Guest blog written by Robert Garner
Granted I’ve been out of the recruitment sector for around 4 years now but I spent 2 years working within talent acquisition for a major media company and an international advertising agency. Also when I worked agency side I was consistently one of the top business development consultants, very rarely losing a pitch. I’m not an expert and there’s some brilliant recruitment trainers out there who I’m sure are way better than I am but I know a fair bit and I can back it up so I feel as though I can weigh in a little on this.
The market as we all know is in turmoil currently but hopefully we are beginning to see a positive change. Unemployment is up, companies are making huge redundancies in certain areas such as technology and the like, companies are seeing increased direct application rates and it’s becoming a whole lot harder to land good vacancies to work on.
All businesses and talent acquisition teams have budgets to use for recruitment agencies and those budgets are there to be used. As an internal recruiter, it’s better to spend £6k on a recruitment fee and ensure a vacancy is filled in 2 weeks, than having to wait 6 weeks to fill the role as the talent team doesn’t have current capacity.
Companies and talent acquisition teams tend to aim for a balanced PSL, including a range of recruitment agencies from small boutique agencies but also large firms too. Any talent acquisition manager who knows their sector well, will know all of the recruitment agencies in the industry and what each does well.
If I come across a recruitment agency, which I haven’t heard of previously, maybe a hiring manager or a director has recommended they be added to the PSL or to work a specific vacancy then I’ll want to have a look at their website first before engaging in a telephone, video or face to face meeting. There’s going to be a few key things I’ll be looking for.
Firstly, I want to see if you have a website to assure me you’re a professional business and not a cowboy who has just decided to start up a recruitment agency to make a quick buck.
On top of this I want to see that it’s a professional looking website, without any spelling or grammatical errors. It doesn’t need to be enterprise level with 50+ pages but I need to see if your company has invested time & money into it, it’s relatively recent and it’s kept up to date. I also want to see that the images are relevant to your business and high quality resolution images.
I’ll peruse your vacancy page as I want to see the jobs you recruit for are similar to the jobs we’ll be placing you on too. In my opinion there’s no point briefing you on a data analyst role if all of your roles are for financial controllers, account managers and business development executives. To be frank your website should make it clear the areas and locations you recruit for as soon as I land on it. I personally prefer using specialist recruitment firms, for example a recruitment agency that focuses just on the media industry, as opposed to a generalist. I tend to believe specialists have better access to the in demand talent, know who they’re looking for and are able to brief them better.
Personally I like to know who I'm partnering with too. I want to see and meet the consultants that’ll be working on my vacancies. I want to see a seasoned selection of experienced consultants. We all have to learn the recruitment industry but I’d be put off by a recruitment agency where the majority of consultants have less than 2 years recruitment experience. I also want to get an idea of the SLT, their backgrounds and experience in the industry.
Include a logo wheel, they’re a big selling point but make sure they’re up to date. Including a big name client on your website can be a huge selling point but any talent acquisition professional who’s worth their weight in salt will ask you the last time you recruited for that company and what the role was. And I wouldn’t try and lie at this stage as you never know who they know at that company. TAs are often part of various communities such as RL100 or the TTC and it’s not worth a lie blowing up in your face. Keep your logo wheels up to date with clients you’ve recruited for in the past 6 months.
If you’re pitching for contracts with the largest firms in your space then I’d recommend ensuring your website has an up to date and thorough DEI policy, anti-bribery and corruption policy, modern slavery policy, privacy policy, cookie policy and website terms of use. No one is going to read them but it’s a subtle sign that you’re a serious player in the market.
Personally I couldn’t care much about an industry awards page but it’s still worth including an awards section / page if your agency has won anything of value.
When it comes down to it, when I was a talent acquisition manager I wanted to know you understood the brief, you had relevant talent or would be able to find suitable candidates, you would sell the role and company well & truthfully, you’d treat candidates well and pass on all feedback and you’d work in partnership with the talent team, not against it.
Rob has been working within the recruitment industry since 2006, selling recruitment advertising space, working within recruitment, running his own recruitment firm, launching job boards, working for in-house talent acquisition teams and creating enterprise level recruitment software. He now runs Abstraction Labs (https://abstractionlabs.co.uk/), designing and developing websites for recruitment agencies.
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