How to Find a Recruiter That is the Right Fit for Your Company

Finding suitable candidates for a company is getting more daunting for a hiring manager since unemployment rates in the United States are at a  50-year low, and good talent doesn’t stay on the market for long.

These unprecedented times are the reason why you need a good recruiter for your business now more than ever.

All recruiters are matchmakers of a sort, bringing together hiring managers who have positions to fill with qualified candidates who have the relevant skills to offer. 

But how would you know if the recruiter you choose will be the right fit for your company? And what are the different options you can choose from? Read on to find out!

Types of Recruiters You Can Hire

1) Internal Recruiters

If a company is putting direct effort into hiring, they are likely employing in-house recruiters, who then find qualified candidates to fill open positions across different functional departments of the organization.

Lever’s 2019 Talent Benchmarks report found that internal candidates have a 22% hire rate, which is more than any other conversion technique typically provides for recruitment.

However, it is essential to remember that as cost-efficient and convenient as it looks, this recruiting model alone won’t prove to be as effective if you’re trying to achieve hyper-growth or rapidly scale your team in a relatively short period.

This is especially true because when you’re trying to grow and fill jobs quickly, you’ll be needing a lot more resources, at least for a span of a few months, or until the growth phase reaches a point where it can sustain itself. Hiring that many recruiters as full-time employees isn’t going to be a feasible solution under such circumstances because you’ll mostly only end up spending more time and effort compared to the return on investment you make.

If that’s the case, you may want to hire a different type of recruiter to help you with your hiring process.

2) External Recruiters

According to one recent research study by SHRM, close to 83 percent of HR professionals reported having difficulty recruiting suitable job candidates in the past year. 

External recruiters, also commonly known as “agency recruiters,” can be efficiently utilized to target a vast talent pool compared to internal recruiters.

They come in all shapes and sizes. They can come from national recruiting agencies, regional companies, or even local firms. There are several executive search firms too that have prior experience in filling specialized or high-level positions. 

Beyond their expertise, reputation, and niche, all recruiting firms can be categorized based on their compensation arrangements. There are two primary compensation models:

• Contingency Pay: When you hire a recruiter who works on contingency, you pay them when they’ve met two conditions – a candidate accepts the job offer and the new hire remains employed with your company beyond the initial trial period (usually three months). 

Contingency commission is the principal source of compensation for these recruiters. It can be anywhere between 15-25 percent of the new hire’s first-year annual salary. If you do not choose the candidate that the contingency recruiter suggested, you have no obligation to pay them.

• Retainer: This is a hybrid recruiting model. Retainer recruiters usually work in an exclusive arrangement whereby a single hiring firm can fill a specific position at the company whenever needed.

When you hire a retained recruiter, you treat them as an extension of your own company. They partner with your internal recruiting department to formulate an effective strategy to attract more candidates, facilitate the selection procedure, and rigorously comb your hiring model for high-impact candidates.

Because of the resource commitment and time involved in this dedicated search, retained recruiters may charge up to half of the hire’s first-year annual salary.

Factors to Consider When Trying to Find the Right Recruiter 

While every company has a unique set of requirements, what has worked for one specific company probably won’t always work for the other. An employer can follow a few industry-wide best practices to determine whether a potential recruiter will be the right fit for the organization.

Whether you opt for an external or internal recruiter, some of the factors that will play an important role in assessing the strengths of a possible recruiter include:

1) Specialization

Your probability of finding qualified candidates who are a good fit to fill open positions at your company will be extremely low if the recruiter you hire doesn’t understand the nuances of the market you function in and the unique needs of your business.

You need to be on the lookout for the right recruiter who has deep expertise in your local market and industry and has an informed perspective of the developments happening in the hiring market. The larger the understanding, the better, especially since global hiring trends have rapidly transformed due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

Specialized recruiters will also have an existing database of passive job seekers who would be willing to change roles if an ideal job opening came knocking at their door. This is now more important than ever since unemployment rates are at an all-time low.

2) Client Lists

Another critical factor that will play a role in deciding if the recruiter will be the right fit for your company is a portfolio of their previous work with testimonials from clients that prove their expertise.

The ideal candidate will have a successful track record of working with specific businesses that match your size and set of hiring requirements to fill your job listings.

At Recruiter.com, we provide on-demand recruiting services and simple monthly subscriptions for using our hiring platform and tools. We have proven expertise in the niche, as proven by our diverse and result-driven portfolio.

3) Dedication to Your Unique Staffing Needs

Finally, any external or internal recruiter you hire needs to have a sense of commitment toward your organization. 

If they are willing to take the time to get to know you, your expansion timeline, growth criteria, and unique hiring requirements, then the odds of them losing the company’s vision and making bad hires are relatively low.

Also, look at ways you can keep your current employees engaged by learning how to build relationships and strong company culture. 

Look at ways you can make your employees feel like they can approach you. Building solid relationships with them will take you a long way in building result-oriented workplaces in the long run. If you don’t, your employee may start a job search for their next job, and you’ll have even more open roles to fill.

Get in touch with us at Recruiter.com to learn more about hiring best practices. Our recruiters can accelerate your company’s growth by helping you expand your team with high-impact hires and ensure a return on investment for your hiring efforts.

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