Recently, I’ve been reflecting on the dynamic between Agency and In-House Recruitment, and what has changed over the past 10 years since I stepped into the world of recruitment. On the whole, I think the relationship has changed for the better. There has been a huge rise in the growth of internal recruiters in organisations, and combined with the growth of Social Media, AI and Robotics creating a more accessible market for businesses, it is much easier these days to attract talent directly.
The lazy stereotype would perhaps perceive this as agencies becoming redundant, but I would argue that it’s important more than ever for businesses to partner with the right recruitment agency to support them when they are constrained with time or the business just can’t find the right candidate.
I’ve witnessed huge growth in the demand for Procurement & Supply Chain professionals in the last 10 years, and that combined with a skills shortage in this sector has made an increasing need for recruitment agency usage as well as larger in-house recruitment teams. With experience as an in-house and agency recruiter myself, I know that when I see a vacancy online, I know that 99% of businesses initial approach till be to try and find talent directly. Why wouldn’t they? There’s no fee, and the extra work engaging with agencies is minimised.
The sign of a good in-house recruiter that I would happily partner with is how they engage with agencies when they do need support. This is where the old saying “be humble in victory and gracious in defeat” is relevant. What I have noticed is that for some organisations there is still an “us and them” mentality where the in-house recruitment team reluctantly reach out to an agency if they can’t fill a role. They will simply email a job spec and salary band across and strongly emphasise that there must be “absolutely no line manager contact at any time” … sound familiar?
Engaging with the business in order to sell an opportunity or the cultural is imperative for a recruiter to be able to fill a role successfully. How can you inform candidates of what the line manager is like, how many people work in that office, how Procurement / Supply Chain is perceived within the organisation or what the values of the business are if you can’t have that conversation with the business itself?
Agency recruiters are often unfairly stereotyped as ‘money hungry’, or just looking to throw as many candidates in as possible in the hope to ‘make a deal’. In most cases, and for recruiters who work with integrity, this is not true. We must continue to drive best practice and try and collaborate with internal recruiters so that we are seen as a help not a hindrance. Similarly, in-house recruiters are often seen as the ‘gate keepers’ trying to stop recruiters from filling jobs and again that is far from the truth!
In house recruiters must work alongside agency recruiters, giving them all the tools available to help fill the roles successfully.
In summary, agency recruiters and in-house recruiters need each other, and there should be no “us and them” mentality. We must work together to achieve the one end goal – finding the right candidate.
