Perhaps one of the most tiresome processes of operations in a company is the hiring process. Yet, hiring is possibly the most important activity that ensures the longevity and profitability of a company. The wrong staffers could harm the company, leading to lower productivity and profitability. The right staffers on the other hand, can take the company to the height of success.
The hiring process, therefore, needs to be carefully mediated and should involve multiple teams, experts, and managers. Ideally, it should be exhaustive and meticulous, so that the maximum number of candidates can be assessed. But let’s get real. In the contemporary world, who has the time and energy to spend days, sometimes even months, on the hiring process? Like all other areas of operations, hiring too needs to be streamlined and made more efficient.
A recruitment agency is a perfect solution to this. It can save you time, money, and the hassle of recruiting a candidate. In this article, let us look at the main pain points of a recruiter’s journey through the hiring process and how a recruitment agency can help in alleviating them.
The Recruitment Process: The Pain Points
To begin with, there are three primary areas which, recruiters say, are the main points of concern while hiring a candidate.
Hassle: Hiring the right candidate is a lot of hassle. Companies have to prepare the JD, publish it on various digital (sometimes print) platforms and then wait for the right candidate to respond. Collecting all the resumes, reviewing them carefully and then shortlisting the initial list of candidates can take a while. Then comes the arduous process of interviewing each candidate and finally selecting the right one. Unfortunately, even after all of this, the right candidate can drop out at any given moment. Candidates dropping out at the last moment has become extremely common in recent times.
The saga of hassle does not end just there. Even after spending money and man-hours, the candidate might quit after a few months, forcing you to start the process all over again.
Money: Here are some striking statistical data about cost related to recruitment, onboarding, and other related processes:
- One study by the Society for Human Resource Management states that the average cost to hire an employee is USD 4,129 with approximately 42 days required to fill the position. On the other hand, according to Glassdoor, (an American website that is a worldwide leader on insights about jobs and companies), the average company in the US spends about $4,000 to hire a new employee.
- Another study finds that the cost of replacing an individual employee can range from one-half to two times the employee’s annual salary – and that’s a conservative estimate. So, a 100-person organization that provides an average salary of USD 50,000 could have a turnover and replacement cost that can easily go up to USD 660,000 to USD 2.6 million.
Time: Finally, another key pain point for recruiters is the amount of time that is lost while replacing a candidate. The Society of Human Resource Management states that over 70% of companies can take anywhere between 1-4 months to process a new hire. However, the average time to fill a position is nearly 36 days.
How recruitment agencies can streamline the hiring process
A dedicated recruitment agency can come to your rescue in at least five different areas:
- Writing a Job Advertisement: You may think that this is an easy process. But writing the job description can make or break your recruitment process. An ideal job description should include the following:
- Role
- Responsibilities
- Description of the ideal candidate
- Qualifications
- Key Competencies
- Remuneration
- Company Profile
Ideally, all JDs should be written by a dedicated HR handler. Companies, in absence of a dedicated HR recruiter, can also assign the task to the external or internal communications team or the content team. But, small companies often do not have the luxury to have a dedicated communications team. Therefore, such companies can easily assign the task to a recruitment agency. The agency, on your behalf, can write the JD and get it approved, before posting it to various job sites.
- 2. Speedy Feedback: Candidates appreciate a speedy response from companies regarding the status of their applications. Just like multiple candidates are applying to any given position, there are also multiple companies seeking candidates. The job market can work equally for employers and employees. The more competitive the job market is, the higher the chances of losing the right candidate are. A recruitment agency can coordinate with the company and get in touch with the candidates in a timely manner.
- The Recruitment Process: The actual recruitment process can go on for multiple days and can be a long drawn one. The longer it takes, the costlier it becomes. Closing a position quickly is the need of today’s labour market. Here again, a recruitment agency can help. A recruitment agency can handle tasks like pre-screening, pre-interviewing candidates, and prep them for the technical rounds. For junior positions, a recruitment company can even conduct walk-ins. For more senior-level positions, the company can undertake bespoke head-hunting. Think about positions such as the Chief Executive Officer or the Chief Financial Officer. Recruitment for such positions requires utmost confidentiality and special skill sets that not many companies possess. A recruitment agency can help you in this regard. The same goes for highly skilled workers – Python experts, finance experts, big data analysts, web developers, et al. Recruiting for these positions requires special skill sets that may be lacking in companies that do not have domain expertise in these fields.
4.Making an Offer: Once you have the right candidate, making an offer seems to be easy, right? Wrong again. Candidates can hike up their expected salary after they get an offer. Not just that, many candidates can be poached by rival organizations, which might lure them with higher salaries or perks or bonuses. It might become difficult for a company to negotiate. At such a time, the expertise and experience of a recruitment agency can come in handy. It can act as a negotiator between the company and the candidate and create a good fit by providing a holistic picture to the latter. This can be done by highlighting the benefits of joining the company to the candidate.
- Onboarding: Sometimes, the initial process of joining a company may be taken care of by a recruitment agency. This might include everything from organizing travel to finding accommodation for outstation candidates. Opening bank accounts and other things, such as background verification of candidates may also be performed by recruitment agencies.
What are the advantages of outsourcing recruitment to a recruiting agency?
Let us look at all the advantages once again:
- Recruitment agencies can hire faster. All recruitment agencies already have a vast talent pool at their disposal. Not just that, many recruitment agencies can also hire externally, if needed. They can post job descriptions to various job profiling sites. Many individual recruiters have resumes of past candidates who they have interviewed. All these things make recruitment faster, easier and more efficient.
- Recruitment agencies can hire better talent. Hiring is the main domain expertise of recruiters. However, for most companies, it is not the core domain or area of expertise. In addition to that, recruitment agencies are experts in candidate selection They use the best practices in the industry to weed out the unqualified or the underqualified candidates. All these parameters make recruitment agencies the best stakeholders in scouting talent.
- Recruitment agencies have specialized knowledge. Many recruitment agencies may specialize in recruiting for a certain industry or a domain area. Specialized domains like IT, Finance and Technology require special hiring processes. Several recruitment agencies specialize in hiring for specific domains. Many recruitment agencies also hire for particular roles. For example, a recruitment agency might be brilliant in hiring for junior roles, interns or freshers. However, many other agencies specialize in hiring exclusively for top roles in a company. Outsourcing your hiring process to the right recruitment agency will only help you to tap into the specialized knowledge pool of the recruitment agency
Things to look out for while outsourcing to a recruitment agency
If you are looking for a recruitment agency to handle your task, then here are some pointers:
- Brand value: Your brand value is crucial to your company and all employees must understand them well. Hence, during the process of hiring, you must ensure that the hiring agency communicates that properly to the candidates who are being interviewed. This way, there is no confusion between the outlook of the candidate and that of the company.
- Cost: Many recruitment agencies may try to fleece you. They might ask for a large percentage of the chosen candidates’ salary as compensation for the services offered without offering any guarantee against it. Some recruitment agencies demand a fixed charge on every hired recruitment. However, as a company, you must ensure that you are getting value for the services you are getting. You also must ensure that there are no hidden costs and that the concerned recruitment agency is only charging you for the services that are being provided.
- Timeframe: All hiring agencies must give you a timeframe within which they must close the position. A lower time frame will help you to save money and increase productivity as well. You should hire a recruitment agency that gives you a reasonable timeframe.