When Should You Hire a Recruiting Firm?

If you’re recruiting to fill a key role, you may wonder whether to hire a recruiting firm or handle the search in-house. In many cases, partnering with expert recruiters can save money, accelerate timelines, and achieve better results – and there’s a good reason why.

A Recruiter Can Save Time and Reduce Costs

It’s easy to think that you can save money by conducting a search yourself, but the opposite may actually be true. In fact, if a critical position goes unfilled for approximately three months, you could likely have paid for a recruiter to fill it with the “lost” income from having that role empty. An unfilled role doesn’t necessarily mean financial savings; on the contrary, it’s more likely to cost you money by being temporarily unable to offer clients the services they need and being unable to run the business as it should be run.

In times of economic uncertainty, it’s a smart move to look more closely at expenses and consider budgets from all angles. The money spent on an expert recruiter can often “pay for itself” with the benefits of an expedited, smoothly-conducted search to fill key roles. That expedited timeline benefits existing employees as well. When a role is empty, current employees are often asked to pick up the slack, which can lead to burnout and lower quality of work. Working with a recruiter accelerates the timeline to fill the empty role, in turn reducing the stress on other employees.

A Recruiter Can Free Up Your Existing Team

When you hire a recruiter to secure talent for key roles, it allows the rest of your team to just focus on the core business. The past few years have seen teams stretched more thinly than before, and while people have stepped up, it’s not ideal or practical in the long term.

The efficient and cost-effective way of using talent is to have experts focusing on what they’re good at, as opposed to too many people trying to cover too many functions in a “jack of all trades” fashion. Your team knows what your company is doing or producing, and they have the insider knowledge and hands-on expertise to excel there. By the same token, recruiters are experts in recruiting above all else – they, too, have unique expertise and experience that makes them good at what they do.

By partnering with a recruiter, you can free up your current team to focus on the business while outsourcing the nitty-gritty of recruiting to the experts. It’s the most effective use of your time and funds, and it’s the likeliest route to drive success across the board.

A Recruiter Can Secure Better Talent

 One of the top reasons to partner with a recruiter is to gain access to their extensive search tools and reach out to find hidden talent. Sometimes, the best candidate for a particular role is happily employed, not thinking of leaving their current employer nor actively perusing job boards – but they would leave their current position if the right opportunity came along.

 Recruiters implement strategic sourcing plans to access passive talent. They have existing relationships with a pipeline of talent, offering an expanded network with passive talent to their clients. With their understanding of clients’ big-picture growth, they can “sell” that passive talent on the company brand and the specific opportunity. Because of this depth of experience working directly with candidates, recruiters are better positioned to identify candidates’ wants, priorities, and professional growth plans (compensation may not be the top priority for all candidates), then share those with the client and establish a career path.

Once initial contact has been made, recruiters utilize more sophisticated interviewing skills to connect with candidates. Recruiters know just how to present opportunities in ways that will appeal to top candidates. They can provide candidates with the advantages of the role and the company to best understand the opportunity, they ask the right questions to confirm an offer acceptance before the interview process begins, and they know what to emphasize to “seal the deal.” Even once a tentative agreement has been reached, recruiters can make the finalizing and onboarding process easier. By understanding candidates professional growth needs, they can ensure that the client can integrate them effectively into succession planning.

Market Intelligence and Onboarding

 Companies with smaller teams benefit from market data intelligence offered by working with an expert recruiter. Your recruiting partner has the resources to obtain data about what other companies – including your competitors – are paying their employees, including base salary, bonuses, and benefits. By partnering with your internal client teams, they can then provide a better understanding of the market and drive necessary changes where applicable.

Your recruiting partnership doesn’t end with a successful offer. An expert recruiter can streamline onboarding, partnering with clients to coordinate new hire onboarding and ensure a successful experience. They can secure strong retention strategies by establishing clear goals and career paths from day one, and provide check-ins with new hires beyond their first day on the job to ensure a continued good fit.

At Kaizen HR, we’re committed to being the recruiting partners you need for any search. Our laser-focused recruiting strategies are designed to secure top talent for critical roles on high-performing teams. Contact us today for more information on how we can accelerate growth and drive success on your team.