Hiring has become increasingly difficult across a variety of industries, between the lack of qualified candidates and the cost of recruiting, many positions are staying unfilled.  Recruitment agencies are there to fill the gap and make hiring better for businesses and candidates.

What is a Recruitment Agency?

Simply put, a recruitment agency is there to find companies the right talent to fill vacant positions.  Recruiting is expensive and time-consuming and for companies that don’t have a dedicated HR department spending that time and money simply isn’t feasible.  That’s where a recruitment agency comes into play.

How Recruitment Agencies Work

A recruitment agency should never be confused with an employment agency.  Recruitment agencies focus on finding permanent employees typically at the executive level or with very specialized skills, think of engineers and software developers.

While there may be slight differences in processes most agencies work the same way.  You will come to an agreement on your new hire and how long they need to be employed to consider the agreement satisfied.

They will sit down and discuss with you details about what you’re looking for in a candidate along with more information about your company.  In order to identify the best possible candidate, they will want to know as much as possible.  You will also be expected to create a detailed job description.

Finding and Hiring a Candidate

Many agencies work with specific industries and keep a database of candidates that they can tap into.  If not, they will actively search for a candidate for you.

Once they have a group of candidates they will conduct the initial interviews to see if a candidate is a potential match for your company.  At this point, they will pass the candidates on to you to interview.  You will get a brief on all of the candidates including why they are recommending them.  It is an extensive process that usually takes several interviews before a candidate is made an offer.

Once they have found a candidate for you and it is time to look at hiring, either you can handle the salary negotiations or the recruitment agency can do it for you.  After you come to an agreement then it will depend on your agreement as to how much they will help with the onboarding process.

Some contracts include a probationary period where you can determine if the candidate is a good fit or not.  If for some reason the candidate isn’t a good fit then they will begin the search again.

Recruitment agencies offer tremendous value for companies that have trouble recruiting talent or simply don’t have the time.