Staggering unemployment rates have made for an employer’s market.  As a staffing firm representative, a common comment that I hear is, “Candidates are in abundance, why should I pay for your service fees?”  To some, today’s market seems to negate the consideration to use a staffing partner.  Candidate abundance is a reality, a shockingly overwhelming reality to hiring officials. Companies are inundated with a vast number of responses to job postings so that choice to screen and interview becomes time intensive. Choosing to partner with a staffing recruiter can prove to be a time saver. The dollar signs associated with paying a staffing firm is a reasonable business expense that more businesses are incorporating to annual budgets and strategic planning. 

As one local engineering client commented to me, “I have received more than 150 resumes for an administrative assistant role, so the need to bring on a temporary individual is necessary while we complete our full search process.” I had the right candidate, with impeccable skills, glowing references, and ironically who offered previous administrative experience in the field to fit the position. After a thorough search conducted on their own, with many advertising dollars spent, it was determined that Rachel, my temporary candidate currently working in the position, was the best match for the job.

Using recruiting resources should be a strategic consideration to your business plan. Employment costs such as insurance, healthcare, taxes, and benefits are soaring at the same time companies are under significant pressure to do more with less. The answer to managing these costs, maintaining productivity with fewer employees, and preparing for economic recovery is part of the strategic staffing agenda businesses face. 

A business that lacks an HR department or that has not used a staffing recruiter should consider the positives and values to a staffing partnership. The marketplace is much different now from recent years. The sheer number of people looking for employment at this time is a valid reason to invest in a staffing vendor relationship. These relationships will provide assistance in the search process for the best fit in addition to helping enhance bottom line profits so business plans get executed while keeping costly hiring mistakes to a minimum. 

Why companies use professional recruiters
Whether your company is looking for a candidate with a specialized need or skill set, or has a challenging position to fill that requires a great investment of your time, partnering with a professional can help you fill your positions faster.

Recruiters provide several value factors and eliminate time consuming tasks of the initial recruitment process. Staffing firms have the ability to advertise on specific and usually expensive job boards, eliminating your advertising costs, in addition to posting positions to its networking organizations and membership Web sites. Once a candidate is selected, a staffing firm will save you time by reviewing resumes, qualifying candidates, checking references, and screening backgrounds.

Respected, reputable, and well-networked recruiters know who to connect with to identify potential prospects. They have built rapport and have relationships with individuals from various industries to candidates’ motives and are able to determine what it will take for a candidate to consider a job or career change, thus eliminating candidates who are unsuitable and do not fit the profile.

Candidate connections and sources may be currently employed and wish to maintain confidentiality by working through a recruiter. Other candidate’s may not be actively searching for a job or responding to job postings. A professional recruiter will find these passive job seekers and work to recruit them for a new opportunity.

Businesses that plan to terminate existing employees often turn to recruiters to confidentiality start the search process and identify and bring in candidates so business operations remain uninterrupted. Recruiters will maintain your company’s confidentially and protect your company’s interest.

Companies that do not have HR departments or the resources on hand to conduct candidate searches should hire recruiters and staffing vendors. Recruiters provide expertise and guidance as a professional consultant to guide the interview process so that businesses devote time to interviewing only the most qualified candidates.

Recruiters handle the salary and benefit topic upfront with all parties involved. The negotiation process is set up to move the offer process forward eliminating chances of an offer decline. All parties involved with the hiring and interview process understand the dynamics of the position’s role, expectations, basic salary, and benefits information.

Using a professional recruiter is a big cost savings. If a hired candidate resigns within 30 – 90 days depending on the level of the position, a replacement guarantee is provided. The recruiter will continue to recruit and refer suitable candidates at no additional charge. 

Recruiters provide open and honest feedback and communication to hiring officials offering industry trends, current market demands, competition, and industry information.

An effective professional recruiter will work hard to gain your trust, establish a long-term relationship, and take the time to fully understand the company culture, organizational dynamics, and scope of the position to bring the right individual in ensuring a return on your investment and a long-term commitment by the new hire.

If you are involved in the hiring decisions of your organization either as a business owner, department manager, or human resources professional, working with a staffing recruiter can be a vital component to your organization’s strategic business plan and can aid in the hiring process by scouting talent and providing the best candidate match. 

A quality staffing vendor will provide trust, experience, and value. The recruiter’s ability and unique access to a vast range of candidates is one of the most essential benefits offered to business clients. By engaging in a staffing partnership, you can quickly fill a need with the assistance of using a staffing recruiter to search for the right candidate with the necessary skill set and experience. Those hard to find candidates can be used for specialized projects, seasonal needs, or hired on for a regular full-time position. This flexibility is another reason why smart businesses achieve a competitive advantage, keeping payroll and benefits expenses to a minimum.

Angie Smathers, Celebrity Staff Senior Account Manager

About Angie Smathers
Angie Smathers joined the team at Celebrity Staff in 1998 and has been in her current role as a senior account manager for the Lincoln branch since 2005. Angie has had great success cultivating and maintaing lasting business relationships with clients across all industries. She has worked with hundreds of businesses and made successful candidate placements that have resulted in long-term commitments and career paths. She enjoys identifying top talent and assisting clients to help make smart hiring decisions that meet business goals. In 2007 and 2008 Angie earned President Club, Celebrity Staff’s top sales award. She is a member of Lincoln Human Resource Management Association (LHRMA) and has served on the planning committee for the Nebraska Society of Human Resource Management (SHRM) conference. She is currently studying to complete her Certified Staffing Professional designation and in her free time she enjoys time with her family and friends, traveling, exercising and looks forward to taking up a new hobby — golf!

We can all agree that the bottom line to a company’s success depends on the caliber of its employees, right? So, the number one priority in hiring is getting the most qualified candidate in the job for all parties involved. Or is it? 

Well, let’s see. There’s the process, the precedence, the principle, the budget, an existing relationship, a contract, a pricing agreement, and a dozen other factors that are often thrust into a hiring decision. Everyone involved should have the same end result in mind, but unfortunately, the more people involved in the hiring process, the more factors there are convoluting the simple concept of hiring the best person for the job.

We all hope we won’t soon need an attorney, a doctor, a pharmacist, or even a plumber, all of which are absolutely necessary professional services. Similarly, HR professionals hope they won’t need to outsource recruiting functions. Many HR professionals view staffing services and headhunters as “a necessary evil”.  Why outsource a search you can handle on your own at no additional cost? (Coming soon: The Fallacy of “No Additional Cost” Recruiting)   

Outsourced recruiters are absolutely necessary and having a relationship in place with the best recruiters in your niche is essential even if you don’t think you will ever need one. Let me explain. Take insurance, for example. We all hope to not rely on life insurance, but, if we’re smart, we buy it. We make the payments month after month just in case we ever need it. It’s a harmonious business relationship. Your insurance agent wants to sell you adequate coverage for your family needs and you want to buy it to protect your family.  This is the kind of business relationship we all want. Much like everyone should have insurance, everyone involved in the hiring process should have or develop a relationship with a recruiter, someone you trust in your niche.

The challenge in recruiting, though, is that on the surface we all have different perspectives and objectives.

HR professionals generally believe that centralizing the hiring process will streamline and create efficiencies thus controlling expenditures. They believe that managing the entire process and limiting vendor relationships will increase buying power and, once again, reduce overall costs. They’re right.

Hiring managers generally place less importance on the existing process or the existing agreement thus creating more options for themselves. They believe that maintaining control and developing their own relationship with headhunters and recruiters will result in better service and increased quality. And, they’re right.

Recruiters want to make a placement. Bottom line. But, make no mistake; good recruiters only want to make solid placements that will result in future business and referrals. Recruiters believe they will perform better if they have direct access to hiring managers. They desire to go direct to the source to see body language or hear emotion, which can paint pictures that words cannot replace. Recruiters feel that, much like the telephone game, essential information is lost in translation when they’re required to work through HR or any mediator. They, too, are right.

So, how can all three be right?

All three parties may be viewing the situation from a different vantage point, but all three ultimately have the same end result in mind – hiring the right person the first time. 

It is possible for all three parties in this relationship triangle to have his or her objectives met when all three keep the end goal in mind. None of the other factors aforementioned, such as a streamlined process or an existing contract, for example, should ever become a priority over hiring the best candidate.

HR professionals should absolutely take the necessary steps to streamline wherever possible. However, if Recruiter A is a preferred vendor but fails to produce the candidate you need, turn to Recruiter B. HR has a responsibility to manage costs. However, if the budget for hiring the department manager would be stretched to its limit with the recruiter’s fee, but the candidate presented is the best option, the budget should be secondary. Resistance to outsourcing is expected by HR, but refusal to outsource in the right circumstances can be an even more costly decision.

Hiring managers have the unique challenge of respecting and following the systems and processes in place while, at the same time, ensuring they have the most appropriate key players. Processes are important yet hiring the right person is critical. Similarly, when the hiring manager holds an established relationship with his or her own trusted recruiting source, one which differs from the preferred source of HR, he or she should be at liberty to tap into that resource with the intention of introducing all parties to one another. Furthermore, the hiring manager should be receptive to the resources HR has identified. Everyone involved, all the while, must ensure that hiring the best person remains the priority.

Recruiters who choose to partner with a company that has adopted a centralized system should absolutely involve HR at all stages of the recruiting process. The key word here is “involve”. Direct communication should never be removed. The vendor and the end user must work together to experience a truly successful partnership.  There are a number of communication mediums that can involve all interested parties to eliminate second hand messages or misinformation such as joint meetings, conference calls, e-mails, etc. Recruiters need feedback directly “from the horse’s mouth.” The emotion, the emphatic tone, the excitement or even the frustration can sometimes convey more meaning than the words themselves. Direct communication between the recruiter and the hiring manager is imperative but both must, when asked, keep HR involved throughout.

Though each party in this three-way relationship may approach the process of hiring from a different point of view, the trade-off for a bit of compromise and a sincere effort toward collaborative teamwork, as outlined above, is that everybody wins.  

So, is three really a crowd? Can the chime of the hiring triangle ring in harmony? With synchronized objectives of hiring the highest caliber of candidates into the right roles, it’s safe to assume each member of the “ménage a trios” of recruiting are sure to have a gratifying experience.

Monica Fuehrer, Celebrity Staff Account Manager

About Monica Fuehrer, Account Manager

Monica has worked for Celebrity Staff since 2000 having held a number of positions in business development, recruiting, and leadership roles encompassing internal staff development and training. Currently, Monica is a trailblazer in the attorney placement niche. In 2008, Monica was recognized by the Midlands Business Journal as a 40 Under 40 Business Leader in Omaha. She is the Co-Chair for the Media Relations Committee with the Human Resource Association of the Midlands and is also the Chairperson of the Board for Outlook Nebraska, Inc., a nonprofit with a mission to employ the blind and visually impaired. Off the clock Monica enjoys cooking, reading, music, and creating fun with her husband and two children.