How to choose a recruitment agency
There are numerous recruitment agencies at war with each other to get more business and increase placements. With the ever-widening talent gap, it is an uphill task for a hiring manager to go through exhaustive process of resume screening, initial rounds of interviewing and ultimately placing the right candidate. Hence, organizations choose to go with a third-party recruitment agency.
Here are few factors to consider while searching for a suitable recruitment agency:
- Specific Industry Expertise: This is as simple as it sounds. Choose a recruiting company which has a team of experts that caters to the specific industry space that your organization needs. Recruiters from a specific industry space are more experienced in understanding your hiring needs and sourcing the best talent. Under their domain, they will deliver faster and more efficiently.
- In-Depth Screening Process: This saves an organization from an exhaustive initial screening process, which consumes clients’ time and money. Efficiently using an exhaustive database, ATS, along with job portals like Naukri and Monster, separates any recruitment agency with a superior recruitment agency. A recruitment agency should clearly be able to address the hiring needs of its clients. What do they have to offer? Where do they source candidates from? How are they vetted and against what criteria? It is important to measure a recruitment agency against these points.
- Higher Retention Rate: When it comes to employee retention, statistics are very important. Choose an agency where the experts take all of the necessary actions and are extremely confident in their placements. Employee retention is the ultimate goal for an organization and so it should be for the recruiters too.
- Terms and Conditions: Normally, agencies charge based on the C.T.C of the candidate placed. Most of the agencies also give a guarantee of replacement should the new employee leave within a certain time frame, typically 3 months. A few agencies also offer a money back guarantee, but this doesn’t solve a clients’ employee crunch, especially for startups.
- After-Placement Services: Once the recruiters have placed a candidate, they should regularly follow-up to ensure a smooth process and transition. Typically, the superior recruitment agencies continue to follow up with a candidate for minimum of 6 months.
A client should weigh a third-party staffing agency on the criteria above and the recruiter should be prepared to answer all of these questions.