“The secret of my success is that we have gone to exceptional lengths to hire the best people in the world.” Steve Jobs
Recruiting the right talent is exceptionally important and will, ultimately, determine how successful a business is. But how do you get recruitment right?
There are two options available to organizations; use external recruiters, or keep it in-house. While there are benefits to keeping recruitment in-house, including consistency throughout the process, there are also many challenges to choosing this form of recruitment.
If you want to explore in-house recruiting, here are some important considerations to factor into your decision.
Is In-House Recruiting Really Cheaper?
Perhaps the prime motivating factor for recruiting in-house is a desire to keep costs down. This can certainly be cost effective when recruiting for occasional roles, particularly non-specialist ones. But, although many companies feel that the cost of external recruitment is too high, it can sometimes end up costing substantially more to keep the process in-house.
If you choose to employ full time in-house recruiters and you find that there are times when recruitment is quiet, you will still have the overhead of paying a full time salary. With external recruitment however, you are only paying the agency, as and when you need them, and only if a candidate is successfully placed.
Time and Resources
Many companies don’t hire full time in-house recruiters, but instead, use their current staff to deal with the process. As you would expect, this can take up a lot of time and resources that could be used for other aspects of the business. If you are using key members of staff to undertake the advertising, shortlisting and interviewing process, you are taking them away from their actual role and this will have a knock on effect on their productivity, and profitability.
The other challenge in terms of time and resources is that if the new hire doesn’t work out, you will never get that time back! Alternatively, a recruitment agency will be able to dedicate their time to the process, which means your own staff can get on with other work.
Expertise
Another challenge of in-house recruitment is that identifying the best talent for your role requires experience. Short of employing an in-house recruiter, do staff members know what they are looking for in a CV? Is there a danger that they might miss a strong candidate and shortlist others that are not such a good fit? Interviewing is also a skill that develops with experience and therefore, if you do recruit in-house, make sure you have your most experienced interviewer on the panel.
Employer Brand
Your whole recruitment process is a reflection on your employer brand. If you want to install confidence in a prospective employee that your agency can offer them the opportunities they desire, first impressions count. A smooth running, professional recruitment process, where a candidate’s time is valued and feedback is delivered in a timely manner, will do this.
If your in-house recruitment process, particularly if it is not being undertaken by a dedicated recruitment team, is a little ad hoc and homespun it can be damaging for your employer brand, and sow the seeds of doubt in a candidate’s mind.
While none of the issues outlined above are insurmountable, they do need to be addressed for your recruitment process to be effective. Weighing up the pros and cons of different recruitment models is a good first step.
Going to exceptional lengths to recruit the best people does not necessarily mean choosing one recruitment model over another, but it does mean doing whatever you choose well.
Zero Fee Recruiter is a new and better way to find great talent.
We are the world’s largest passive candidate marketplace. We provide you with qualified professionals that we have contacted and vetted for each position you are looking to fill. We deliver only candidates that are interested in the position, are available in your location and have agreed to your salary range.
ZFR focuses on passive candidates that we source through our proprietary system, “Reach Out”, and this enables our team to reach candidates that are not actively looking.
We guarantee results! It’s that easy…