We’re living in a world where the demand for talent significantly outweighs the number of available candidates in search of  roles. More than half of U.K. businesses are experiencing skill shortages, and countless worldwide organisations struggle to fill critical positions.

Factors like the Great Resignation, the rise of remote working, and changing employee priorities have made it harder than ever for employees to fill their employment pipeline. In this environment, businesses must access the right support.

A specialist recruitment partner with expertise and experience in your industry makes it easier to find the people capable of transforming your team. Here’s how you can identify the right one to work with in 2023

Why Your Company Need Recruiting Partners

Currently, around 80% of organisations say they have difficulty filling positions due to a lack of available skills. As unemployment levels continue to drop, the quest for talent will likely become even more challenging for modern brands.

A recruitment partner can be the ultimate way to stay one step ahead of the competition and ensure your business can thrive in the years ahead. Companies like ours have spent years cultivating networks which offer extensive access to top talent.

We can tap into “passive” candidates who may not be actively searching for new roles. As recruitment experts, we are skilled at positioning businesses to the right candidates by offering help with social media marketing, job description writing, and interview setting.

A recruitment partner gives your company the extra support to quickly track down the right talent and build a pipeline of available experts. They know where to look for talent and can help your business to appeal to every part of the workforce.

How to Choose the Right Recruiting Partner

A recruitment expert has the potential to save companies time, money, and headaches in the search for talent. However, the success of your new strategy will depend on your ability to choose the most suitable company for your business. Here’s how to get started.

1. Look at Their Brand Presence

Branding and online presence are growing increasingly important to the recruitment landscape. Countless candidates check a company’s “employer brand” before deciding whether to work for them. They’re also increasingly active on digital channels when searching for jobs. Around 90% of candidates now use social media in their job search.

To ensure you can adhere to the changing recruitment landscape, you’ll need a recruitment partner with an excellent image and strong online presence. After all, if the company fails to market itself effectively online, they may also struggle to promote your vacancies.

Search for active social media pages across LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. It’s also worth looking at how frequently your recruitment team shares thought leadership content and blog posts to support their sector.

2. Prioritise Industry Experience

Every industry has its specific nuances to consider when it comes to recruitment. People in the technology landscape are looking for different things from their employers than those in the engineering space. These groups have different messaging, unique priorities, and different expectations. As such, finding a recruitment partner who knows your space is important.

An expert recruitment partner will understand your landscape and the kind of candidates you’re trying to reach perfectly. They’ll know how to position your job descriptions, what types of copy and content to use to attract employees, and even where to look for passive candidates.

A recruiter with a good knowledge of your sector will also be able to match a specific individual’s skills more easily to the goals and requirements of the role in question.

3. Explore Recruitment Service Options

Different recruitment partners can offer different kinds of services to their clients. Some work on specifically filling roles as they emerge in the company, while others fill talent pipelines with various candidates. This may even involve reaching out to the 70% of candidates who aren’t actively searching for a new job when you’re hiring.

Various recruitment partners can also offer different levels of assistance with the recruitment process. Some can help with writing job descriptions and social media posts, so you can improve your chances of reaching the correct audience with the right language. They may also be able to offer help with your interview and shortlisting process.

The level of assistance you need and the extent of the service you’re looking for will help you to determine which partner is right for you.

4. Check Case Studies and Testimonials

Reviews and testimonials are an excellent way to get a behind-the-scenes look at the kind of support you can expect from your recruitment partner. Your chosen company should have a website to showcase case studies and details about previous client interactions.

Look through the messages left by other companies, and find out as much as you can about how happy they were with the speed, accuracy, and guidance offered by the recruitment team. Aside from checking the company’s website, you can also look in other online environments for additional business comments.

A recruitment company’s social media pages can be a good place to look for quick messages from happy clients or posts showcasing recent reviews.

5. Speak to the Company First

Finally, once you have a shortlist of the recruitment partners you might want to work with, it’s worth reaching out and arranging a time to talk. A conversation with your recruitment partner can help you to answer a lot of questions you might have about their service, how much support they can give, and how they’re going to communicate with you in future.

Speaking to the recruitment experts also allows you to test their knowledge and expertise and build a rapport for future interactions. A good recruitment company should be ready and willing to arrange a meeting with the stakeholders in your time where you can discuss all of your concerns. Depending on their location, they may offer various forms of communication, such as video conferencing, calling on the phone, or face-to-face meetings.

Whether you already have an internal team responsible for hiring, or you outsource this to sector or regional specialists, using the services of a reputable recruiter can add a huge amount of value to your hiring strategy. Finding a partner that can act as an extension to your own business and is flexible and adaptable in their approach is key.

Ultimately, in our 30-year experience, the clients we speak to are looking for four things – speed, a reduced workload, personalised relationships and ultimately, results.

And, although time is a precious commodity (seemingly now more than ever), doing your due diligence in selecting and identifying an agency you can trust to deliver is time well spent in the long run.

About Clayton Recruitment

Clayton Recruitment has been partnering with organisations across the country since 1989 and during that time has built up an excellent reputation for trust and reliability.

With specialist fivisions covering Commercial, Financial, and Engineering appointments, on a permanent basis.

Click here to speak to one of our experienced specialists or call 01772 259121 for more information on how our exceptional recruitment experience can help your career aspirations.

As a business, one of the main challenges you’re likely to face is finding the employees that can help you grow. And to do that effectively you need to work with a recruitment consultancy. But with so many firms in the market, each offering to ‘revolutionise your people strategy’ or ‘find the talent that can make a difference’, what should you be actually be looking for when selecting a hiring partner?

• A sector expert. You don’t want to waste your time outlining the hiring issues in your specific sector or what skills your ideal employee would have, you want an organisation that already knows what a good employee looks like and where to find them. A good way to gauge the level of expertise of a recruiter is to check their blog or social media channels. If they’ve been regularly commenting on the hot issues within the sector, then it’s likely they know what they’re talking about. Alternatively you could just pick up the phone and ask a few questions to the firm’s employees which should also allow you to ascertain their knowledge levels. 
• A trusted advisor. There are far too many organisations that will simply nod their heads and say what they think you want to hear in order to secure payment. But the better firms will operate as a partner rather than just a supplier and won’t just say yes to everything. They’re also likely to take a real interest in finding out more about the culture of your firm and what makes it tick in order to find the best possible fit. 
• A deep and detailed hiring process. Before committing to an agency, find out what its hiring process is, what they test, how they test for it and generally how stringent they are when reviewing potential hires. The best organisations will do everything they can to assess not just an individual’s ability to carry out their role, but also crucially how likely they are to stay with the job, rather than leaving after a short period of time and forcing you to restart the entire process all over again. 
• A good reputation. This one may seem obvious but there is no excuse for not carrying out full and careful research on any organisation that you’re potentially going to work with. Have previous clients left glowing reports praising the agency? If not, why not? The best firms are likely to have at least some testimonials or sound bites reporting the positive feedback they’ve received from successful projects and if you can’t find any, you should begin to ask questions. 
• Accredited. It may not have immediately leapt to the forefront of your mind but choosing an agency that’s a member of a trade body can make a huge difference. For one thing you’ll have a point of contact that you can complain to should the relationship turn sour, or if the firm acts in an unethical or unprofessional way. It’s essentially a guarantee that the firm will do things in the right way. Similarly, find out whether the business believes in professional qualifications and developing the skill sets of its own staff. Qualified consultants will possess expert knowledge on the legal, ethical and professional issues in your specific sector and will therefore be in a much better position to work with you.

What factors do you think firms should identify in a recruitment partner? Let us know your thoughts below.

Read our tips to getting the best from your recruitment provider or call the office on 01772 259121 to speak to one of our experts. To Register a Vacancy online, click here.