Insights into the forces shaping our industry.

4 Advantages of Hiring Through a Recruiter

Blog, Industry Commentary

Many people have forecasted the decline of recruiters as the competition from online job postings, internal recruitment, and social media continues to grow. While the online gateway door swings open, more and more companies are spending a large chunk of time sifting through an abundance of resumes, making it harder to find the best candidate. For this reason, and many more, there still remains a core need for  recruiters to find talent.

What are some of the main advantages of using a recruiter?

Market Knowledge

Great recruiters know their specialty markets and give hiring managers insight into what is happening. Recruiters know the available talent, where they are and how to reach them. They know salary rates, career expectations,  and available skill-sets. The best will act as partners and collaborators and will be your eyes and ears in the market.

Network Reach

The right candidates can be hard to find. They may be passive or they may be selective. If they aren’t responding to job advertisements, don’t see themselves as part of your ‘talent pool’ and are too busy to search full time, then chances are that they may have relationships with a trusted recruiter in the electrical industry. Even if they aren’t currently active, there’s a strong chance that a good recruiter will know who they are and how to reach them. Recruiters have many networks and have the potential to leverage their networks to help connect you to people with a range of skills and experiences, many of who would be off the radars of an in-house team or hiring manager.

Candidates not Applicants

A lot of talent attraction is aimed at attracting applicants, whether they are responding to a job board posting or just through your website. A lot of these people may not be good matches for the role and a lot of time ends up being invested in filtering, assessing, matching and communicating with them. Using a recruiter should mean that you see only candidates – talent that has been pre-selected to match all the criteria that you are looking for and who are worthy of consideration and interview.

Help with Employer Brand

Large companies invest a lot of time and money in developing and marketing their employer brand, but many smaller businesses don’t have the same resources. If you choose your recruiter wisely, they can give potential candidates a real insight in to your business – what it’s like to work there, benefits, an understating of the career opening available, and a feel for the culture. If you partner closely with a recruiter, and allow them to spend some time getting to know you and some of your key managers, they should be able to represent you as an employer of choice.

Of course most business will have their own reasons for using a recruiter but for many they may offer a faster route to access stronger talent that they would otherwise miss out on.