Recruiting agencies are the most important tool a business has when it comes to finding qualified talent. Poor ones can also be the most harmful to a company’s development and staffing strategies.
Developing and deploying a hiring strategy takes time. And you want to ensure that time has not been wasted. Making sure your recruiting agency is doing all they can to deploy your plan is the only guarantee for success.
There are some things you should keep in mind when hiring through a recruiting agency. Below is a list of 10 things your recruiting agency is doing wrong.
1. They Don’t Care About Your Goals
Developing an effective hiring strategy can be a time consuming task. So, it can be frustrating when a hiring agency doesn’t dedicate their efforts to your plan.
Often, it can be an inconvenience for recruiting agencies to hire according to a business’ ideal strategy. However, if they are obviously not making your plan a priority, then your time is being wasted.
Make sure your recruiting agency clearly understands your strategy for hiring. After all, it is your business they are staffing.
2. There’s No Pre-screening
One of the first conversations you should have with an agency is about candidate qualifications. This can aid agencies in pre-screening candidates they send your way.
It should be an obvious technique for all recruiting agencies, but often it is not implemented in the hiring process. This can lead to your company receiving unqualified applicants – and your time being wasted.
Make sure your recruiting agency knows what you are looking for if they haven’t asked you already. And if they haven’t asked you at all, perhaps it’s time to find better help.
3. Fluffy Resumes
Ineffective agencies will sometimes process applicant resumes in-house. This gives them the time to doctor up their candidate’s resume to make them appear more qualified than they really are.
If your recruiting agency is doing this, ask them if you can see the candidate’s original resume. If they are unwilling to share this information with you, you may be a victim of resume fluffing.
4. Recycling Recruits
When you work with a recruiting agency, you expect the best applicants available. Well, what if you were receiving rejected candidates from other jobs? Pretty frustrating.
Effective hiring agencies will pull an applicant out of their system if they have been fired from previous agency contracts. However, some agencies will recycle those rejected applicants.
Make sure you get a history of your candidate’s past with the recruiting agency. Are they new to the system, or have they been through it before? If so, what were the results?
Knowing your applicant’s background can only help in making a hiring decision. And if your applicant is recycled for the wrong reasons, your recruiting agency is rotten.
5. Overcharging Services
This is an easy one. Your recruiting agency is overcharging you.
From advertising, hiring, processing, and even termination charges, recruiting agencies rack up a lot of cash throughout the process.
When working with a recruiting agency, it is important to remember this. Be sure to scrutinize every item they charge for. And if another company does it cheaper, let them know. After all, you’re running a business, too.
6. Reference Screening
Sometimes, recruiting agencies will forego traditional references on their application. And when they don’t, they may just ignore the references altogether. This is a big no-no.
Be sure that your recruiting agency has a way to verify reference checks with you. This is so that you can be sure your applicant’s references are legitimate. It also helps with vetting your applicant for work.
7. Industry Ignorance
Finding a recruiting agency that specializes in your business’s field can be paramount to the success of your hiring strategy.
You may have a hiring agency which has promised you results but has no working knowledge of your industry. This can lead to developmental disaster. How can a recruiting agency hire the right talent if they don’t know what you need?
Making sure your recruiting agency understands the ins and outs of your industry is a must if you want to find good talent. If your agency is hiring for body count, and not industry specific talent, get out.
8. They Don’t Communicate
Business changes from day to day, and that can mean your hiring needs change as well. Having a recruiting agency that is always available and open for communication can mean a lot to a successful business.
It is not uncommon for recruiting agencies to go dark after initial contact with your business. After all, they know what you want, right?
It can be frustrating to wait for your candidates to come along and have no clear communication or updates from your recruiting agency. Make sure you pay attention to your future agency’s communication habits.
9. Weak Social Media Presence
While not entirely a determining factor in the effectiveness of a recruiting agency, a lack of social media presence could be a potential indicator for that agency’s outreach and engagement.
The purpose of working with a recruitment agency is so that you don’t have to spend time finding people.
Now, perhaps an agency has other means of outreach. Or they have a pool of applicants pulled from other sources. But a recruiting agency with a weak social media presence generally means they are not doing the work necessary to generate a greater population of applicants.
Less applicants means less qualified talent for your business.
A strong social media presence is almost required for any hiring agency to be effective in today’s environment.
We Want to Work With You
When you need strong candidates for your business, you can rely on Newman’s International Associates (NIA).
NIA finds talented people through our extensive network to get you the team you deserve.
We don’t just work for you, we work with you to develop an effective hiring strategy.
Your business has goals. Meet them with NIA today!
