Contrary to popular wisdom, if you want something done right, it’s often better to leave it to an expert. That applies when you’re recruiting for your business, too. Working with a recruiting agency could make your next hires much easier. Still, a recruiting agency isn’t the right choice for every occasion, so you’ll need to know the benefits and drawbacks before you make that decision. So here are the pros and cons of using a recruiting agency.
Benefits of a Recruiting Agency
Using a recruiting agency can make the hiring process much simpler for businesses. Here are a few benefits you might expect:
Friction-Free Hiring
Sometimes, time is of the essence when hiring. In these situations, a recruiting agency can help by making the hiring process swifter. A recruiting agency has access to a large pool of job-ready candidates and knows how to advertise for more.
Business Capacity
Hiring can be a time-consuming process. Depending on the urgency and scale of the recruitment exercise, it could become a full-time job for an existing employee. That means taking working hours away from your core business. Particularly for small businesses, this reduction in available labor time can hit hard. Using a recruitment agency allows you to recruit while limiting its impact on the business.
Reduced Risk
When a new employee joins via a recruiting agency, they can join under a low-risk temporary contract. The recruiting agency takes on the full burden of the employee’s administration, including payroll. See this page for a more extensive look at what recruiting agencies can deal with. This reduces the risk to you, making it easy to change direction if your business situation changes, or even if things don’t work out with the employee.
Drawbacks of Using a Recruiting Agency
Using a recruiting agency isn’t always the right solution. Here are a few potential drawbacks of working with a recruiting agency:
Higher Overheads
Using a recruiting agency means paying its fees. While this can save money in indirect ways, it still represents an up-front expense and it may cost you more in the long run. Like any example of outsourcing, the situation determines whether you can justify this cost. It’s more likely to be practical when hiring temporary or temporary-to-permanent staff. On longer timescales, it’s usually preferable to bring employees in-house.
The Knowledge Gap
When working with a recruiting agency, there’s an inherent gap between you and a potential employee. Like in a game of Telephone, the recruiting agency has only part of the picture of your company, which they then pass onto the new hire. This can result in miscommunication. For instance, the new hire could be a poor fit for your company’s culture. They could join with a mistaken impression of other intangibles, like progression opportunities.
The Pros and Cons of Using a Recruiting Agency Explained
This short list hits the major pros and cons of using a recruiting agency and should equip you with the knowledge to decide if it’s right for your business. Looking for more small business advice? Make sure to check back often for more.
She has spent the last 11+ years helping aspiring entrepreneurs start new businesses, raise capital and get connected to the resources they need to grow and thrive. She also spent this time helping B2B and B2C companies generate more leads and sales for their businesses via web development and the implementation of various digital marketing and advertising strategies.
She's worked with micro-enterprises with less than 50 employees, small businesses with less than 500 employees (such as Campbell Ewald) and mid-sized to large companies such as (Accenture and CDK Global). She specializes in providing marketing services to startups and micro-enterprises (with less than 50 employees) and companies in the finance and insurance industries. In addition, she has served on boards (as a Commissioner) for local municipalities including the Inkster Downtown Development Authority and Economic Development Corporation.
She enjoys writing about her experiences as an entrepreneur and using data and information from reliable sources to back up what she writes about. Through her writing she aims to educate other entrepreneurs on how to launch successful businesses and build wealth through entrepreneurship.
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