How to Work with Your Agency to Build a Recruiting Strategy - Part 1

By Jessica Miller-Merrell 

From large companies to small, the structure of recruiting teams can be incredibly varied, ranging from no internal recruiting team to a vast team that also works with outside sources. It all depends on the size of your company and management preferences, but many large companies have recruiting teams that are lucky enough to work with recruiting agencies that come alongside the team to enhance efforts and increase reach. It’s a valuable tool to have at the ready, but it’s also important to know how to make the most of it.

What a recruiting agency is – and isn’t

Many HR specialists have worked with a RPO, or a recruiting process outsource, to recruit for a company, but a recruiting agency is far different. While a recruiting agency can be a significant part of your staffing strategy, they do not encompass your strategy. A RPO acts as a recruiting department outside your company, using their expertise and manpower to fill positions but a recruiting agency is different because it supports your existing, internal recruiting team.

Take a look at these three ways that a recruiting agency strengthens your efforts:

Support for your team  

Recruiting the best people and building a pipeline of candidates is an enormous task that even a team of many people can struggle to keep up with when you’re working for a larger organization, such as a Fortune 500 company. This is where recruiting agencies come in. Rather than carrying the entire company’s recruiting efforts, they lend their knowledge and support, adding extra strength to the team you have in place. In short, a recruiting agency operates in compliment to the recruiting team. They work externally to assist the organization, often placing candidates in hard-to-fill roles, temporary openings or mass hires.

In addition to the value they bring in helping fill positions in general, one of the best things about working with a recruiting agency is the ability to focus on long-term plans and solutions while your recruiting agency works to fill positions that may have taken a significant portion of your time. They also work to ensure that recruiting goals are met and in a timely manner.

Expertise and resources

One of the aspects of recruiting agencies that make them incredibly valuable is the fact that they typically have a vast amount of expertise within their team, as well as access to resources and candidates that your team may not be able to reach on its own. Take advantage of the fact that you have these tools available at your fingertips that, under normal circumstances, may have taken many years and a lot of money to acquire.

Help developing a recruiting strategy

You should already have some semblance of a recruiting strategy in place, but that will likely change once you have a recruiting agency on board. As you begin working with them, or if it’s time to reevaluate your current agency’s efforts, make the most of their experience and expertise by working with them to develop a strategy. It’ll help to have an outside look at your recruiting program, and it will ensure that you are both on the same page.

Whether you’re simply considering adding a recruiting agency to the mix or you’ve been using one for years, it’s important to take a step back and consider what it means to have this powerful tool within your reach. Watch for part two of this series to see what key actions you need to take to make the most of your recruiting agency.

Jessica Miller-Merrell, SPHR is a workplace and technology strategist specializing in social media. She’s is the Chief Blogger & Founder of Blogging4Jobs. You can follow her on Twitter @jmillermerrell.