How to work with recruitment agencies to successfully hire
How can you work with recruitment agencies to successfully hire your roles and grow your team? How can you encourage the recruitment agencies to prioritise your vacancies and help you to hire well and quickly? If you are a hiring manager with urgent roles to fill and are working with recruitment agencies, you are probably thinking about these and other questions. This article provides answers and focuses on some strategies to increase your recruitment success.
Creating a successful partnership with recruitment agencies
Working effectively with recruitment agencies is crucial for ensuring that you get the best candidates quickly, especially when your roles are urgent or very niche.
Here are nine strategies that can help you create a stronger partnership and get the most out of working with recruitment agencies.
1. Communicate Clear Expectations
Job Descriptions
Provide detailed, clear, and up-to-date job descriptions. The more information you can give about the role, required skills, company culture, and specific preferences, the better the agency (or agencies) can tailor their search.
Priorities
Clearly indicate which vacancies are top priority. Explain the urgency, the reason for the role, and the impact it will have on the team and business. Make sure that the agency understands how critical certain positions are for your team’s success. If you are hiring multiple roles for one team or division, give some indication of which are priority.
Timelines
Set realistic timelines for the hiring process and ensure that the agency knows your urgency. If you’re looking to fill the role quickly, communicate this from the start. Be realistic if you have a niche role to fill and know that there are not going to be many candidates out there.
2. Establish a Strong Relationship with your Recruitment Agencies
Frequent Check-ins
Schedule regular meetings or calls to stay in touch. These can be weekly or bi-weekly check-ins to discuss progress on current vacancies, any challenges the agency is facing, and to refine the search strategy as needed.
Feedback Loop
Provide constructive feedback on candidates that the agency sends over. This helps the agency refine its search and ensures that future candidates are more aligned with what you’re looking for. Don’t rely on quick answers like – ‘not suitable,’ ‘turndown’ or ‘not enough experience,’ but be more specific. A sentence at the minimum.
Trust
Build a relationship based on trust. Trusting the agency’s expertise and judgment can lead to more collaborative and successful outcomes.
3. Provide Insight into Your Company and Culture
Cultural Fit
It’s not just about skills; agencies should know about your company culture. Make sure they understand what type of personalities will thrive in your team and environment. Share details about the team dynamics, values, and expectations.
Growth Vision
Let them know where you’re headed as a company so that they can identify candidates who not only fit the current role but can also grow with you in the long run. Agencies that understand your growth strategy will be more motivated to bring you candidates who can evolve with your business.
4. Offer Competitive Compensation Information
Market Trends
Share information on salary ranges, benefits, and perks to ensure that the recruitment agency has an understanding of what’s competitive in the market. This will help them prioritise your vacancies and attract top talent.
If you know your company is one of the top payers in the sector, let your agency know. This will be a selling point and make it easier to attract top candidates.
Likewise if you know your company pays salaries in the lower quartile, let your agency know, so that they can sell the role based on the whole package of the culture, the team, the opportunity to learn, and the skills and experience they will gain.
It wastes everyone’s time taking a ‘great candidate’ to final interview stage knowing your company cannot come anywhere near the candidate’s salary requirements.
Flexibility
If you have some flexibility in compensation or benefits, let the agency know. Sometimes adjusting a little can make the difference in attracting the best candidates.
5. Provide an easy and fast Interview Process to help your Recruitment agencies
Efficiency
Streamline your interview process so that the agency can move candidates through quickly. Agencies are often motivated by how fast and efficiently the interview process works, as the quicker a candidate gets an offer, the more successful they are.
Interviewers
If possible, ensure the hiring managers or team members responsible for interviewing are aligned and available. Agencies will prioritise your vacancies when they know there’s a streamlined process at your end.
6. Be a Collaborative Partner to your Recruitment Agencies
Transparency
Be open with agencies about any challenges you’re facing in hiring. If there are obstacles (like budget limitations, candidate shortage, or skills gaps), share this information so that they can be creative in finding solutions.
Active Involvement
While agencies are doing the heavy lifting, remain actively involved. Don’t leave everything to them; review CVs/Resumes promptly and provide quick feedback. Agencies appreciate hiring managers who are engaged and responsive.
7. Reward and Recognise Success
Incentives
If you have a long-term need for recruitment, consider developing a performance-based incentive plan with your agencies, such as bonuses for fast placements or successful hires that stay beyond a probationary period.
Praise Success
Acknowledge the success of the recruitment agency when they successfully fill challenging roles. This can reinforce a strong, positive working relationship and motivate the agency to prioritise your future vacancies.
8. Be Open to Suggestions from your Recruitment Agencies
New Strategies
Agencies often work with multiple clients and have insights into market trends and best practices. Be open to their suggestions on how to improve your hiring process, or how to reach and attract top talent.
Specialisation
If your company needs roles with very specific skills or qualifications, consider partnering with specialised agencies that have a track record in sourcing for that niche. A specialised agency may be more invested in prioritising your search because of their expertise.
9. Share Long-Term Needs with your Recruitment Agencies
Forecasting
If possible, share your future hiring needs. If you foresee hiring several positions in the near future, giving the agency early notice can help them prepare and ensure that they’re ready to assist with a broader talent pool.
Talent Pool
Agencies can build a talent pipeline for you if they know about upcoming needs, helping you move faster when roles open up.
Conclusion
As your overall aim is to fill your roles with strong candidates, by focusing on these key areas, you can foster a stronger, more productive partnership with recruitment agencies and ensure that they prioritise your vacancies effectively. This will help you grow your team faster with the right talent and as quickly as possible.