Agency Recruitment vs. Corporate Recruitment: What's the best option for you?

Agency and corporate recruitment are two peas in different pods. Businesses often face the dilemma of choosing whether to hire their new executives themselves or through a recruitment partner. Though agency and corporate recruitment share similar goals, their purpose, priority, and pace are worlds apart. At the end of the day, if you're debating between in-house recruitment or agency recruitment, let us help you make the better choice.

For those new to the world of HR and Recruitment, recruitment is the process of searching, interviewing, and onboarding a suitable candidate for an open position in an organization. They are primarily of two types:?

·??????Agency recruitment: Known as professional matchmakers in the HR world, they source candidates for a diverse clientele across industries. Agency recruiters assist businesses in various ways, including employer branding, process enhancement, and contract negotiation.

·??????Corporate/in-house recruitment: They are often deployed full-time by an organization for its internal hiring needs across departments. They frequently deal with the administrative side of hiring, employer branding, and other HR activities, like onboarding new employees and joining formalities.

Hiring the right candidate can have a butterfly effect on organizational productivity, morale, and company culture. Both growing and established companies may have an internal team to look after recruitment functions, but often avail the expert assistance of agency recruiters to manage their hiring efforts. However, you may wonder how to decide what your organization needs to achieve business goals. Let’s dive right in!

How to make the right decision for your company?

In hiring efforts, there are no right or wrong decisions. Instead, companies need to focus on their current goals, forecasts for talent and past data to choose what works for them. Here are a few factors that differentiate internal teams and agency recruitment:?

Scope of work:?

In-house and agency recruitment are both involved in the sourcing-screening-hiring chain. Both types of recruiters pursue the search for top talent who is an excellent fit for the position and the organization. However, agency recruitment takes on a business development role, while in-house?recruiters?are required to fulfill their job responsibilities towards the organization.?

In house recruiters hire for specific culture and company fit, and mostly full-time roles in the company. However, in agency models, companies have the option to outsource hiring for short terms projects, contingent workforces, full-time employees etc.; resulting in increased flexibility.?

Generalist vs. specialist:

In-house recruitment teams can be generalists as they lack the specialized technical expertise needed to hire for specific roles. As their primary responsibility is to fill positions in the company's various departments, they have a basic understanding of the requirements of multiple job roles and a thorough understanding of the company's values and vision and ensure that each employee upholds them. This philosophy aids the company's long-term expansion aspirations. Often, technical experts from the relevant departments might be enlisted to explain the essential technical requirements of an open position. Basis this, in-house teams can strategize and implement a recruiting roadmap.?

Most agency recruiters specialize in hiring for a specific industry or role. They undergo competency building sessions to develop technical or theoretical acumen, which allows them to service their clients better. For instance, Quasara, part of the popular recruitment firm- upGrad Enterprise , has been building and shaping recruitment for the space sector in India. They have a technical understanding of the job and can differentiate between good and excellent candidates with the flick of a hand. Their technical proficiency allows them to glide swiftly through the sourcing process by engaging in competency-building and efficient decision making. This results in lesser time spent on the ideating and sourcing phase, and they can close positions faster.?

Method of operation

Internal recruitment teams aim for accuracy and precision in the hiring process. Before they write and post the job description, they regularly meet with the recruiting manager to accurately assess the demands and responsibilities of the job role. To find the best applicants for the position, they won't simply rely on one source but will surf through several of them- employee referrals, media, job postings, etc. Then, each applicant will be evaluated per the job description to separate the most qualified candidates from the others. Suppose the hiring managers are unimpressed with the qualifications of the initial pool of candidates. In that case, they will look for and close any gaps, change their search criteria, and revise the job description to attract more qualified individuals this time.?

On the other hand, agency recruitment teams move swiftly yet thoroughly in their activities. Recruitment partners can be especially useful in situations where the market supply is lower than the demand for qualified candidates. They can map out the market and navigate the norms, difficulties, and opportunities for hiring in that specific sector. They often maintain a database of job-seeking candidates and determine an active pipeline for the role. Through this technique, they may shorten the sourcing phase, which often involves the most work and?takes?the longest.?

For instance, when recruiters are hunting candidates, it is tough to get their attention, sustain it and translate them into successful applicants. With customized pitches, multiple follow-ups, and dynamic negotiation skills, agency recruiters are always on their toes. Such training and contacts help them close the contract with your top candidate faster and better, especially if you’re hiring on a large scale. After all, as Matthew Jeffrey (Global Head of Sourcing, SAP) says, "recruitment is marketing. If you're a recruiter nowadays and you don't see yourself as a marketer, you're in the wrong profession."?For instance, you can save an average of 13 hours per week by partnering with upGrad Enterprise .

Business efforts:

Internal recruitment teams are often divided into multiple departments. To fill one open position, work is delegated to numerous individuals in the HR Shared Services (HRSS) team, which expands the hiring job to further stakeholders such as recruitment managers, sourcers, documentation team, compliance team, etc. This ensures the hiring process is compliant and minutely coordinated between internal hiring managers while striking a balance between conflicting demands: balancing time to hire, cost per hire, and quality of hire. Although, while doing so, companies need to keep in mind the cost of a full-time recruitment team across the year which may not be enough return on investment.???

Agencies function on a one-team army principle and can outline each step that has to be executed at the ground level. Be it short-term or long-term projects, by working on a commission-driven model, agency recruiters prove to be more proactive in pursuing leads and reaping the benefits of successfully placing a candidate. From the business point of view, recruitment partners save organizations the money and time required to keep a position open for long, as well as saving on costs by replacing a full-time recruitment team.?

Additionally, it is worth noting that the?staffing industry is growing towards unprecedented levels, with more than 7000+ recruitment agencies in India. According to Rituparna Chakraborty, president of the Indian Staffing Federation, "In India, the staffing industry clearly does not have a challenge of the addressable market and it is gratifying to witness the rapid growth being shown by each of the organized staffing firms to tap into this opportunity on one hand and enabling rapid job creation on the other."

Access to the right network:

Have you ever entered a busy conference room and realized you have two choices: approach individuals and begin forming new connections or wait for someone to approach you? If you were an agency recruiter, you would know what to do. The success of any agency is largely dependent on developing a professional network, which entails expanding their network and making meaningful relationships for agency recruitment teams. Making every effort to separate from the competition takes them ahead in the competitive recruiting sector. Veteran agency recruiters are known to spend an hour each day reaching out to candidates or meeting with a business acquaintance. In fact,?85% of all jobs are filled through networking of some kind.

Networking benefits both corporate and agency recruitment teams; however, only the latter might genuinely understand its value. While corporate in-house teams for large organizations such as Wipro, Infosys, or TCS can attract candidates through job postings with their brand influence and competitive advantage (72% of recruiting managers believe that employer brand has a considerable impact on hiring ), agency recruitment teams heavily rely on a large network of contacts. By nurturing their professional network and building a talent community, they can keep quality passive candidates in the loop till they are ready for a role change. They are trained to recognize that no one is average, and their current experience can be leveraged for the right opportunity. This is especially helpful when hiring for niche or top priority roles in the organization, when you want the best of the best on your team.?

Wrapping up

Employees make an organization what it is by shaping workplace culture; hence hiring becomes the most crucial investment for an organization to grow. So, even though corporate and agency recruitment seem on opposite ends of the table, they are both on the same table and chasing the same goal.?Choosing either will depend not only on any organization's budget but also their business vision, hiring goals and need for results.?