Not sure what approach to take to filling your vacancies? This blog should help you to understand the different types of approaches to recruitment and the differing types of recruiters/agencies. It’ll also give you a bit of an idea of when to use what approach.
DIY approach
You can recruit directly yourself. Approach anyone you think are a good fit for the role or raise via your network. It’s unlikely that you’ll have the recruitment tools to do this at scale but it could be a cost effective solution for certain hires. You’ll need to advertise the role and It’ll be worth considering some support on developing job adverts. Finally make sure you have the time to reply to applicants.
Assuming the DIY approach option hasn’t worked , what are your options?
In-house recruiter
Could be employed on a fixed term basis , perm or as a day rate contractor.
If perm, need to ensure you have enough vacancies to cover this as it’s a long term option with associated employment costs. Consider IF you need someone who will headhunt candidates or someone who will need to manage outside agencies.
Day rate expect £350 to £400 for a resourcing advisor and associated costs to provide the tools needed to do the recruitment. Think job boards, Linkedin recruiter licence, applicant tracker system & recruitment tech.
Contingency recruitment
A good contingency recruiter or agency will have invested time getting to know their sector and getting to know their candidate base. You’ll usually pay them only on placement.
Where contingency works well
Lower more entry level positions or certain roles where you can be confident that there is likely to be a big candidate pool. Works well if you are open to non sector specific candidates.
Also works well In situations where candidates are likely to be actively available and you as client don’t have the time to conduct recruitment yourself.
Approach
Rely heavily on agency database , job boards and active candidates.
Key agency questions/considerations
- Who will be working on my account?
- How experienced are they as a recruiter? If you have agreed lower terms , expect that this will be picked up by a junior recruiter , who in some cases is completely new to recruitment.
- How many requisitions will the recruiter be working?
- How will I know my account will be prioritised?
- How will you ensure you protect our brand integrity?
- What fee are you happy to work to? Most likely % of salary.
A contingency recruiter will be working multiple live vacancies (between 15 – 40 at one time). A good recruitment sendout-to-placement ratio is between 4:1 and 8:1. It is in the contingency recruiters interest to have multiple things going on and as such you have to make sure your role will be prioritised.
There are also arguments that from a contingency agency recruiters point of view, it is not cost/time effective to reply to all candidates and so brand integrity becomes an issue.
Final take away
Consider fee’s. For certain roles a 10% fee could be absolutely fine but this will be a situation where an agency easily has candidates available and can place quickly. A more niche role is likely to result in less chance of a recruiter placing or having to spend more time on a vacancy and could easily not be the recruiters priority. It would come down to a little bit of luck with someone applying.
Are you looking to engage multiple agencies? Recruitment agencies maybe able to reduce costs for periods of exclusivity. A role with multiple agencies on all chasing the same candidates is often not the most effective approach.
Headhunting/Exclusive arrangements
Headhunter’s will go out and target ideal candidates for you.
Opting for a headhunting approach should mean that you get access to all potential candidates for a role both those actively looking and those all important passive candidates (one’s in a job but not actively looking for a new role).
A good headhunting campaign should directly target candidates ideal for your role. This is more labour intense and involves direct outreach in a variety of ways to include but not exclusive to:
- Targeted marketing campaigns
- Targeted email campaigns
- Direct search utilising tools such as Linkedin, social media etc
- Utilising databases & referrals
- Job boards & candidate databases
Where headhunting works well.
When you have a role that is niche or unlikely to be found via advertising alone. It is also applicable where certain requirements are needed I.e. sector specific and other methods are unlikely to generate these candidates.
Key agency questions/considerations
In addition to questions highlighted in contingency
- How long would you expect a campaign to take?
- What goes on with any existing candidates?
- How are fee’s structured?
It’s common to find this approach adopts a retained fee structure with a certain amount paid initially, after shortlisting and on placement. This accounts for the time put in by the recruiter/agency.
Final take away.
Headhunting/exclusive arrangements are the most likely way of filling roles with specific briefs; however it is worth considering if outreach is needed or whether candidates with a variety of cross over skills (who are likely to apply to adverts etc) could be utilised and may end up more cost effective.
It is perceived that headhunting is a more costly option for businesses to chose; however this very much depends on agencies and time taken to fill role. With lots of competition in the recruitment market firms are needing to ensure that they don’t just adopt a pricing model as something that has been done historically.
Other options
Interested in other options? Look out for our blog coming soon on Resourcing as a Service or RaaS. This is a monthly recruitment subscription service, changing the ways firms hire.
Want to discuss further? Please get in touch here
To learn more about Andy , please click here
Recent Comments