How to get the best out of your recruitment agency

When I worked as an in-house recruiter, I saw the real benefits of having a fantastic recruitment agency, or sometimes just a single great recruitment consultant, in your corner.

Used in the right way, external recruitment agencies can help in-house recruiters make the recruitment process incredibly smooth and stress-free. If the agency has a thorough understanding of how in-house recruitment works, the process can become even easier.

So, as an in-house recruiter, how can you get the best out of your agency recruiters?

Host agency briefings

A role without a briefing can still be recruited for without a problem, however, a role that has been fully briefed on (whether over the phone or face to face) will give the recruiters a better understanding of every part of the role.

It can be as simple as understanding the reason behind needing a certain skill or knowledge of a system or the reason behind needing to know about a certain aspect of work not normally associated with the role. It will give your recruiter a more in-depth understanding of what the candidate's CV profile needs to look like and what could be most important beyond the standard skillset required.

It also gives the recruiters a chance to speak with you and the hiring manager about the more technical side of the role without having to call and disturb you a million times! All of this helps improve the chances of you receiving the best CVs for the role, ultimately saving you time.

Don’t withhold information

The more we know, the better we are able to manage both candidates and the role you have asked us to recruit for. This is different from the information given in a briefing. This is about how many people are interviewing, what your initial thoughts are on a CV and how many other agencies are working on the role. This isn’t to let us know how many people we are up against - it enables us to better manage our candidates, our agency managers and, overall, the role.

If you let us know this information, we feel more trusted, more like a partner than anything else and it makes us want to work more with you. Someone that is transparent and open really can make the difference to an agency recruiter!

Ask us about the market

Good agencies always have their finger on the pulse and know exactly who is moving where and what the current market is looking like.

Lean on your agencies, even when you don't have a live role, to help you understand developments in the market and what the potential issues may be when recruiting for a specific area, either now or in the future. They will be able to tell you if the candidate pool is readily available or if it would take some additional resourcing to find the relevant candidates and persuasion to get them moving roles.

Agency recruiters also have insights into salaries and what is currently at market rates. Ask them to provide you with quarterly insights and yearly salary reviews or even on role-specific salaries. We have the information, it makes us feel we are trusted by you, we are more than happy to share! (On that note, you can view our latest market insights here >).

Meet with your agency recruiters

“It would be great to meet with you to catch up” is a phrase I hate saying to in house recruiters. I do want to meet, I do want to catch up, we speak over the phone all the time but we don’t really get to know each other!

The real reason we want to meet is so much more than that, if we meet a candidate and have seen the offices, had a first-hand experience of the culture, sat in the meeting rooms and understood the firm completely, we will be able to sell the company ten times better than if we haven’t!

We need you as much as you need us!

You could just send us over a job spec - but if you don't communicate with us beyond that, we'll be severely limited in how much we can help. By helping us to better help you, everyone benefits so do make the most of us – we are here to help!​