"As a recruitment consultant," says Chantelle Hardie, Recruitment Consultant at RecruitFIN, "a challenge that I face each day is that of people and companies who are not interested in using recruitment agencies, from those who have had bad experiences with previous agencies to those who have never engaged in the process of using an agency." There are many companies who are not using this precious resource of a trained professional to fill their vacancies.
Very often, there are many factors that are overlooked by companies when choosing to use or not use an agency:
A recruiter goes through a lengthy process of being trained to search for perfect candidates.
Recruiters are trained negotiators; they are trained to manage expectations with clients and candidates in terms of remuneration, contracts, roles and responsibilities of a position and requirements of a position.
A recruiter's job is solely to facilitate the recruitment process. When a person tries to do the recruitment process themselves, they have to put aside their primary tasks to try and do something that could be done for them professionally. A recruiter takes care of everything from first introduction of a CV through to signing an employment contract.
When seeking employees without the assistance of a recruiter, there is the risk of closing off a huge database of candidates that would otherwise not be exposed when using personal referrals or advertising positions.
Says Chantelle: "The scenario: A vacancy has opened within your business and you want to find a candidate without the assistance of a recruiter.
"The Process: You will advertise a position, receive hundreds of CV's from candidates who may/may not be suitable for the vacancy, spend several hours sifting through the CV's and come up with a short list. Thereafter, you will spend a few hours contacting the shortlist and trying to facilitate interview times/slots. Add another hour or two to interview your most preferred candidates and only after many hours will you have an indication of who you want to hire.
"The Problem: In today's fast paced world where time is money, using resources like time, telephone calls and advertising costs can be a wasteful and a time consuming exercise that can be avoided by using a professional recruiter. Furthermore you will not be able to do credit, criminal and educational checks on potential employees without using additional resources.
"The Solution: A recruitment agency will use a fair and thorough process."
Says Chantelle, "We use several databases to search for candidates and we advertise positions so that candidates who feel they are a good fit for the position can be taken into consideration for the short list. We then screen, develop and further short list candidates to present. Reference checks, credit checks, criminal checks education and identification checks are done for suitable candidates and forwarded to the relevant decision maker. Once a decision is made, we facilitate the offering of the position to the candidate, signing of the relevant documentation and sealing the deal with the candidate for you."
In every business, resources are scarce. The services of IT professionals are used to fix computers so that we don't have to do it ourselves, the services of auditors are used to make sure financials are in order, it therefore makes complete business sense to use a recruiter to find the perfect candidate.
In closing, the best part about using a recruitment consultancy is that services are only paid for once the new employee commences work. It doesn't cost anything to speak to a consultant and discuss a job specification, to interview candidates or to present an offer. Above this, you will receive professional and valuable service for an area of your business that is incredibly important. Leaving you to focus on building a flourishing business.
Chantelle Hardie - Finance Recruitment Consultant at RecruitFIN
RecruitFIN - part of The RecruitGroup 58 Thembi Place Calderwood Road Lonehill Johannesburg 011 465 3360
