Recruitment Agencies: A Transparent Guide

Research has shown that 59% of businesses use recruitment agencies, but there is still so much stigma to be erased around the recruitment industry. Due to recruitment being renowned for being fairly non-transparent and lacking certain values, it seems to have made many of us untrustful when it comes to working with recruitment agencies, whether it be as a client or a candidate.

But, that’s not the only reason why people are cautious when it comes to recruitment agencies. There are between 30,000 and 40,000 recruitment agencies in the UK, yet thousands of people are unaware of what they do and how they work, meaning they are unlikely to want to work with one. 

So, in this blog we are going to educate you with all things recruitment. We will cover the 3 most asked questions in the UK right now:

1.    What is a recruitment agency?

2.    What do they do?

3.    How do they make money?

So let’s get started!

1.    What is a recruitment agency?

A recruitment agency is an external company that a business can use to find them new staff. Recruitment agencies normally have a wide range of resources that help them to fit the best candidates to a business. Employers will often outsource their recruitment as finding candidates can be time consuming and difficult without the right expertise.

 

2.    What do they do?

Recruitment agencies normally have a large pool of candidates and great resources which makes fitting the right candidates to a business a lot easier. Normally, a business will approach a recruiter and ask them to provide help with a role they currently have available. Quite often the business would already have a brief job description or a good idea of what one would include for their role. This is then passed onto the recruiter, where the recruiter will reformat it and advertise it (normally without the businesses name to stop people going directly to the business and missing out the recruiter). They’ll then assess the applications that come in, as CV search, headhunt and vet candidates’ suitability for the role. 

They will then pass over the candidates to the employer for them to then decide whether they’d like to see them for an interview or not. Some recruiters do conduct interviews themselves, however this doesn’t happen often. The employer will then interview the candidates and either make an offer or ask the recruiter to carry on looking for candidates due to that one not being suitable.

3.    How do they make money?

Many recruitment agencies, specifically permanent, make money by setting a fee. This fee will be declared to the business using the recruiter at the start of their discussions. The fee is normally a set percentage of the successful candidates annual salary and many agencies (such as Lighthouse Personnel) operate on a ‘no win, no fee’ basis. This means that if the agency doesn’t fill the role, there is no fee charged to the client, even though they’ve been putting in the work. However, some recruiters will operate on a retainer basis, where they ask for a percentage of money upfront before putting in the work to fill a role.

Candidates do not pay anything when working with a recruitment agency, it is the business that is using the recruiter that will pay the fee. 

So, there you have it, your recruitment questions have been answered (hopefully!). Transparency is a huge part of our culture here at LHP, however it isn’t always at the forefront of every recruitment agency. We’d highly recommend researching any recruitment agency you are considering using (as a client, or a candidate!), before using them. Chose an agency that has your businesses best interests at heart and takes the time to properly take into account what you’re looking for.

 

By Gracie Kidd – Lighthouse Personnel