Sadly, talent acquisition teams can often see recruiting firms as competition.
Are recruiters really swooping in trying to steal their thunder? In our opinion, the reality couldn’t be further from the truth.
Most TA teams we partner with are overwhelmed by the sheer number of roles that they have to fill. Furthermore, all of these positions are different, which requires TA teams to be masters of multi-tasking at best and search for types of roles which they have no experience with at worst.
Specialized staffing firms exist to cut those small but mighty TA teams a break. Recruiters have highly specific expertise and vast mature networks, allowing them to quickly fill gaps and give TA teams time to work on other strategic activities.
The most successful clients leverage Recruiting partners to complement their own efforts. Collaborating with us to access new pools of talent, add velocity to the company’s time-to-hire, as well as employee satisfaction and retention rates.
Below, we have outlined five reasons TA teams benefit most from working with recruiters, versus without them.
Working with a recruiting firm is a win-win. Under the contingent search model, an organization doesn’t pay a fee unless we find them the best candidate. We will constantly be feeding hiring managers excellent talent to compare with your other sourcing methods until you are ready to sign on a candidate. Our MSA agreements also include other contingencies, so it’s in our and our clients’ interests for candidates to work out for the long term.
Most TA teams are expected to recruit in many different areas, which spreads them too thin.
Recruiting firms, on the other hand, focus on very specific areas. So, when you engage with our team, you are guaranteed access to more qualified candidates.
But that’s only the first layer of value. Recruiting firms like Planet Technology establish relationships with each candidate. We call them instead of messaging them. We talk to the best candidates who may not be looking for work and discuss your company. We act as brand ambassadors. We help candidates polish up their resumes to better highlight their pertinent skills and get ready to present their best selves to you during the interview process.
TA teams often don’t have the time to craft thoughtful, detailed job descriptions. Recruiting firms can help them transform a cookie-cutter description into one that attracts more of the candidates they’re really looking for. In addition, recruiters know what to emphasize to excite candidates, so they can provide helpful feedback regarding demand generation, brand marketing, and the interview process.
Building rapport between TA and recruiting and working as a team makes the entire recruiting lifecycle more efficient. For example, if TA tells us that there are multiple rounds of interviews, we won’t pass along a new candidate who already has two competing offers in hand. Or, if the company requires a candidate to be onsite 3 days a week, we won’t pass someone along who is only considering remote work from home.
Hiring managers are feeling the pain of talking to the same candidates over and over. They are frustrated by the holes in their team that they needed to fill months ago, but TA is stuck without a highly cultivated network of potential candidates at their fingertips.
Working with a recruiting firm opens hiring managers up to entirely different talent pools that TA won’t always have access to. Recruiters are always talking to potential candidates, so they know who has what skills on a detailed level. So, instead of doing a simple search, recruiters can get very granular, only providing candidates that match the job description or sending people missing one thing but bringing multiple nice to haves instead. And best of all, recruiters know when star players are itching for a new role but haven’t mentioned it publicly yet.
Providing hiring managers access to these diamonds in the rough puts companies in a much better position to hire the most experienced people for the role. In fact, some companies even double up on recruiting firms to increase their scope (and future success). Just be aware that going that route means there are more people representing your brand, which can lead to confusing or duplicate conversations with the candidates.
Think for a moment about a home renovation. Technically, you could do the work yourself. Maybe you have some experience with plumbing or interior design. But you’re not a trained contractor and finishing the whole home will take considerably longer compared to an expert.
This is a fantastic metaphor for recruiting. While TA teams have recruiting skills, they don’t usually have the depth of experience that recruiters do, particularly in fields that are challenging to recruit for and in high demand, like technology. It takes TA teams longer to find the right people, and because they don’t have existing relationships with those candidates, it can be harder for them to convince candidates to apply.
Recruiters skip that back and forth, putting you in touch with top-notch candidates from the get-go – and you only pay for their service if they deliver.
Unfortunately, leaders tend to look at the staffing firm cost at a line-item level, which causes them to discount the dozens of first-class candidates they get exposure to for free, the guidance recruiters offer, and the number of hours recruiters save TA and hiring managers.
But recruiters have the power to accelerate your search, putting you in contact with the right candidates at the right time. They’ve already built up a list of amazing candidates that hiring managers can talk to and take the time to prepare candidates for the role and also promote your company.
Want to see for yourself? Contact us as Planet Technology to see how we can help you score your next stellar employee today.
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Hiring top talent | Retention | Staffing | Working with recruiters
