There are more recruitment companies than ever, but what are the positives and negatives of using them?
Recruiting new staff is a huge investment – not to be undertaken lightly. One option is to use a recruitment agency, which (for a fee) will send candidates for interview or, if you’d prefer, CVs so that you can choose the applicants that you want to interview.
If you are looking to employ permanent staff, recruitment companies can often find potential employees quickly. Most recruitment companies have access to the details of many people who want to work straight away and can send these potential employees for interview swiftly.
Even if they fail to supply you with candidates for interview, you do still have a point of contact. This is not the case if you were trying to recruit staff any other way as websites and publications have no obligation to send you candidates for interview.
Agencies can also make sure potential employees pass their own basic tests or tests set by you before sending them for interview. They will also take up references and make sure that these are all acceptable before passing over to you. In this way the poorer candidates are “weeded out”, saving you valuable time.
However, recruitment agencies can be expensive – some charge as much as 30% of the employee’s first year’s salary (or equivalent for temporary staff). This can differ though, depending on the sector of employment and area of the country among other factors. You may be eligible for a discount with some agencies, for example, if you are going to be recruiting with them for another new employee in the near future.
For permanent employees the fixed fee can usually be paid in thirds (according to the REC – the Recruitment & Employment Confederation). One third is paid up front when the work is commissioned with the recruitment agency, one third when the agency produces a viable list of candidates for the position and the final third once the new employee accepts the offer of employment. However, you can negotiate when the fee is to be paid.
Despite the cost, employment agencies are especially valuable if you wish to recruit temporary workers as you don’t have to spend time drawing up contracts or dealing with payroll issues. One payment is usually all that is needed and they will deal with the rest. Recruitment companies also often offer rebates if a candidate leaves shortly after being hired. This is not offered with any other method of recruiting.
Temporary workers can also be flexible. You can find someone to fill a short term vacancy, and often to hours that suit you. However, as you are paying them hourly, and the hourly rate is fairly high (as it includes costs to the recruitment company) they can end up being more expensive than permanent staff. Bear in mind that if you had hired the temporary worker yourself you would be under no obligation to pay them for any holiday they take. The recruitment company is though, and so this is also added on to their charges for the workers hourly rate. You also have less say over who the worker in question is as there is usually no interview before you employ a temporary worker.
If you did decide to employ an originally temporary employee in a permanent basis the recruitment agency does reserve the right to charge a fee for this. This differs with individual agencies.
There are 8,000 recruitment agencies in the UK according to The Recruitment & Employment Confederation. Many of these are general recruitment companies but some are specific to particular employment sectors – for example “Jobs 4 Medical” recruits people in the medical sector and “Red Recruitment” is for admin based roles. You could register with more than one recruitment agency as most recruitment agencies operate a policy of no payment unless a successful candidate has been found.
Consider, for example, publicising the vacancy on your company website as this is free, and you would be likely to attract candidates interested in the nature of your business. It is useful to do this even if you are advertising another way. Of course, if you don’t have much traffic through your site as your business is still in its infancy you may not have much response.
Also use any business contacts and liaise with them. You would again attract candidates that are interested in the nature of your business, and if they are already contacts of yours it is not likely to cost the earth.
Job vacancies are also successfully advertised in written publications – especially magazines and newspapers. The most effective are often local ones as the readers live close by. This can, however, also be expensive as it is not often advertised in the publication for a very long period of time. Therefore they can end up being as expensive as recruitment companies, and much more hassle for you as you still have to deal with the administrative side of the business.
Advertising employment openings on websites is increasingly popular. In a world where technology is vitally important this is very effective.
There is a wealth of websites to choose from. Some, for example Jobcentre Plus (www.jobcentreplus.gov.uk) are very useful. It is free of charge and the website is exclusively dedicated to advertising for job vacancies. With over one million hits a week it is also very popular. Some other popular sites are www.gumtree.com and www.reed.com among others.
Some websites do charge to advertise on them. Be aware that this is fairly risky as there are many companies which make a lot of money for advertising your job vacancies online and are not very effective. If you want to advertise this way, proceed with caution. Do research on the company that you are going to advertise through. For example, if they state that the vacancy will appear on search engines specify which search engines.
Of course there are many other ways of advertising for staff – websites, newspapers and magazine publications etc. These are often cheaper than recruitment agencies; but if you want to find staff quickly, and with the least amount of paperwork, employment agencies certainly have the edge.
