Over the last 20 years of my recruitment career, I have seen a shift in how clients and candidates approach the vacancy market, but what has changed?
20 years ago, we used paper CV’s, faxes, Linked In was in its infancy and seldom used and searching for new clients was effectively using the equivalent of the Yellow Pages. Finding candidates was through paper or online adverts rather than job-boards and candidates sent their CV’s directly to the agency, rather than uploading to these same job-boards for many to access.
Fast-forward to today, with the use of AI, job-boards and a multitude of tools, finding and hiring the best talent is so much easier… isn’t it?
If hiring the best talent was as simple as matching a job description to a CV, there would be no issues in finding and taking on the very best talent in the industry and search agencies simply wouldn’t exist. But of course, we are dealing with people, with different motivators.
Knowing this, search agencies are the way in which businesses can find a quicker route to sourcing those candidates, taking out a lot of the legwork and expanding their own network.
So surely using multiple agencies is going to increase the footprint and therefore find the best candidates in the quickest time possible. Right? Let’s consider what happens when a role is given to multiple agencies.
- Typically, particularly in specialist roles or industries, the active candidate pool can be relatively limited. This means that those multiple agencies will all be ‘fishing in the same pond’ for candidates. What does this mean for the client? Well firstly those candidates may be contacted by more than one consultant, which makes them question the business – why do they need more than one person to search for the candidate? Do they not trust them? Are they desperate? There is also the added risk that indiscriminate candidates will say yes to the same role either unwittingly or in order to improve their perceived chance of success, so the client then has to deal with an ‘ownership’ situation. Who sent the CV first? Did the candidate really give permission to send the CV by two (or more) agencies? An HR nightmare. Is there a possibility of one agency missing a good candidate? Absolutely, depending on their skill and experience. But then why use an agency in which you don’t have that level of confidence.
- Should the role be discrete – for example, a new hire or replacement of an under-performing individual, the chances of the position remaining confidential, weakens, potentially jeopardising the integrity of the company.
- Search firms prioritise exclusive positions as there is a higher likelihood that their hard work will result in a placement, so conversely, if it’s a ‘bun-fight’ to get to the best candidates, the due diligence, interviewing and selection process may become less than adequate and take a back-seat to other, exclusive or retained searches.
- Consultancies are less likely to thoroughly search the inactive or passive job market as this is time-consuming and more challenging than finding active job-hunters. The best candidate for the job may be working in a position in which they are very happy and require significant convincing to move, so if the position is of enough importance or seniority to a business, then surely they would want to use every avenue possible to find that individual.
- As a business, you have to deal with multiple people, perhaps more than one in a particular agency and keep track of who is sending you which candidates, rebriefing the same position and effectively doubling or tripling your own work-load.
So does that mean multiple-agency search is always a bad thing? Not if the role is not so important to a business, or perhaps of less seniority – some candidates will demonstrate agency loyalty and only register with one (or more likely, one consultant with whom they have established a good relationship, so will follow them wherever they are), but they would be the exception rather than the rule.
So what do you think? As a hiring manager, would you prefer to spread the load or work with one trusted partner?
