Why Shouldn’t I use a Recruitment Agency?

What do you think about recruitment agencies? (deep breath)

This question conjures up all kinds of emotional reactions among HR and Line Managers, and attitudes vary massively. Many consider recruitment service suppliers to be a vital component of their hiring strategy while others insist agencies are an overpriced and unnecessary indulgence. In fact, the spectrum of opinion is so wide that it begs the question; are people using agencies in the right way?

To ensure you experience the best possible value for money from your agencies, here are 3 reasons not to use a recruitment agency:

1 – When your own costs are likely to be significantly less than an agency fee

It seems obvious, but you’d be surprised how little people think about the true costs of recruiting. Every hire is different so, to make the right commercial choice, create a list of direct and indirect costs associated with making a new hire and compare it to the cost of outsourcing the recruitment process – Direct costs could include vacancy advertising, social media promotion, job boards, your hourly rate, the hourly rates of anyone else involved in the search and so on. Remember to consider the entire process from job spec to start date and the costs of repeating the whole thing or having to widen the net for harder to fill vacancies.

Meanwhile, indirect costs might include a loss of productivity or the financial impacts on the business while the vacancy remains unfilled and, what higher-value tasks you and your team could be doing instead of focusing on recruitment. In short, hire directly when you’re confident you can do it quickly and efficiently with a minimal impact on your day-to-day business activities. When the impact on your time and your bottom line is too steep, reach out to an agency for support.

2 – When your vacancy requires common skills and broad professional experiences

Imagine a fairway on a golf course leading to the green, with the rough on either side containing all kinds of obstacles; tall grass, rocks, trees and alligators (of course).

Every mainstream vacancy in your business sits on the fairway – think Administrators, Customer Service Reps, Production Operatives, Receptionists, etc. Given the size of the candidate pool, these vacancies can generally be filled directly and relatively quickly using conventional methods such as local/online advertising, word of mouth, social media etc.

Meanwhile, challenging vacancies that call for in-demand industry expertise or niche skills sit squarely in the rough. Candidates here are much harder to attract and even harder to secure, the recruitment process can often be far longer and, as such, will likely cost a great deal more in both time and money. A standard, stand-alone, advert will give you a narrow, limited snapshot of the talent market’s active jobseekers. Candidate choice is likely to be much better with a specialist agency as they spend each and every day of the year searching for passive and active niche candidates, have huge contact databases and far bigger talent attraction budgets.

3 – When you just want to do it yourself

Some hiring managers simply like recruitment, have the time, and genuinely enjoy doing it by themselves. If that’s you, fair enough. Recruitment can indeed be fun, that’s why we do it! You might have proven methods, bigger budgets, internal resources, and a brand that attracts the best talent without much effort. We have several clients who use our services just once a year, at best, for the odd incredibly niche IT vacancy but do 95%+ of their recruiting themselves. In almost every case, their workforces are predominantly made up of the same type of professional and so routinely attract and recruit them directly, often as trainees. If only we could all be so lucky!

Bottom line? Outsource to a professional only when it’s likely to be hard or commercially risky to do it yourself. Remember that recruiting directly isn’t free. Monetary cost and lost time can easily mount up so, make a sensible decision on a case-by-case basis.

You might wonder why we are telling you this – aren’t we talking ourselves out of a job? Perhaps we are, but only for those roles you don’t really need our help with. We want every client we have to truly value our services, and that’s why we routinely encourage people to use us in the right way – outsourcing only when it makes sense to do so.

Next article: 3 Classic Mistakes Hiring Managers Make Using Recruitment Agencies