They are also known as the agency, they hate to be called that, as they’d like to consider themselves more sophisticated.
Typically,
the Recruitment Consultant exists to fill the jobs of their client’s.
What will
normally happen is that recruitment consultant will call companies asking if
they have any jobs that he/she can fill. They finally get one and then the set
the wheels in motion to finding the candidate.
Normally
they’ll advertise the job and search through their database. This is why you
get calls out of the blue.
The sole
factor for the agent to exist is simply the agency acts as a forum for employer
/ employees in much the same way as a dating agency works.
Although the
recruitment consultant never gives any guarantees that:
a. You will
find a job or
b. The company
will find the employee.
Candidates get the raw deal
Candidates
tend to get the worst of the service as they are perceived as the customer as
they don’t pay for the service
If you have
ever looked for a job you will know, unless you work in a very specialised
field, that it is very difficult to think of, say, 100 companies would be able
to employ you.
Recruitment
consultants do know this, good ones read news papers, keep themselves up to
date with what’s happening in their local area or specialist field.
If you are
currently working you will find out how time consuming finding a job is.
Firstly you need to identify the companies you wish to target, and then you
need to find the person you need to speak to. Then the hard part, you need to
speak to that person and find out if they are looking for someone like you, 9
times out of 10 the answer will be "no".
Speculative CV's
Posted
speculative CVs are rarely filled for viewing later when they are there is
usually no mechanism for a company to retrieve that CV. I.E. a database.
Once they
have said "yes", then no doubt want you to sell yourself a little,
most people feel a little nervous about this. Hence the recruitment
consultant steps in, as it is easier for a third party to do the
"selling". Everyone hates talking about themselves, there are even
recruitment consultancies that recruitment consultants can use - these are
called Rec to Recs.
The reason
companies use them is purely for convenience since they charge anything between
15% to 20%; so they are expensive but as any employer knows placing a job in
the paper is a costly affair.
Not simply
the actual cost of the advert but managing the response, writing the ad copy
and spending time getting the advert just right to portray the company in the
best light etc. It is far easier to give the job to an agency and then look at
3 or 4 CVs rather than 100-200 inappropriate ones.
This is for
permanent employees - for temporary or contract employees it is a totally
different kettle of fish, in that it would be time consuming and expensive to
advertise a job that was only going to last a few weeks anyway. Also if it’s
urgent, you may need to get some one who can start tomorrow, in comes the
Recruitment Consultant.
So until
Jobseekers have either the time or the confidence to get jobs for themselves
and until employers stop using Recruitment Consultants for convenience, the
Recruitment Consultant is here to stay.
Written by - Rich Wooten