using an agency. The only organisation I know who did were massive and not only did the agency do the normal recruitement tasks they also arranged for the credit referencing, job referencing (which had to be every single employer in the last 5 years and any gaps over 1 month then stories checked - eg if they say they were on a world cruise then copies of tickets etc). They were also paying nothing close to £3,000 for each successful hire.

For high skilled/ technical roles I am more in two minds, there are good agencies out there that can make recruitement much easier/ painless (though they are few) but I will still question the amount they cost. In my previous role I hired 4 highly skilled people paying market rate for them as contractors. All 4 of them came from through the same agent and were recruited within the space of a month. Whilst they are contractors the likelyhood is that they will be with the organisation for a minimum of 1 year and more likely two. For finding these 4 people in a month the recruitement agency will therefore be receiving between £100,000 and £200,000 in fees (agents for contractors being paid a daily fee for every day the contractor works)

For an agent, was the work good? Yes. Was it potentially worth £200,000? On that I struggle.