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of enterprise businesses say they currently lack candidates with the right skills and expertise for critical projects and initiatives.

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The Pros & Cons Of Using A Recruitment Agency

If you need to hire new talent, you’ve probably considered contacting a recruitment agency. After all, managing the entire hiring process in-house can be a lot. And many ambitious organizations grow faster than their internal talent team can keep up with — if they have one at all. 

Working with a recruitment agency can give you access to a huge number of candidates, quickly. It can save your internal team time and resources, and make it much easier to find candidates for those niche or hard-to-fill positions. 

But there are some downsides to working with a recruitment agency too. Most notably, they’re expensive. And while this investment can sometimes be worth it in the long run, there’s also no guarantee that the candidates they send your way will work out. 

All of this leads to a question: are recruitment agencies worth it? Read on to learn about the pros and cons of using a recruitment agency so that you can make the right choice for your organization.

4 Advantages Of Working With A Recruitment Agency

1. You get access to a wider pool of candidates

Recruitment agencies build up extensive networks of potential candidates, which means there’s a good chance they can find the right person for you. Crucially, they’re also able to reach out to passive candidates — those people who would be open to a change, but who are not (yet) actively looking for a new job.

Because these candidates are unlikely to be browsing job ads, working with a recruitment agency might be the only way you can get your offer in front of them. And, according to LinkedIn, these candidates make up 70% of the global workforce — that’s a lot of talent to be missing out on.

2. Recruiters bring market knowledge and expertise

Hiring for technical or niche roles when you don’t come from the same professional background can be a struggle. In certain fields, the skills, qualifications and knowledge that are needed for a role change frequently, and it can be hard for industry outsiders to keep up. 

Recruitment agencies typically specialize in one or more industries or job markets, which means that recruiters have extensive knowledge of the field and understand the skills and qualifications that are needed. This makes it much easier to find appropriate candidates for hard-to-fill roles.

3. There’s less pressure on your internal resources

Putting together a full hiring campaign internally takes time and money. And depending on the size of your organization, you might simply not have the resources to pull it off. You could hire internal recruiters, of course — but that takes time too. And if you’re a fast-growing business, you probably need to onboard new talent now. 

Using a recruitment agency can help you to save time and resources by sourcing, screening, and interviewing candidates on your behalf. They’ll only send you the candidates that they think could be a good fit for your organization, saving you hours in admin time.

4. Recruitment agencies can give you a faster time to hire

A big part of a recruiter’s role is building up an extensive professional network that they can pull from to fill open roles. That means that when you reach out to a recruitment agency, they might already know the person you need. 

Recruitment agencies are also adept at carrying out their assessment and selection processes quickly and efficiently. This means that a recruitment agency could be a good choice if you need to make a hire in a hurry or hire a high volume of candidates in a short period.

5 Reasons A Recruitment Agency
Might Not Be The Right Choice

1. Recruitment agencies can be costly

One of the biggest downsides of working with a recruitment agency is that it can cost a lot. Different agencies use different pricing models, but their fees are generally based on a percentage of the new hire’s annual salary, which can be anything from 15 to 30%. This can add up to a significant bill, especially if you’re hiring for high-level positions. It’s important to carefully consider whether the investment will be worth it.

2. You might lose control over your process

When you work with a recruitment agency, they take a large part of the hiring process off your plate. This can be a big advantage, as it reduces the time you need to spend screening applications and assessing candidates.

However, it can also be a disadvantage because it means you lose a certain amount of control over the process. Because recruitment agencies don’t pass on every candidate that applies for each role, some hiring managers worry that qualified candidates might be slipping through the cracks, especially if the agency is using an ATS to screen applicants.

3. Communication issues can cause delays and misunderstandings

Recruitment agencies are by definition operating from outside of your organization, which can make communication a struggle. Misunderstandings about your exact needs can result in delays and wasted time. It could even put off potential candidates by making it seem like you don’t know what you’re looking for.

4. The quality of the candidates you receive can be inconsistent

While recruitment agencies usually have large pools of candidates to pull from, they’re not always able to find candidates who meet your specific needs. There are many things at play here: it’s not just about finding someone with the right qualifications and experience.

For example, because recruiters are not embedded within your organization, they might not fully understand your internal culture. This means they may send you candidates who are not a good cultural fit, which can cause delays in the process. In the worst cases, you might end up having to go through multiple rounds of interviews without finding anyone suitable.

5. You might hurt your candidate experience

Because recruiters are usually paid on commission, they’re incentivized to fill roles quickly. While this can be a benefit for you, it can also lead certain recruiters to rush the process of sending you CVs before they’ve fully understood the roles or the candidate’s needs.

Candidates in this situation might feel pressured into a job application they don’t feel qualified for, or unprepared for an interview. They may even end up feeling misled if they meet you and find out the actual job requirements don’t match what they’ve been told.

All in all, this can result in a poor candidate experience, which can impact your hiring goals: 49% of people have turned down a job offer because of a bad recruiting experience. Plus, according to one study, almost 70% of candidates are likely to share a bad hiring experience with their friends and network. This means that this can not only affect your chances with candidates now, but it could be detrimental to your employer brand in the long run too.


Still Not Sure If A Recruitment
Agency Is The Right Choice?

If you’re still debating whether to work with a recruitment agency or try to manage things in-house, there is another option — Talentful. 

Here’s the low-down: we’re not a recruitment agency. And we’re not your in-house team either — although it might start to feel like we are. We call our model “embedded recruitment”, because we fully embed ourselves into our clients’ teams, and work from within their organizations. 

That means that when you work with us, we’re able to gain a deep understanding of your specific culture, mission, and hiring needs, and provide tailored solutions that help you to scale efficiently and effectively. 

Our recruiters are all experienced in either in-house or agency recruitment (or both), and many are specialized in specific industries or job types. That means they can bring you the expertise you need to find the right people for your business. 

We operate via a transparent monthly subscription model, with no hidden costs or extra fees, because we believe that this is the best way to build productive, long-term relationships with our clients. 

And the best part? We’ve specifically designed our solutions to be flexible, which means you can scale and contract your talent team in line with your hiring needs. 

Find out more about how our flexible and scalable embedded model works today. 


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