If you have a vacancy in your company then it can be a difficult decision on how to fill it properly. Many people assume that classified ads and even services like the Job Centre are still the best recruitment tools out there, but it is important to think outside of the box and consider what really is best.
It is easy to assume that the cheapest way of bringing in a new candidate to your business is best, after all no one wants to spend anymore on a service than they need to. If you can place a cheap (or free!) advert somewhere, carry out a few interviews and hire someone that way it can seem really cost effective but long term it doesn’t always work. In fact, it doesn’t even always work out that cheap to do!
What Should You Do Instead?
Another alternative is retained service, where you let someone else (usually a recruitment agency) take care of your recruitment needs for you. You’ll usually have to pay a fee for this, but it works out very cost effective in the long run. If you have a highly skilled job position in your company then the chances are that a number of candidates are going to apply for this. This means that you or someone else in your company has to take time out of their day to carry out interviews and make a decision.
If you use a retained service then this becomes a thing of the past because an agency takes care of this for you. That means that they are in charge of vetting potential candidates and carrying out interviews. You simply give them a list of requirements and they can do the rest for you. This means that even though you have had to pay to recruit in this way, you get someone that is well matched to the role and therefore much more likely to stay their long term – which is fantastic for any business.
The Cost of Hiring Someone
The type of job you are recruiting for can affect how much it can cost you to hire someone, but it is still worth taking into consideration. For example if you have to vet CVs, carry out two levels of interviews, make a decision, carry out referencing checks and then hire someone it stands to reason that this can cost you time and money. It is even more frustrating that if you do all of this and then the person you hire doesn’t work out and you need to start again just a few weeks over!
By using a retained search service you don’t have to worry about this – they will check any chosen candidates for you as well as making any recruitment decisions for you. What is also reassuring is that they are likely to be skilled and experienced in this field (they’re expert headhunters after all) so they can use these skills to make sure that the best person is hired for the job. All of this goes on while you go about the normal day to day running of your business so that your recruitment initiative causes as little disruption to your business as possible.
