Recruiting

What is Job Recruiting?

Recruiting, in regards to employment, refers to the act of attracting, pre-qualifying and then selecting qualified applicants for a specific job. Depending on the variables associated with the job, an employer will utilize different resources to engage in the recruiting process. For example, a large corporation will utilize the services of professional recruiting agencies; these entities streamline the attainment of qualified or suitable candidates for a particular position.

The Recruiting Industry:

The recruiting industry has four primary types of agencies: recruitment websites (including job search websites or engines), employment agencies, headhunters (utilized primarily for professional recruitment purposes) and niche-based recruiting services, who specialize in a particular industry or area of staffing. Depending on the hiring organization, employer branding strategies and in-house recruiting may supplant the incorporation of a professional recruiting service. If a professional recruiting service is not integrated into the employment search, the underlying corporation or business entity’s human resources department will carry-out the recruitment procedure.

Regardless of service or strategy utilized, the recruiting process will undergo an affirmed series of stages, including sourcing candidates through the delivery of advertisements, screening potential applicants using tests and/or interviews and subsequently selecting applicants according to the results of these tests and/or interviews. The final stage of the recruiting process entails on-boarding; this process is implemented to ensure that the hired candidate is able to fulfill the job requirements in an effective manner.

The recruiting industry’s primary goal is to provide a qualified candidate to an organization for a price. Depending on the recruiting agency’s model, they may be paid for delivering a pool of candidates or if the candidate successfully resumes employment with the client beyond an agreed probationary period—the recruiting service may be paid a flat fee or a percentage of the applicant’s salary.

Types of Recruiting Agencies:

Also referred to as an employment agency, a traditional recruiting agency maintains a physical location and tangible interviews candidates to asses them before recommending them to the appropriate openings. These recruiting firms are comprised of consultants who evaluate the candidate’s interview answers and resumes to match them with prospective employers. Suitable applicants are short-listed and recommended to potential employers on a direct or contract basis.

Compensation to a traditional agency will vary; the most popular forms of compensation include: hourly, advance payments (retainers) or contingency fees. A headhunter is a colloquialism used to describe a third-party recruiter who actively seeks out applicants when the traditional search method has failed. A headhunter is typically considered more aggressive than an in-house recruiting effort. Headhunters employ advanced sales techniques, such as visiting a candidate’s office to posing as clients to gather employee contacts. Furthermore, a headhunter will often purchase lists of names and job openings to arrange meetings or interviews between the candidates and their clients.

Headhunting recruiting agencies are typically small operations that secure high margins on candidate placements. Due to these high costs, a headhunter is usually employed to secure executive level and senior management positions.

A niche recruiting agency will seek applicants with a narrow specialty. Because of this specificity, a niche recruiting agency can produce superior results due to their ability to utilize all of their resource into networking a rare and specific skill set. Such a specialized effort enables a niche recruiting agency to offer more jobs for a detailed demographic, which in turn, attracts a number of specialized candidates from this demographic.

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