Why use a recruiter?

A mate of mine (we’ll call him Joe for the sake of this article) who is a GM of an SME recently embarked upon a recruitment campaign, in search of a Mechanical Engineer with strong knowledge of manufacturing processes, and with experience in setting up systems that drive these processes. There were a few other boxes that needed to be ticked (Solidworks, FEA experience, etc.), however, that is a vague summary of the type of person he sought to employ.

Joe made the decision to advertise on a couple of different job boards, including posting a little spiel on Linkedin. The role itself was Melbourne based, and it offered the opportunity to work remotely occasionally, once the candidate had settled into the role. The advertised remuneration was “up to $110k plus superannuation”, and there was a fuel card on offer to cover business travel expenses.

I caught up with Joe one evening, which was approx. one month after his recruitment campaign ended. I asked him how his new employee was working out, and he explained that he did not employ anybody. He described the entire process as “overwhelming and costly” and he could not believe the amount of time that the entire process consumed. It was his first recruitment experience as a GM, suggesting that he will “turn to the professionals next time.”

After joking with Joe and suggesting that I would have made his life much easier if he simply turned to me from the outset, he agreed and cited the following over the course of a couple of drinks:

• The process of writing an advertisement was time consuming and more costly than he had otherwise anticipated for one particular job board.
• The vast majority of applicants were from overseas looking for a sponsorship opportunity.
• Joe received an average of 12 resumes per day over the month, meaning that he had to stop what he would have been doing otherwise in an effort to read the resumes.
• Joe interviewed four candidates, all of whom were well short of the mark from a knowledge and experience base. He thought this was extremely time consuming.
• Joe did in fact like one candidate. He interviewed him twice and conducted a couple of reference checks, and just as he was about to make him an offer, the candidate informed Joe that he had accepted another offer “paying far more than what Joe was offering” – another big waste of time according to Joe.
• Joe suggested that he anticipates winning a large project in a few months, at which point he would potentially have a need to put on a number of new employees. Joe does not believe that he could drive the recruitment campaign(s) given his recent experience.

None of this comes as a surprise to any recruiter, although the costs of a recruitment campaign barely scratch the surface at this point. The costs begin to escalate once a new employee starts working in his new role. In some instances, it could take a few months to bring an employee ‘up to speed’ through on-boarding followed by intensive training. If the employee does not work out, then the entire process is repeated with the next employee.

If Joe did hire a new employee and things did not work out, life would have been very trying on his business, and moreover, very taxing on him personally. I explained to Joe that we offer a guarantee period, which is an insurance policy against the employee not working out. This could go both ways, with either the employer or the employee deciding that the position is no longer tenable. If the ‘guarantee period’ is enacted, then the onus falls upon me to find a ‘replacement candidate’ for Joe at no extra cost.

I also explained to Joe that in as far as recruitment is concerned, we have direct access to thousands of resumes/candidates, and thus where an advertisement is very indiscriminate in the people it targets, we begin communicating directly with candidates who address the criteria right from the outset.

Every recruiter is different, and peoples thoughts on recruiters are very different. While I cannot comment on how other recruitment companies go about their business, the Australia Wide Engineering Recruitment reviews on Google suggest that we are going about things the right way!