When and How to Partner with Staffing Agencies

Written by Meg Struthers | September 16, 2022

Why working with a recruitment partner is ideal for your hiring needs

You know the drill—you recognize a need for a new hire on your team, post the job online, and a recruiter reaches out to you with a candidate they think could be a fit. If your gut instinct is to brush them off, why?

Recruiting agencies can provide incredible value to hiring companies, especially those who are hiring high volume. They are made up of teams specializing in focused sourcing, vetting candidates, and managing the hiring process (including salary negotiations and reference checks). Here are just a few of the ways that a recruiting partner can help ease your hiring woes:

Time—they have it; you don’t

While bringing on new team members is a necessary evil, it doesn’t always mean you have the required time to do it. Finding the candidates, dissecting their resumes, having the initial screening conversations, scheduling the next rounds… Unless your internal role is in talent acquisition, you have an entire separate workload that requires your attention and focus. Partnering with a recruiting agency allows you to take one more thing off your to-do list. Recruiting and sourcing for talented candidates is the agency’s sole focus—let them drive on finding you the right fit while you go about your normal day. This helps prevent you from spreading yourself too thin and increases the quality of the candidates you decide to spend time interviewing.

This isn’t a recruiter’s first rodeo

Hiring can seem daunting, especially for those who don’t live in that process daily. Reputable recruiting agencies have teams of seasoned recruiters who have been honing and perfecting their technique for years. They know the right questions to find the right candidates by cutting through the noise and getting to the heart of the job. Many recruiters also manage “hot lists,” which are go-to candidates they have previously vetted for those roles that pop up a lot. This means they have deep talent pools they can use to get you candidates fast!

In addition, many times, agencies specialize in specific areas or industries. This helps them to be even more spot-on in their searches. There are IT recruiting agencies you can partner with for technical hires, and marketing agencies you can rely on for marketing hires—when you work with them, you know they understand the lingo and the landscape the candidate will be joining. By the time a resume reaches your desk, you can be confident that the person behind it has already gone through (and passed) both technical and cultural benchmarks.

No Placement? No Payment

One potential roadblock you may think of when considering partnering with a recruiting agency is the cost. Recruiting companies need to be profitable in order to exist, so they do charge for their services. However, one key detail to keep in mind is that most agencies are paid on contingency. This means they only receive payment if a successful placement is made at your company. They are motivated to find you the right person because if they don’t, all of the work they have done up to that point was essentially done for free.

Partnering with an agency and relying on them for the bulk of your hires also means you can keep your internal talent acquisition team on the leaner side. This frees up room in your budget to hire additional resources that will help the company grow.

If this article has convinced you to give a recruiting agency a chance, reach out to us at Market Street Talent and hold us to all of the above!