Recruiter Value Promotion

Yesterday I attended the excellent Business Forums International 4th Online Recruitment Summit and had some interesting discussions with major employers regarding their view of recruitment agencies.

It took me back to the good old days of working as a Corporate Account Manager at Securicor Recruitment Services and Randstad and it appears opinions (at least from those I spoke to) still haven't changed.

Words like, expensive, necessary evil, throw mud and see what sticks etc were still being used and I had to question why! Why if the recruitment industry in the UK, in the minds of UK HR professionals is so bad, does it continue to grow massively year on year, operators continue to report record profits and you as clients, continue to use agency support solutions?

We found the answer in our small little group and it is quite straightforward. Employers can't maintain staffing establishment without some form of agency interaction and this is seen as a negative almost 'held to ransom' situation. Agencies then (massive generalisation here but stay with me) don't appear to have convinced HR professionals in general of the value they provide to the corporate employment process.

I said in one conversation; "hang on, how does your business manage product distribution", and the answer was that they sub contracted it out to a distribution specialist. I obviously followed this up by saying that the same principles and cost efficiencies could and should therefore apply to sub contacting elements of your recruitment process!!!!

The penny dropped and for a minute I had immediately changed perception and got agreement. Conversation soon changed however to the fact that this has yet to be proven to the individual I was talking to but it opened the door to an alternative and proven way of thinking.

I admit, when I was a Sales Exec at SRS, you could walk into a D and I client and if you had drivers or a pool of good blue collar workers, you got an opportunity to supply, without the need for a lengthy sales pitch and in certain circumstance this was the same for Office Services, so the important discussion about value never really materialised. But what if it was included at every client meeting and tools and management information was made available to demonstrate value. Could general HR opinion be changed?

There is so much talk about how expensive agencies are and how they are an additional cost to employers, but I of course don't buy this because without agencies, employers need additional internal HR staff or hiring managers need to spend more time (time = cost) on the recruitment process which believe it or not is a cost to the business!!!!!

So to my previous employers at REC, let's have some detailed, high profile and widely distributed research into the cost efficiencies of utilising temporary and permanent recruitment businesses, for members and the industry itself to use to tackle these opinions. Some examples and indicatory tools would also be chipper.