How A Recruitment Agency Can Optimize Your Hiring Strategy – For Free

How A Recruitment Agency Can Optimize Your Hiring Strategy – For Free

Leveraging your relationship with a good recruitment agency can help you achieve better business outcomes in numerous ways. Most companies or hiring managers only get a recruitment agency involved at the transaction stage when they’re actively and urgently filling an open position. However, recruiters have so much more to offer in an ongoing relationship, regardless of the size of your company and your HR department.

Involve Your Recruiting Partner During Initial Planning

To maximize your partnership, it’s best to loop your recruiting partner in during the initial planning stages of your hiring strategy and org chart forecasting. This way you can understand how changing external landscapes and market dynamics will impact your ability to attract the skills you need to achieve your business goals.

It’s rare for companies to involve recruiters at the planning stage and it’s a missed opportunity as they are having conversations with your target market daily. The unique perspective of an industry specific recruiting agency can make all the difference to the long-term success of your org planning, hiring strategy, and retention tactics.

As experts in the market, recruiters can:

• Help you align your hiring goals with your budget.

• Assist you in planning lead time from requirement identification to onboarding.

• Reduce the length of your job vacancies by weeks or months.

• Share some external considerations that will impact your ability to attract certain skills, i.e.:

  • Supply and demand levels for the skills you are seeking.

  • Elements of the work arrangement that are important to your target hiring audience.

  • What the market is paying for full-time employees as well as contractors.

  • Any bottlenecks to your hiring process preventing you from keeping pace with competing offers.

  • Remote hiring capabilities.

  • The appeal of your employer branding strategy.

When it comes to digital transformation, many companies will spend a lot of time planning for budgets and technology but fail to put the same level of planning into their staffing needs. Technology doesn’t work without people, and interruptions to your hiring plans can result in lost revenue, unexpected expenses, and delays to the successful delivery of your projects.

By taking a proactive approach to interactions with your recruitment partners and using them in an advisory or informational capacity (regardless of whether you use them for a specific hiring need) you can ensure they’ll be primed to deliver during planned hiring, and also be in a much better position to respond to unplanned requirements due to shifting business circumstances.

Supplement your HR Department

Having a great HR department doesn’t preclude the need to add a specialized recruitment agency into your ecosystem – especially in the current economy. The average HR department is responsible for many different divisions and shifting priorities. A recruiter has a broader insight, specialized perspective, and access into the market you are targeting. In 2022, 83% of talent acquisition leaders agree that hiring has gone from an HR priority to a business-level priority (source).

Always Be Hiring

Post pandemic and amidst ‘the great resignation’, employers requiring specialized skills need to make themselves continuously appealing. This starts with employer branding. Specialized staffing companies are in touch with trends and what job seekers want in compensation, conditions, and work arrangements. As a major value-add outside of the hiring transaction, these recruiters can help you market your organization, projects, technology, and work culture as a preferred employer, especially to passive job seekers with skills of high demand and low unemployment. This is best done when you are NOT actively hiring.

Only being available to hire at certain times can limit your ability to get that “X-factor” talent. Recruitment agencies that work with you as true partners can be the bridge that connects you to the market. They can inform when certain hard to find skills become available, or help you tap into new pools of talent that your organization has found hard to find.

The passive job seeker market is a talent pool that is key to success in the information technology industry. Approximately 58% of people who are currently employed are open to hearing about another opportunity, but those people aren’t applying to job postings. If you offer an opportunity that is of interest and can help them advance their career, a recruitment agency partnership will amplify your access to that talent.

Additionally, recruiters are in touch with changing market conditions. If your recruiter is aware of your future hiring plans, they may advise on unforeseen challenges and suggest ways to work through potential constraints.

Alternatives and Informed Input

With the rising popularity of the gig economy, recruiters are able to recommend contractors and part-time workers that can fill gaps outside of the traditional full-time staffing approach. In the current climate, a business-specific balance of full-time employees and contractors will likely be necessary to meet goals. The contractor market is distinctive and requires a different approach. Your recruitment agency partners will help you navigate availability of talent, attraction and retention, and economics to help you formulate a strong plan for success.

As you know, recruitment agencies either operate on retainers or only charge a fee when placement occurs. Take advantage of the relationship and ask specific questions about how to achieve your desired business outcomes. Good recruiters aren’t just transactional salespeople – and if that’s been your experience, you might want to consider a partnership where you can get more value out of the relationship.

Talent acquisition is one of the biggest business challenges in 2022, especially for those that use information technology as a core component of their business. Make sure that you are getting the value-added service that can help you achieve your people, technology, and business goals. 

Millenilink is always looking to cultivate new connections. If you are in Canada or the US and looking for a Tech Industry recruiting partner that specializes in digital transformation, we’d love to hear from you.

Reach out to us through our website HERE or send us an email at info@millenilink.ca and request a consultation.