How do you get the best out of your agency?

Whether it be Managers, HR, Talent Acquisition, Hiring Managers or Managing Directors that I deal with, I regularly hear multiple grumbles regarding agencies (so far none have face to face grumbled about me but I am sure I haven’t please everyone in my career). Recruitment is a service, it is not easy (if done right) and has large upfront costs for the agency/consultant (job board facilities, LinkedIn premium, CRM systems etc). It is a free service (if done as contingency recruitment rather than retained) unless the recruitment consultant finds you the right person, so I can promise the recruitment consultant wants to impress and fill the role for you. I want to also underline I do appreciate recruitment is not a cheap service for any business when they utilise a recruitment agency, but please keep in mind cost and value are relative.

 So with all of that in mind why is it so many businesses are unimpressed by many of their recruitment agencies service (as you would think a free service unless you buy; they would be moving earth and heaven to impress)? You will be reading this on LinkedIn so will have read a lot of negative press about different recruitment agencies; so how do you go about getting the best out of you agency to optimise the value they can add (whether it be time, finding talent, attracting niche skills etc.)?

There are many potential reasons that the agency is letting their clients down some of which are the agencies fault so lets get those out in the open straight away;

1. The recruiter is not very good - Let’s be honest every industry has them. These are the recruiters that often over promise and under deliver. These are not consultants – these are recruiters as there is no aspect of consultancy in their service. They will throw as much mud as possible until some sticks. Their names are often known in the industry and will often bad-mouth other agencies to get roles on.
2. The Consultant is out of their depth - This sometimes happens when a more junior consultant takes on a job that they don’t understand. Again, this is done in every industry – they think they can quickly learn a role, type in a few key word searches, send a couple of candidates that they think are right for the role. They have 100% the best intentions and will 100% try their hardest to fill the role; however, they may not fully understand the role so often miss the key requirements and points of the role.
3. The consultant has become overloaded - There are certain times of year where a consultant can go from having 8 live roles to 35 live roles within a couple of weeks. I have seen the best consultants crumble under the pressure. They get into the office at 7am and stay till 10pm but are only able to scratch the surface of these roles. Like all of us sometimes some balls get dropped but in many agencies they have more senior members of staff that can often take these roles on and stop this happening. That being said it is never ideal.

So firstly, how can get the best from your agency for the three above? For the first one, have you met your consultant? Yes they always badger you about meeting up but I promise if you meet up with them you will quickly be able to sort the wheat from the chaff. Also how many CV’s are they sending you? Have you said what you want? Most of my clients that interact properly normally say “I would much prefer quality over quantity”. If they are sending you multiple irrelevant or poor CV’s I would say they chucking mud and hoping it will stick. For the second one; ask the questions “Have you recruited for this before?”. Speak to them – I promise what you say is far more important than a job description on a piece of paper. Would the hiring manager have a 5 minute telephone call with the consultant to go through the role? This might take 20 minutes of your time upfront but will save you time and guarantee quality moving forward. The 3rd one is a little harder. I will address this shortly but looking at when you recruit, how regularly and incentivising the consultant will often put you at the top of their priority list.

So now we move on to actions that potentially are blockers to recruitment that are not necessarily the agencies fault, but the fault of both parties – I know some people will be argue with me re the below but I am only providing honest advice.

1. Commitment - Every consultant will have multiple roles on their desk at any one time. They will prioritise the ones that have offered the most commitment. Have you signed the terms and returned them? Do you answer their calls and emails? Have they sent you CV’s and you have just ignored them? If someone asked you to work a project for free and you emailed them and they didn’t respond – would you keep working on the project until they responded?
2. Getting the wrong sort of candidates - Who talked the consultant through the role? I will talk with HR Managers, they are honest and say they don’t really understand certain roles (especially engineering, technical and IT roles). For me this is fine because most roles I will know the requirements and the business due to experience. The question is does your consultant know the role? If not a Job Description on a piece of paper often does not really describe the job or the business and will lead to poor results.
3. Too many agencies – I recently was given a role by a client I inherited from a previous member of staff. I called 4 people off job boards, got 3 messages off LinkedIn and stopped working the role. Why? They had all been spoken to by a myriad of different agencies. I am happy to have to prove myself against another agency, but 4 other agencies were mentioned and realised they had been working with them for over a week. I wondered why they said no to a meeting and only send me a job description. This company seemed to have an issue with the quality of the service the other agencies were providing but they seemed to believe if they have more agencies working it they would get more CV’s – unfortunately that is not how it works and a good consultant with the best networks and knowledge pick their clients wisely. I regularly spend 30 minutes qualifying a candidate and talking through the clients business – if that same candidate received a call that morning for 5 minutes from a ‘recruiter’ that said “will you consider a process engineer role within 30 minutes for ￡40k it is technically their candidate. Making too many agencies compete, leads to shabby recruiting and gives a poor candidate experience – ask any consultant that is good and they will tell you the same and wont work in that way.
4. Are you looking for a Unicorn – In the recruitment sector a unicorn can be one of a few things. Are you looking for a developer with a stack that is completely unrealistic? Are you paying miles below market rate? Are you in the middle of nowhere? A decent consultant will give you advice on this but if you are receiving barely any CV’s sometimes you may need to ask the question – why?

So the 4 above doesn’t include the one I know you were expecting but I will touch on cost/rates shortly. Lets start with number 1 - even if you don’t have time that second – like all business, manage the expectations and you will find your engagement with your chosen agency will go up. Even if the email says “Sorry I wont be able to look at these till the weekend – can I call you on Monday to discuss them?” it will manage the expectation and make sure the agency knows you have acknowledged it. Number 2 is probably the most prolific offender of all of these. If you meet the consultant, explain the role, explain the company ethos and let them ask questions this will not happen. Also it will mean they are not just ‘selling the job’ to the candidate they will be selling the entire business. They will be an ambassador for your brand and I promise you the time you spend upfront will lower turnover, increase responsiveness and you will be receiving only relevant and qualified candidates. Number 3 is simple, pick your agencies wisely, when you do a PSL review get the agencies to come in and meet you. You will quickly know the consultants that will offer you value, knowledge and who are the right people to be ambassadors for your company. Number 4 is fairly easy; if you haven’t received a CV after 7 days call the consultant and ask why. A decent and experienced consultant is aware that there is no point wasting their time or yours. They will tell you if the requirements are unrealistic or do salary bench-marking for you.

So finally, I move on to the general rules of getting a consultant to give you the best value, save you the most time and to send you their best candidates.

• Manage expectations upfront – This is crucial to all recruitment. If you ask a recruitment consultant to headhunt a role their main push will be in the first 48 hours. With that in mind on the initial call establish timelines. “We will be interviewing on Thursday and Friday next week with an aim to make an offer within the next 2 weeks. There will be 2 interviews prior to any offer and want the candidate to start within 6 weeks of today”. You have now shown commitment, given your chosen recruitment partner the ability to manage the candidates expectations, mapped the recruitment cycle and set out your expectations of turnaround. I can promise this will increase interview attendance, increase quality, incentivise you recruitment partner to
• Arrange a meeting at your site – Get them to walk round and get a feel for the business. If they understand and believe in the business they will evangelise about your business to the candidates. I have 3 clients that I have a near 100% fulfilment rate with and a nearly zero turnover, why? Because I sell the businesses, the people, the atmosphere, the work environment and the site rather than just the ‘role’. It means they have their expectations managed from day one and have also worked with one of these clients to put in place an induction that maximises retention
• Build a relationship with your chosen agency/agencies – Keep them updated with what’s going on in the business, have a regular chat (even if there are no roles at that moment in time), make them part of your HR planning and you will reap the benefits
• Ask advice on when the best talent is available – Believe it or not there are certain times of the year when consultants have little work on and there are very few companies looking. If you are performing a long term growth strategy (as opposed to replacing a leaver or an urgent requirements) a decent consultant will give you advice of when you can get strong talent without competition. You will also have a consultant that might only have 7 or 8 other live roles so will get very strong service at certain times of year too
• Become recruitment partners – My favourite clients that I put 110% for I consider to be recruitment partners with. I get embedded in their HR planning and have placed their Senior Managers, Engineering Managers, CTO, Electrical Engineers, SHEQ Manager, Scientists, Technical Sales Engineers, Electronics Engineers and Mechanical Engineers. I know all the departments, the managers, the directors and can comfortably explain their business and outlook to anyone. I am able to impart a passion to all potential staff and even if the candidate is not successful, by the end of the process they think the business is amazing (a decent recruitment partner should be your brand ambassador to the market).
• Manage expectations – If you are ‘browsing’ let the agency know. If it is an urgent role that you will happily make an offer to straight away let the agency know. If the recruitment process is likely to take a month and 3 interviews let the agency know. They will in turn manage the candidates expectations and will lead to a much stronger relationship between you and the consultant and lead to a much better candidate experience too.
• Choose the best consultants – In my area I would recommend only 3 or 4 other consultants. You may notice I said consultants, not agencies. If you are working with an agency that is amazing; it is not the agency that is amazing; it is the consultant. A lot of people go to “high street” agencies thinking the brand is well known. Unfortunately, the majority of really strong consultants will move to SME’s, boutique agencies or be promoted to Area Manager within the high street agency. As such for any niche roles look for a specialist agency. Have a look on LinkedIn and see if they have been promoted previously, do they have strong knowledge, have you got similar connections? All of these factors will give you a good idea and if your still not sure – invite them in for a chat and make your mind up meeting them face to face. Any decent consultant will be able to discuss both their experience and you company in depth, a poor consultant will sound like they are reading from a handbook (you will know the difference within 5 minutes).
• Incentivise the consultant – I know many reading this will think “you just want paying more”. Don’t get me wrong if I have 3 roles paying 25%, 2 paying 18% and one paying 14% I will priorities accordingly (who wouldn’t), but this isn’t the only way to incentivise your consultant. Why not offer them exclusivity on 3 roles? Even if they are working at lower rates they will see these as roles they must fill. Possibly give them exclusivity for 2 weeks – this will really push them to concentrate on your roles and time focusses the mind. If you have a particularly difficult role but you have terms agreed at 16%; why not say 20% if you can fill the role in the next month? Get creative and put the challenge out to the consultant. Salespeople are very driven and often find it hard to turn down a challenge. The flipside is if you tell a consultant that “you work at 10% with all your other agencies” this raises 2 issues. Firstly you are working at exceptionally low rates with agencies who aren’t providing – there is a difference between cost and value. Are these agencies providing value or are they providing you cheap service and poor candidates? It is the old adage of you get what you pay for. Secondly you have just told your prospective recruitment partner that you are going to be pitting them against other agencies at 10% - how much time do you think they are going to put into sourcing you the best candidates? Keep in mind most consultants are just like you; they have school uniform to buy for their kids, mortgages and bills and are going to weigh up the potential gain against the chance of fulfilling the role. You have just made both very unattractive and you will attract the sort of agencies that are likely to not be ‘good value’ but will be ‘cheap’.
• Finally pick one (or up to three) consultant you are going to work with. If you pick six or seven, you will find they realise it is a race and will all send you half qualified candidates as quickly as possible. This will lead to a poor level of interview attendance, often candidates pulling out, once the initial rush is over no consultant will focus on your roles (because they will assume most of the potential candidates will have been spoken to) and you won’t build a relationship that will add value, save you time and get you the best candidates.

All of these steps will take a little time, but I promise you will get stronger relationships, better candidates, higher fulfillment, better retention figures and overall you will have a recruitment partner; not a recruiter.