Working in partnership is a key element of a successful relationship between recruiting company (the employer) and agency. Recruiting companies often lose sight of the fact that to get the best service you have to engage your suppliers properly and give them the best possible chance to fill your requirements.

Recruitment agencies can only achieve a consistently strong level of service if they are given a solid platform from which to work. To do this, companies must view the agency as an extension of their business. What does an ill-informed agency that has limited information about a job role/employer, say about your business to a prospective employee?

Here are some issues which recruiters cite as sources of frustration and hindering the recruitment process.

Using multiple agencies to fill a requirement: why use five or six agencies to fill the same role when clearly one or two would do? This will create a CV race and diminish quality. Multiple agencies lead to multiple CVs, which gives you more CVs to sift through, which lead to CV duplication, disputes, time spent to resolve disputes and so on.

Not enough access to either the internal recruiter or more importantly the hiring manager: an agency must understand the requirement in detail, which ideally means meeting the hiring manager and seeing the working environment. Do you want good candidates who have the relevant skills, experience and company fit or do you want to waste time sifting CVs of unsuitable candidates?

Lack of feedback/decision times following CV submissions or interviews: a huge frustration. Employers expect agencies to manage their candidates effectively but then don’t give any feedback. Not only does this make your company look unprofessional, it makes the job harder for the agency. Most importantly it’s an appalling branding exercise in terms of how your business is perceived by the candidate. If this happens in your business, include the following in your next job advertisement: “Come and apply for ABC company so we can waste your time - we’d love you to show some interest in our business but we won’t have the courtesy to let you know how you got on.”

Manage your agencies well. Make it clear what you expect and be clear on what they can provide to you. If an agency does a good job tell them; if they don’t, be honest. Tell them how they need to improve

Short lead times to recruit: instead, involve them in your recruitment planning - use their market knowledge to your benefit and theirs.
Why do the same issues keep emerging? How do you overcome the above frustrations?

• You expect agencies to deliver a good service, to work to service levels and key performance indicators. Commit your business to doing the same - that’s a partnership approach.
• Remove the dependency on so many agencies - the best agencies will not stay around long in an environment which breeds CV races and lack of quality. Those that do - you have to ask why.
• Develop solid relationships with a select few: let them understand your business, and learn to understand theirs.
• Manage your agencies well. Make it clear what you expect and be clear on what they can provide to you. If an agency does a good job tell them; if they don’t, be honest. Tell them how they need to improve.
• Develop a relationship with good lines of communication in which both parties feel confident to address and resolve issues. Avoid the ’them and us’ scenario.

Alex Brock is an interim resourcing consultant. His blog about recruitment is at www.alexonrecruitment.co.uk

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