What else can a recruiter do for me…(other than show me a long list of job opportunities!)?
‘Recruitment agency’ is still a very taboo phrase in many sectors. Some industries seem to have embraced the concept of candidates using a recruitment agency to assist them in their quest for employment. However, in others, it’s still deemed ‘pointless’ or even ‘lazy’ for a candidate to seek the support of a recruiter, or for a business to outsource their recruitment to an agency.
I feel that some of these misconceptions are due to people not realising the value that a recruitment consultant/agency can add to their experience. From a candidate perspective, it might seem that all a recruiter does is to generate a list of job vacancies, many of which could easily be found online by the candidate themselves…
In reality, what a recruiter can offer is so much more than this. At Elite Staffing Solutions (and Elite Veterinary Staffing Solutions), we pride ourselves on offering a full ‘career consultation package’ to our candidates. From the initial point of contact, we make time to have an in depth discussion about their career story so far, and what they are hoping to achieve moving forwards. Sometimes, a candidate might need guidance about which direction to move in- helping candidates navigate these tricky decisions is part of what we do.
Once we have ascertained what type of role we are looking for, we are then able to perform a comprehensive search of available opportunities. Some of these may be ‘easy’ to find on standard job boards, but oftentimes, we call upon existing contacts in our extensive network to find jobs that may not even be being publicly advertised.
Our assistance does not just stop once an interview has been agreed- at this stage, if required, we help prepare the candidate for interview by finding out exactly what this process will involve (varies hugely depending on the company) and assessing which areas a candidate might need to practice/develop accordingly. If an offer is then made (hooray!), we are then able to negotiate terms (if necessary) to land the best possible offer for our candidate.
If we flip the scenario on it’s head and consider it from the side of a business using an agency to source new staff; we can provide just as many benefits as we can for the candidates themselves. To a business, a vacancy is a very costly thing. Every day without a member of staff in a role, costs money. Using an agency can significantly speed up the process of identifying candidates. Firstly because we have access to much larger databases of candidates/contacts- once we know who they are looking for, we scour our networks and directly contact people who may fit the bill (as well as advertising to the general public and target audiences of course!).
Secondly, we can generate a shortlist of those people ‘with potential’ and perform an initial screen/interview ourselves to enable us to present the business with a shorter list of genuine candidates. This saves time, and time is money! Furthermore, we continue to liaise between the business and the candidate, acting as the ‘go between’ for any contract niggles or administrative tasks that need completing. Once again, saving the business time and faff.
Hopefully this article has highlighted some of the services that we, as recruitment consultants, can provide. At Elite, we specialise in the following areas- Veterinary; Insurance; Accounting; Marketing amongst others. We’d love to chat more to you about how we can help, whether you are a candidate or an employer.
