Life is hard for businesses looking to recruit new staff at present. There is a worldwide skills shortage in several sectors despite the economic downturn. The growing number of unemployed has not made the recruitment process easier. The increased number of CVs of those, who do not clearly match the expectations of the future employer, makes the hiring process much longer and more complicated.
How can businesses reduce recruitment costs and risks and free up resources for more important activities?
The traditional method of recruiting is to use a recruitment agency. The first thing it is important to understand is that most recruitment agencies are really just job advertisers and do not undertake employee selection for you as well. There are some agencies that do and if you require this from them this should be an important part of your selection criteria when deciding which firm to use.
Given that most recruitment firms don't provide selection services, if you are able to write an effective job advertisement or have other sources through which you can source potential job applicants yourself, such as through referrals from your current employees or through social networking, then you will save considerable amounts of money by undertaking all of your employee recruitment and selection process yourself.
A recruitment agency can offer you great benefits if you are looking to hire staff for short periods of time. The agency will charge you an hourly or daily rate for the contractor and also act as the worker's employer and will be responsible for national insurance, salary etc. Although this is generally more expensive than if you act as the employer yourself, there is just a single invoice to be paid rather than the workload associated with an additional employee. Also the recruitment agency takes all the risk and you can ask for replacement staff at any time if the employee is not working out like you hoped.
A recruitment agency can also provide you with benefits if they are expert in a particular industry or employee market. Whilst most recruiters are sales professionals (not employee selection specialists), some agencies hire staff with extensive experience in a field (e.g. IT) and teach them how to recruit and place.
However, if you do not have the time to undertake the recruitment and selection process yourself and are concerned about the cost to your business in lost business or business development opportunity during the recruitment process, you should definitely consider outsourcing your recruitment. If you choose to go this route however you should insist that your chosen recruitment partner undertakes the whole process for you, is impartial and not supplying its own candidates for a fee and above all uses scientific selection methodology.
At the very least your recruitment partner should manage all sources of candidates effectively (including those from recruitment agencies) and screen and interview them using competency based methodologies. Otherwise you will end up having to put in just as much time and effort yourself anyway to assess the applicants they send you. If not, the effect of your outsourced employee selection process will be just as effective as taking a lucky dip. And you will have to deal with the consequences, which could not only include you being stuck with a less than productive employee, but even a disaster.
For more information on how Recrion reduces the risk and cost of recruitment whilst significantly improving processes, visit www.recrion.co.uk or call +44 1780 484910.
Filed under News by Katherine