The Renaissance of the Recruiter
In-house recruitment is more competitive than ever. Talent acquisition coupled with social media has fundamentally altered the recruitment landscape. Companies are using their internal capabilities to source new candidates, creating a shift away from the external recruiter. Whilst this shift is undeniable, the reasons for employers to continue to use external recruiters remain plentiful.
So, just what is it about the specialist recruiter that is so beneficial to finding the best talent quickly in recruitment?
Knowledge and Increased Speed to Candidates
Specialist recruiters have developed extensive networks and numerous relationships. This enables them not only to source a broad range of candidates but to target the best and most relevant, quickly and efficiently, something that becomes increasingly important for companies when in competition to find the best talent.
Managing the Process
Specialist recruiters can be particularly helpful when managing the candidate during the process and to help ensure a successful conclusion. Not only will specialist recruiters develop a close relationship with the candidate but they will also spend time preparing candidates for interview, ensuring that the client sees their full potential and the process runs as efficiently as possible.
The external recruiter is well placed to act as a trusted confident and is often able to elicit concerns or requirements that could be pivotal when it comes to the offer stage of a process. They can also be very useful in keeping up to date with competing processes and updating the client of such developments that they may not otherwise be aware of. Additionally , where clients have the choice of more than one candidate, the specialist is able to provide additional insight to aid the decision making process and in both cases, having an experienced intermediary to help finalise the offer can often be invaluable.
The Best not just the Available
Specialist recruiters are continuously developing pipelines of potential candidates - building relationships with good people to ensure that when they are instructed on a role, they are able to reach the best and not just those that happen to be available. Access to these candidates can make all the difference to a recruitment process where top talent is in short supply.
Added Value
Specialist recruiters can add significant value through market knowledge. Their insight into the markets they work in ensures they are well placed to advise on salary levels within a recruitment process which can make a significant difference to its success. They can also help to benchmark legal and compliance salaries generally and advise on legal or compliance department structuring, thereby adding value outside the immediate recruitment process as well.
The Renaissance
People are your business. Hiring the best candidates will have a material effect on the success of your company and your team. A specialist recruiter may not be appropriate for every hire but can work very effectively, either directly with the hiring manager or in conjunction with internal recruitment teams, on important and strategic roles.
Rather than social media and internal recruitment teams sounding the death knell for recruiters, these changes have simply caused the specialist to re-evaluate and refocus, ensuring that they should remain a vital part of any company's talent acquisition strategy in the future.
As always, Baron Crawford is on hand to provide advice and guidance in relation to all legal, compliance and data privacy related recruitment so please do get in contact.