Recruitment consultant - risky move or not??

InsideInsurance

smiling_through wrote: »

My main concern is about the economic times we are in. As you say plenty of people to pick from but are people hiring. I have no doubts this girl can and will pick up the knowledge over time but will she get time as I’ve heard it’s a tough industry and you don’t get time unless your producing results.

There would be an argument that it is a reasonable time, depending on your industry.

Whilst there are less jobs and more candidates at the moment there certainly are jobs (in Financial Services at least) and the problem with many more candidates being available is identifying the wheat from the chaff and where having a good consultant is increasingly important as I dont have time to wade through hundreds of CVs or interview dozens of candidates that are stretching their chances because they're desperate

smiling_through

The only reason I see for agencies to exist is the fact people don’t have the time to look through CV’s themselves.

There is another issue for agencies, which is the birth of job sites like Indeed which is not run by consultants and seems to be very cheap for organisation to use – we are currently using this one at the moment but again you must be prepared to look through CV’s yourself. Depends if your company sees the exercise as a cost saving or not depending on the fees some of the agencies charge for doing the work.

InsideInsurance

smiling_through wrote: »

The only reason I see for agencies to exist is the fact people don’t have the time to look through CV’s themselves.

It is a significant part of the reason, though it isnt just looking through the CVs but also doing an initial telephone interview in most cases.

The second part is being more proactive. So if I stick a job in the paper I only get to see the CVs of people who see the advert and respond to it. If I give that advert to an agency yes they advertise it too but they also actively call people they know who they think are a good match and try to sell the job to them