Bringing new talent onto your team is not easy. It’s time-consuming, expensive, and sometimes stressful. Finding the right person for a role can sometimes feel like searching for a needle in a haystack. And when time is of the essence – which is always – that can become a massive problem very quickly.

So, it’s only logical to consider asking for help. Whether you have a recruiter on-staff or you’re leaning on your human resources team, you may want to either supplement that effort and increase productivity by working with a recruitment agency.

Recruitment agencies can get your costs of hiring down and make the process much more efficient for you. Instead of dealing with a seemingly endless sea of applicants, you can concentrate on pre-screened and vetted candidates who are a qualified fit for the position.

But there are some questions you should explore before you decide how to go about the process.

What Are Your Hiring Needs?

Understanding how often you hire could help determine how you want to go about working with an agency. If you hire irregularly, you probably should not have staff dedicated to the process. Considering the cost of hiring can be about $40,000 per employee, keeping someone on the payroll for this task could be detrimental to your bottom line. In that case, having a relationship with an agency would be well worth it.

Hiring regularly, frequently, or constantly, your staff is going to be looking at a lot of resumes. A good amount of those resumes will be from unqualified candidates, or people who have proper credentials but are not a good culture fit. This can lead to a ton of wasted manpower and hours; in other words, it’s a waste of money.

But if your staff could focus on meeting with and hiring the right candidates instead, that could be a better investment. Whether an agency is necessary for your firm to keep up with seasonal hires, or if you simply want your HR staff focusing on something besides sifting through countless cover letters, an agency could be the exact solution you’re looking for.

How Much Time Are You Spending in Interviews?

You will naturally interview candidates who are not qualified for the position you’re filling, as well as people who are simply not a fit for your team. That wasted time is just part of the process, right? No, it actually doesn’t have to be.

Working with a recruiting agency means that you’ll only see candidates you could realistically bring on. The clearer you are with a recruiter about your needs, wants, and culture, the easier it’s going to be for you to sit down with the right people.

And the longer you work with the same recruiter, the more familiar they’ll become with your organization. As your relationship progresses, they’ll be able to set you up with qualified candidates and fill your role in a more timely manner. It’s the kind of working relationship that can really pay off in spades.

What Level of Recruiting Is Right for You?

There are a few ways you can work with a recruiter. You can, for example, retain them, paying them upfront and allowing them alone to fill positions. This kind of agreement is reserved for high-level or niche positions since they’re more difficult to fill.

Contingency is a more common agreement, in which you can be working with multiple agencies to fill the position. You’ll only need to pay one in the end – the one who successfully finds the winning candidate.

You could also work with a recruiter to find temporary workers. If you end up thinking they’re a phenomenal addition to your team, you can transfer them to your payroll and keep them on permanently.

Are You Worried It Won’t Work Out?

It’s completely natural to wonder what risks are involved when working with a third party to do something as pivotal as hiring. But agencies offer guarantee periods to ease your mind.

Guarantee periods are basically probationary terms. If the person placed in the role ends up not being a fit, and you make that decision within a set amount of time, the agency starts the process again at no cost to you.

In basic terms, if a candidate isn’t what you thought, you don’t take the hit. The responsibility falls on the recruiting agency to rectify the situation and find someone who does indeed fit the bill.

Once you answer all these questions, you can consider the additional benefits. For example, when you work with a recruiter, they have expertise in the field in which you are hiring. Your typical HR professional may not be well-versed in the minutia of finance, accounting, or any other specialized field you may be hiring in. A recruiter would be, and would therefore be a bit more effective in finding the right person for your position.

Additionally, if you’re just looking at applicants, you may be missing out on candidates that aren’t actively searching for a new role, but are still open to opportunities. Recruiters can find these candidates and bring them into the conversation.

If you’d like to speak further about this process, reach out to one of our expert recruiters today.