How to Choose the Best Recruiting Company for Your Business

The quality of talent is the number one thing that makes or breaks the success of any business. Without top-notch employees, the chances of achieving ambitious productivity goals are close to zero. But how can you find the best candidates and convince them that your company is the best choice for their career?

The answer is to stop relying on internal resources alone and choose the best recruitment agency based on your business’s current priorities. So, let’s talk about the benefits of using recruitment agencies and the main factors to consider when looking for the right fit — from the recruitment agency fee structure to its level of involvement at every stage of the hiring process.

The Perks of Using Recruitment Agencies’ Services

A Larger Talent Pool

Recruitment agencies maintain large databases of candidates, even those not currently searching for a job. By using a recruitment agency instead of trying to fill a position using only their internal resources, businesses gain access to a much larger talent pool. Also, agencies often have long-standing relationships with candidates and can headhunt someone who is a perfect fit for the role a business is trying to fill.

Market Expertise

Part of recruitment agencies’ work is understanding all the labor market trends and candidates’ expectations. They can offer valuable insights into salary benchmarks and current job conditions, which in turn can help businesses attract the top talent they otherwise wouldn’t know how to approach.

Time and Cost Efficiency

Hiring is expensive and can take a while, especially for top-level professionals. The Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) estimates that the average cost-per-hire is almost $4,700. The average time to fill is 41 days, but it can go all the way up to 62 days (and beyond) for certain industries, such as engineering. By enlisting help from a recruitment agency, businesses can decrease hiring costs and fill positions faster.

Quality of Hire

Good recruitment agencies have all the necessary tools to assess candidates. Using their unparalleled hiring expertise, they conduct in-depth background checks, skill assessments, and interviews. As a result, any company that uses agencies’ services gets access to higher-quality hires who are almost guaranteed to succeed in their roles.

Choosing the Best Recruitment Agency for Your Business

So, what are the key steps to finding the best recruiting company for your business’s unique needs?

Understand Your Hiring Needs

The first thing every business needs to do before it starts looking for a recruitment agency is conduct a needs assessment. What roles need to be filled? Are you looking for temporary contract specialists, permanent employees, or executive-level talent? Do you currently need to fill multiple types of positions? How urgent are your hiring needs? The list goes on.

A clear picture of your hiring goals will help you narrow down the options, which will make picking the best recruiting company for your business easier. There are quite a few good agencies out there, but which of them is the right fit for your company depends entirely on your current hopes and expectations when it comes to hiring. What works for one business might not work for another.

Consider Your Budget and Agencies’ Fee Structures

There are two most common fee structures that recruitment companies use: contingency-based and retained. Contingency-based agencies charge a fee only when a candidate is successfully placed, which means that they have a clear incentive to find the employees you need as quickly as possible. In turn, retained agencies charge an upfront fee and work exclusively on your behalf.

Each of the structures has its pros and cons. With contingency-based agencies, there are no upfront costs, and they tend to work faster. At the same time, they may prioritize speed over quality because they rush to get paid. Retained agencies might be slower, but they’re often more thorough with the vetting process, which may lead to a higher quality of hires.

There’s no such thing as the wrong choice here; everything depends on your business’s budget and hiring goals at the moment. However, avoid making the common mistake and going for the cheapest option available without considering other factors involved. That’s a tempting yet losing strategy, and it almost never results in high-quality new hires.

Research and Interview Potential Agencies

Agencies’ fee structures matter, but they are the smallest thing to research before making the choice. You will also need to find out their methods for assessing candidates’ skills, qualifications, and cultural fit.

A thorough screening process involves multiple stages, including initial resume reviews, phone screens, in-person interviews, various skill assessments, and more. Whether or not an agency is using Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) and AI-driven recruitment platforms affects the outcomes as well.

Also, numbers matter, and they are one of the best indicators of whether or not an agency is good at what it’s doing. Some of the critical data to ask for are the average time to fill a position and the average time the agency-selected candidate ends up working at the company that hired them, among other things.

Assess Agencies’ Communication and Post-Placement Support

Finally, before you decide on the best recruitment agency for your business, make sure to gather all the available information on how transparent and proactive it is when communicating with clients. The least you can expect is regular updates on the progress of your hiring process, including feedback on candidate interviews and any potential issues.

An added advantage is the so-called post-placement support. Agencies that offer it can help businesses address any challenges that arise after hiring — for example, if a new hire struggles to adjust to the new role. Although post-placement support typically does affect the price of an agency’s services, it is well worth it in the long run.

Wrapping Up

A good recruiting company can help any business cut recruitment costs, increase the quality of new hires, and, ultimately, achieve its performance goals through access to top talent. However, for that to happen, businesses need to put in effort to find the best recruiting company for their needs.

This implies evaluating the hiring expectations, deciding on the preferred fee structure, researching agencies’ methods, and gathering data on how well an agency communicates throughout the hiring process. Just like with hiring itself, it’s all about finding the right match.