When it comes to finding qualified candidates, selecting the appropriate recruitment agency may be the key to hiring consistently top performers to fit your organisational demands, versus continually having to deal with the fallout of poor hiring practices, including but not limited to, frequent gaps in employment or losing an employee within the first year.
Due to budget cuts and shortages in staff, businesses have to be financially more cautious. Hence, a recruitment partner should not only provide you with resumes but also be your HR department’s arm.
An article can show you the factors that you need to consider when choosing a recruiting company to work with, the difficulties that you need to avoid, and the way to establish a mutually beneficial, long-term partnership between your company and the hired candidate.
5 Ways to Choose the Right Recruitment Agency for Your Business
Start by Understanding Your Hiring Needs and Objectives
Identify what you want to accomplish with recruitment before comparing agencies. Do you want to recruit a large number of blue-collar employees? Do you want assistance with locating specialists in niche, white-collar fields?
Do you want to build leadership teams? Do you require permanent employees or temporary workers? Are you recruiting talent from a single country or across several? Once you’ve defined the roles needed, set locations where you will be recruiting and understand your historical hiring patterns so you can pinpoint which agencies can provide you with the specific types of talent that you need, versus the general providers of these services.
Establishing what your business’s needs are beyond just filling jobs will assist in identifying the best recruiting partners for your business. Companies may require the best candidates as quickly as possible.
Some companies prioritise the identification and retention of quality candidates over speedy hiring. Companies may wish to increase their national diversity levels or support a new business unit. The best recruiting partner will work with you to ensure their sourcing strategies and performance metrics align with your company’s priorities.
Check Specialisation, Sector Experience, and Geography
Identifying how specialised a recruitment agency is will indicate how effective they are at recruiting. Recruitment agencies that are “Jacks of All Trades” will find it difficult to build good candidate networks and will also not fully comprehend the nuances of each role require, meaning they will not effectively fill your vacancies.
When selecting a recruitment partner, check to see if they have a strong track record in your market and market segment (HR, Finance, IT, Healthcare, Construction, Oil & Gas, Logistics, Customer Service, etc.) and ask for some positive examples of similar roles that have already been successfully filled by the agency.
Consideration of the geographical locations in which you are employing candidates is also important. If you hire throughout the GCC region, your recruitment agency must be familiar with the laws, customs, and general salary rates in each of those markets.
It must understand the local hiring laws and regulations while providing effective cross-border/international recruitment services. Recruitment agencies with regional presence combined with local support typically provide the most support as your business continues to grow.
Assess Their Recruitment Process, Not Just Their Brand
While many companies choose an agency based on name recognition or a well-designed website, it’s important to consider how they actually conduct their recruitment process. Request details about their recruitment processes from the initial role briefing to placement of the candidate.
A good agency should be able to articulate how its recruitment process includes the following elements:
- Gathering detailed requirements, then challenging any unclear or unrealistic job descriptions
- Sourcing candidates through various methods, including databases, referrals, advertising, headhunting, and specialty websites
- Screening for both technical skill sets and how well a person fits within the company’s culture
- Providing candidates with a shortlist and useful commentary, not just intricate self-descriptive resumes
- Coordinating the entire hiring process, including interviews, gathering feedback from interviewers, extending offers, and dealing with counteroffers.
It is important that your chosen recruiting partner implements a structured and well-defined recruiting process that is transparent, rather than something that is improvised. A disciplined, formalised recruitment process ensures the highest quality of candidates in the long run, as well as the least number of surprises along the way.
Look Closely at Candidate Quality and Shortlist Relevance
If you want to determine the quality of an agency, examining its shortlist is a good start. Are the selected candidates a good fit for the job? Have you had a chance to discuss the role’s main criteria with the recruiter, or have they selected candidates who are simply a close match? If you’re discarding many candidates from the recruiter, it indicates that they don’t fully grasp your needs or failed to filter applicants effectively.
The number of applicants you receive will be less important than their suitability for your company when you work with a reputable recruitment partner. Your partner recruitment agency may send fewer CVs, but all will be worth your time. In the long term, your hiring managers will have saved hours spent going through piles of CVs and decreased their level of fatigue during the interview process.
Consider Communication, Responsiveness, and Cultural Fit
Recruitment is sensitive to time; therefore, the recruitment agency should be responsive and timely with their communications. However, if you do not receive a timely response from a recruitment agency early in the process, this lack of responsiveness is unlikely to improve after you sign the agreement with them.
In particular, consider how the recruitment agency communicates with you: Does the recruitment agency actively listen to you and enquire appropriately about your needs? Does the recruitment agency provide you with reasonable and constructive feedback when there is something about the recruitment process that is unclear? Or does the recruitment agency simply agree with everything that you say and then fail to keep you updated?
Cultural fit is also an important consideration. You want a partner that has a good understanding of how you do business, but is also transparent about market conditions and willing to provide you with honest guidance.
Ultimately, the relationship will be strongest when both parties can be open and candid regarding the various challenges that arise during the recruitment process, including salary issues, delays in internal processes, and concerns regarding the candidates themselves, without being defensive about the situation.
How 6 Pence Can Be the Right Recruitment Partner for Your Business
Selecting a recruitment agency for your company needs to be based on trust, capability, and the sharing of goals. 6 Pence brings together all three through their extensive regional expertise, sector-focused experience, and flexible workforce solutions across the GCC.
In addition to combining structured processes with substantial local market understanding, 6 Pence assists employers with:
- Creating credible and attractive job descriptions
- Reaching out to quality job seekers—both local and expatriate
- Decreasing hiring time while increasing the quality of hire and retention
- Utilising outsourced staff and compliant HR services, so employers can concentrate on their core business interests
If your company is ready to take a proactive role in its recruitment, 6 Pence can partner with you to create your ideal workforce now and as you grow.
Also Read:
Top Mistakes Employers Make During Recruitment in Iraq
Why International Recruitment is Growing in Oman
