Understanding the benefits of using a recruiter

Working with a specialist recruitment firm delivers significant advantages for businesses, including increased efficiency, better access to top talent and more control over the hiring process. By understanding what a recruiter can do for you, you can give your business a crucial edge in a competitive jobs market.

No matter what industry your business operates in, perfecting your recruitment strategy should always be considered a top priority. This has become more challenging given the current economic climate, combined with the high rates of employment, and shifting priorities of candidates.

As such, more and more companies are turning to dedicated recruitment agencies to help them find candidates.

Specialist recruiters can deliver numerous advantages for ambitious organisations; not only do they make it easier for companies to identify the best candidates, but they can also help their clients to accelerate the pace of recruitment and reduce their time to hire.

Considerable recruitment expertise and understanding of the jobs market

The recruitment landscape changes all the time, and a company's approach to their people strategy needs to be tailored accordingly in order to be successful. For busy Hiring Managers with limited time, recruiting to multiple teams can be very time consuming, it is often difficult to keep up with the trends and react accordingly.

Many professional recruitment agencies have an in-depth knowledge of the recruitment sector and extensive experience in sourcing talent across various industries. As such, working with a recruiter will allow you to take advantage of their comprehensive understanding of the current market trends, salary benchmarks, and candidates’ expectations from the job opportunities that you offer.

This knowledge is invaluable when it comes to identifying suitable candidates, and it can save your business time and effort that you would have otherwise spent on researching the market.

Knowledge of the specific conditions in your sector

The challenges of the recruitment process are amplified for businesses operating in highly specialised industries, such as the legal, finance and accountancy or actuarial sectors. The candidates you are looking for will not only have to demonstrate their talent and enthusiasm, but may also require highly specific qualifications and experiences; the hiring process and progression pathways for these sectors may also be specialised and unusual, meaning the pool of available talent for these roles will be small.

This is why it is important to use a recruiter with industry-specific knowledge of your sector, as this enables them to anticipate your business's unique challenges and requirements. By leveraging their expertise, they can tailor their search to attract candidates who possess the relevant qualifications and skills, while quickly sifting through and filtering out unsuitable applications that do not fit these requirements.

Within the professional sectors that we operate, the candidate market is highly competitive, with clients often facing challenges when it comes to counter offers and competing opportunities. Your expert Recruitment Consultant will work with you to overcome these issues through established relationships with their candidate pools.

Better access to top talent that you cannot find

A major advantage of working with a recruitment agency is their extensive network of contacts. Most recruiters have access to a wide talent pool and can personally recommend candidates who are well-suited for the roles you are hiring for, meaning you can forego the need for an extensive search and move straight to the interview stage.

Recruiters can also help to put you in touch with passive job seekers: talented professionals who are not actively job searching, but who may be open to leaving their current employer if an attractive new job opportunity is presented to them.

In addition, recruitment professionals often have the expertise and skills to sell your role to candidates that they believe would be a great fit. A strong recruitment partner will develop an in-depth understanding of your organisational culture, dynamics, and employee value proposition, in order to promote the opportunity to the widest talent pool.

By tapping into this network, a recruiter can help your business connect with candidates who might otherwise be inaccessible through traditional job advertisements or online job boards.

Reduced time to hire

The process of identifying, vetting, interviewing, and hiring candidates can be lengthy and time-consuming, especially when you are searching for in-demand skills within a competitive market. This period is known as the 'time to hire', referring to the length of time it takes between a candidate being contacted for a vacancy or applying for the role, and the point at which they accept the offer of employment.

It is a useful metric for determining the efficiency of your recruitment and interview process, how much time this is taking up, and how long it takes for your company to fill a position. The best recruiters are dedicated to helping companies to significantly reduce their time to hire, offering resources and specialist guidance on how to conduct thorough candidate screenings, background checks and interviews. Reforming your approach can ensure that only the most qualified applicants are presented to your Hiring Managers.

This streamlined process will enhance the efficiency of your recruitment as a whole, allowing your team to save time and focus on their core responsibilities. You can reduce your time to hire by:

• Providing clear and concise job descriptions with the help of recruiters - Don’t be too brief, but avoid including too much unhelpful and irrelevant detail. Have a definitive idea of the qualifications and skills you want your new recruit to have, and make sure you are clear about what is necessary versus what is nice-to-have.
• Examine potential biases within your job advertisements - Not only is this beneficial for your employer brand, but it will also ensure you have access to the widest possible talent pool of qualified candidates.
• Keep pace within the interview process - If managers are slowing down the process because they cannot make time for interviews, this could mean a qualified candidate will move on to another opportunity as a direct result.
• Give prompt feedback to client – Review CVs, collaborate on interview feedback and collate offers quickly and efficiently to ensure the process continues to move along.

Lower risk of bad hires

Recruiters have the expertise to identify potential issues during the screening process and minimise the risk of making a bad hire. Hiring the wrong candidate can have a significant impact on your business, both in terms of the disruptions they can cause within your organisation, and the expense associated with having to start your recruitment process over again from scratch.

By partnering with a recruitment agency, you can mitigate the risk of a bad hire and ensure that you are able to find a great match first time.

Sellick Partnership is proud to have a strong compliance function, committed to due diligence, offering clients peace of mind to feel confident in our processes, safe in the knowledge that we are supplying candidates that have been thoroughly vetted.

Expert advice on your internal recruitment processes

One of the most important ways that working with a recruiter can help your business is that, by sharing their expertise, they can help you to optimise internal hiring processes according to industry best practices. They can provide you with guidance on everything from writing effective job descriptions, asking candidates the right questions, and developing the interview skills of your hiring team to get the most out of your conversations.

Recruiters have extensive experience working on both sides of the job search process, providing career advice for candidates and connecting them with more job opportunities. As such, they have a clear understanding of what the most sought-after professionals are looking for when assessing open positions, and can advise you on how to make your recruitment process easier in order to maximise your chances of attracting them.

Diversity and inclusion

Sellick Partnership is striving to improve the recruitment experience for all candidates and create an employment journey that is accessible for everyone. Therefore, we offer our clients support with their inclusion strategy, providing guidance on improving the inclusion within their processes and identifying the potential barriers in place.

Find out more about our Recruitment Inclusion Checklist here.

Support with onboarding and retaining staff

The recruitment process does not end once a job seeker has accepted an offer. A successful onboarding programme is crucial for retaining new hires and ensuring they become productive and long-lasting members of your team.

Recruitment agencies can offer support in developing a comprehensive onboarding plan tailored to your business and the candidate's role. This personalised approach can help new hires feel welcomed during the probationary period and engaged from day one, reducing the risk of turnover and improving overall employee satisfaction.

Recruitment professionals can also assist and provide expert support in the common event that a candidate is counter offered by the company they are planning to leave. They have the relevant knowledge to be able to navigate these scenarios in the correct way for everyone that is involved, and can usually spot whether a candidate is solely looking for a counter offer and is planning on staying at their company regardless.

Dedicated recruitment services allow your team to focus on other key priorities

Handling the recruitment process in-house can be a significant drain on your team's resources, particularly for small businesses with limited staff. Even for larger organisations, protracted hiring processes often require HR teams to dedicate significant amounts of their time and draw their attention away from other key priorities.

By outsourcing your hiring needs to a recruiter, your team can focus on its core responsibilities and strategic objectives, while the recruiter manages the time-consuming task of sourcing, screening and interviewing candidates. This approach will deliver increased productivity and efficiency within your organisation, and allows you to place your trust in an experienced recruiter working to support your best interests.

Find out more

In today's competitive job market, the benefits of working with a specialist recruitment agency can give your business the edge it needs to attract and retain top talent. By understanding and leveraging these benefits, you can position your company for continued growth and success.

To take advantage of the various ways that working with a recruiter can help your business, get in touch with Sellick Partnership today. Our specialist recruitment team will work with you to add value to your hiring processes at every stage and ensure that you are able to hire the right candidate every time.