So you’ve decided to work with an agency to get an interim in, but who should you choose to work with?
It’s a tricky decision and one that, hopefully, this blog will help you make. Recruitment is a very competitive market and, according to Venturi, there are currently over 27,700 agencies in the UK. In theory, all you need to set up your own recruitment agency is a phone and a LinkedIn profile. How do you choose who to work with?
Agency recruitment isn’t a black and white process and ultimately it will be subjective to the agency you work with. Everyone works in their own ways and there are pros and cons to all of them. But how do you know which is best for you and your needs? There are a few different types recruitment agencies out there that can be broken down like this;
Large Generalist Agencies
The large generalist agencies tend to be the PLC type household names. A number of consultants, myself included, started their careers there and they definitely have a place in the market. They have hundreds if not thousands of consultants across the country with their own niche area of speciality normally broken down by regional geography. They have a large database of candidates and this is their main selling point (I still remember the old stat I was given that we had 1 in 8 of the UK workforce on our database). So, if working with one, you, in theory, get a large pool of candidates that they can send you. However, there are potential cons to this. With how these agencies break down their areas of specialisation or “desks” as they are referred to in the industry, sometimes it can be luck of the draw on the consultant you get managing the role. You might get an industry veteran with 20 years of experience in that market or you might get a trainee 3 months into their career. Furthermore, there’s internal politicking at play that might affect the standard of candidate that you get. The way these agencies tend to work is with a candidate ownership model. If I registered a candidate and sent them to a role that my colleague was working on, I can claim 50% of the fee (and ultimately commission). There are consultants that work for these agencies that would refuse to send the best candidate for the role because they would have to split the commission. This didn’t happen 100% of the time, but, as I alluded to above, it’s complete luck of the draw who you actually get working on your role.
Project Management Agencies
A bit of a new trend with recruiters are the project management type agencies. Using a model similar to Accenture or other professional services/management consulting firms, the agency will charge a monthly or overall project fee and then manage resources around it. For example, if you wanted to complete a system implementation project, you would engage one of these agencies who would install the project/programme manager and they would manage the project for you within guidelines agreed at the beginning. A number of the contractors would be deemed as out of scope of IR35 so you, as the end client, would have significantly less control or day to day insight into what’s going on outside of the project plan. This would suit large scale projects where you don’t necessarily have the specific insight/technical expertise/knowledge within your organisation already.
Transactional Agencies
With transactional agencies, it’s almost a numbers game. I know most of my clients have worked with them and sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. Working with these agencies, you can give a minimal brief and they will send you 5-6 CVs and sometimes, continuously send CVs until the role is filled. Sometimes the right candidate is in the first batch and sometimes it takes 20 CVs. The onus is on the end client for picking the profile type they want to move forward with. It saves some time in finding initial profiles but can potentially add more time sifting through CVs or speaking to the wrong candidates. This approach might be useful if you don’t know exactly what you’re looking for or have absolutely no time to go through an extensive briefing process but it can feel like half the job you engaged them for.
Recruitment Partner Agencies
Now, this tends to be the sweet spot for recruitment. Agencies that work in this way tend to be highly experienced industry veterans with extensive market knowledge. They will partner companies during the recruitment process and make sure that the right person and product is found. It can be time intensive with briefings and questioning and slightly more expensive but will 9 times out of 10 find the perfect candidate for you. However, they will partner with you personally throughout your career at different companies to know what you’re looking for but will also get to know each individual business that they work with to get the right fit. Onboarding one of these agencies can be time consuming but once done, it will be worthwhile. Again, however, sometimes it’s consultant specific and end clients tend to follow the consultant they have a relationship with as opposed to having any brand loyalty.
CV Portal Agencies
These agencies will give you access to their database which is essentially a CV/job board and then send CVs that match a brief. It’s the cheapest type of agency and can be cost effective but can also be a bit of a waste of time as they don’t normally have as extensive a compliance process as others on this list. It can work, but use them with caution.
Savant is a Recruitment Partner Agency with extensive industry knowledge and experience in the finance and tech market. For a confidential conversation about your potential interim needs or if you’re an interim candidate, please feel free to get in touch to see if we can work together in future.
