Recruiters add value to businesses

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Building Recruitment managing director Kevin Everett explains why recruiters are every bit as important to your business as lawyers and accountants. 

Every company uses various service providers such as lawyers, accountants or business mentors to help them through difficult times or to ensure they are compliant.

Recruitment is rarely on the list of an essential service provider to businesses. Here are a few reasons I hear regularly as to why this is the case:

Recruitment is a non-regulated industry.

Too many recruitment firms are not ethical or have poor systems and processes.

All they do is fire out resumes that are not remotely suitable.

They cost too much and we cannot afford the fees.

I am sure there are similar issues with many service industries, but they are still seen as a value-add to business owners.

Lawyers and accountants are never cheap, and nor are good business mentors. Yet despite the costs for their services, many business owners will use these services for their businesses because of their expertise.

It is widely accepted that the greatest asset to any business is their people. We have one of the greatest skills shortages ever experienced in the construction industry, and companies are struggling to find quality.

Yet professional recruitment services are still not seen as a value-add proposition.

Partnering with a good recruiter will have as much of a positive impact on your business, if not more, than any of the above-mentioned services — and could possibly reduce the need for those other service providers.

By choosing the wrong employee, you may need the services of HR, legal and the accountancy companies, not to mention the damage caused to other staff or client relationships and your business productivity.

Having the right employees and team culture can reduce risk in your business, and develop growth and profitability.

It would also free up your time to work on the business instead of working in the business, while your recruiter:

writes a job advert,

places adverts on job boards,

searches their database and networks for ideal candidates,

screens candidates,

creates shortlists,

interviews candidates,

modifies resumes and formatting to send to you,

writes a debrief from interview notes,

carries out pre-employment checks, and

negotiates on your behalf.

You can focus your energy on ensuring your current employees are not over-worked, and managing your day-to-day business with no disruption.

Then, when the right candidates are available as presented by your recruiter, all you need to do is read between three to five resumes, and prepare your interviews and employ with more confidence — plus you have a guarantee to fall back on.

Like most services, the more your recruiter works with you and establishes a relationship, the more they learn about you as a manager, your business and your team culture.
Sharing your business desires and business plans also helps them understand your long and short-term needs.

The better the relationship and trust, the higher the success rate.

How to find the right recruiter for you?

When looking to engage an accountant or lawyer, what questions do you ask yourself and of them? What are you looking for from them?

For example, if you have a business legal issue you wouldn’t engage a family lawyer to represent you. The same goes for choosing a recruiter.

Select someone within your industry, someone who has walked in your shoes if possible or, at the very least, successfully recruits to your industry.

If they do not understand your business, your industry or your needs, how are they going to find someone suitable? They can’t, and the workload soon transfers back to you.

More resumes equals more frustration/delays

Some feel bringing two or three recruiters helps widen the searching net but, in fact, all you are doing is creating desperation between the recruiters, and no dedication.

You have created a race to get the resume to you, so quality and process now become secondary.

If a recruiter has an exclusive client, then all their attention is on them. A 100% chance of filling the role is better than 50% or less. Simple math.

At the same time, as a client to the recruiter, it is important to give clear and constructive feedback on resumes received or candidates interviewed. Again, this will strengthen their knowledge and improve delivery.

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