Don’t Hire Alone: 9 Reasons You Should Be Using a Recruiting Firm

In a previous blog, we talked about the importance of using a recruiter, but we didn’t truly dig into how this asset can long-term affect your company. Aside from saving time and money with every placement, recruiting firms have access to industry knowledge and connections you may not even consider. Here are nine reasons you should be using a recruiting firm. 

1. Access to Candidates 

There are plenty of passive job seekers out there, and a recruiter knows where to find them. Some people aren’t actively looking for a job but would be willing to hear about an opportunity if the right one arose. You won’t find these people be placing an ad, and they usually make the best candidates. 

When you work with recruiting professionals, you are leveraging their entire network. Good recruiters keep a pulse on talented people in the industry, especially when they’re not actively looking. This opens a whole pool of people that you would not have been able to reach on your own. 

2. Fewer Applicants 

This may seem contradictory, but when you’re looking to fill a key role in your organization you are looking for more candidates and fewer applicants. 

When you post a job or run an advertisement, you probably receive a host of responses from people who are not qualified or are otherwise not the right fit for the job. You spend time reviewing and vetting the all of those applicants. 

Using headhunters means that you are delivered candidates, not applicants. The recruiter takes care of the vetting process and produces only people who have the qualifications for the job. 

Instead of reviewing 25 or more applicant resumes, you can review the qualifications of a few hand-selected candidates. The recruiter handles the initial vetting and interviewing process so that you can make your selection on the best of the candidates available. 

3. Save Time 

Most companies cannot afford to have a job open for too long before it starts to hinder the success of the business. We know too well that this adds stress to those employees who are taking on additional responsibilities once companies scramble to cover workloads. It can take countless hours and weeks for internal recruiters to source job boards, review resumes from online job submissions, contact the applicants, pre-screen, and set up job interviews. And, don’t forget the difficult task of meeting executives’ schedules!  

When companies outsource the hiring to recruiting firms, the entire process gets handled by the firms, which allows employees to focus on operating the business. Recruiting firms are always building candidate pipelines that are thoroughly vetted and immediately available for consideration. This reduces the time-to-hire from weeks to days, without compromising on quality. 

4. Industry Expertise 

Most recruiting firms specialise or focus in their industry niche, so they already will have a pool of highly skilled/relevant candidates for you. Employees and internal recruiters are routinely asked to fill positions across various departments which is time-consuming and can be overwhelming. Recruitment agencies bring expertise for hard to fill positions, something that internal recruiters may not be able to dedicate to, because of time or technical ability.  

The candidate market always evolving and so recruiters are able to keep you informed of new trends and highlight ways to get ahead of the curve. 

5. Salary Benchmarking 

Salaries and hourly rates are constantly changing, making it difficult for employers to stay on top of market standards. Working with recruiting firms makes this easy. Firms often do their own local market benchmarking and will publish their own salary guides. When employers know the current rates for the positions they want to hire, they are better prepared as they enter approvals, all the way to offer negotiations. 

6. Achieve a Flexible Hiring Strategy 

Combining a strategy of full-time and contract workers enables companies to meet the workload demands and the ever-changing work environments. Recruiting firms support the need for flexible hiring strategies by providing various hiring options, catered to your preferences. 

The first solution, temporary staffing, is a great option for companies that are looking for temporary help for a short- or long-term project or for seasonal work. Recruiting firms will provide skilled professionals who can start right away, commonly within 24 hours. The firms will handle payroll, benefits and other HR needs on behalf of the temporary employee, which is a cost-saving solution for all employers. 

Another great flexible solution offered by recruiting firms is called “temp-to-perm” or “contract-to-hire.” This solution allows companies to hire a professional on a temporary basis to support a project or task, and after a short period of time demonstrating performance, the company can hire the consultant full-time. Simply stated, this is a “try-before-you-buy” concept, that allows the client and candidate to get to know each other and determine chemistry for a long-time commitment.   

A third solution, permanent hiring, gives employers the opportunity to rely on recruiting experts to conduct sourcing, candidate identification, vetting and screening, interview process and management, references, and offer negotiations. 

7. Flexible Partnerships to Suit Your Business 

The most popular ways recruitment firms partner with clients is on a contingency basis. This means that the company only pays the recruiter if they make a successful introduction which leads to a hire, with a pre-agreed percentage of the candidate’s salary paid to the recruiter. The benefits of this are, of course, that there is no risk, and you only pay on results.  

The other popular route is via an RPO (recruitment process outsourcing) which involves an employer turning the responsibility of finding potential job candidates over to a third-party service provider. Typically, this involves a guaranteed monthly payment to the agency and often a small fee per hire, which if doing a large recruitment drive may be more cost-effective than the contingency option. 

8. Reduce Turnover Rate 

High turnover rates are very costly for companies and can be difficult to quantify. A recent study showed on average, it costs a company six to nine months of an employee’s salary to replace him or her. Companies incur sudden costs during talent acquisition and onboarding, which can include weeks of orientation, training, and ramp-up time to learn the key aspects of the role.  

When companies make a poor hire, they lose money on time and resources spent, not to mention, a replacement. Turnover creates less productivity and directly affects the morale of employees invested in the training and development process.  

For these reasons, it is critical to find the right hire the first time around. Recruiting firms provide a helpful, thorough hiring process, which includes technical, intangible and cultural vetting, comprehensive background checks, and not to mention, helping clients reduce time to fill. 

9. Time to Fill Metrics 

Your business can’t afford to leave key positions open while you advertise, review applications and complete interviews. 

When you work with a recruiter can cut down your time to fill to a fraction of what your typical hiring timeframe may be. By knowing the market and knowing where to find the talent, a good recruiter can source candidates much quicker than a typical company. 

This means that you will save money by getting a quality candidate up and running in the position in a fraction of the time. 

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At Epic Search Partners, we focus on recruiting the professionals essential to the digital marketing space. We want every candidate we represent to know they are getting the best possible representation and are put on the path to the best possible job.