When it comes to filling vacancies in your organisation, many business leaders lean on external recruitment agencies for support – if they don’t have an internal department, that is. 

There are, of course, benefits to this approach, including having someone else conduct the time-draining task of sifting through an abundance of CVs, being able to tap into an existing book of candidates (although in the current candidate-short market, great candidates aren’t just sitting in databases) and, in some cases, filling roles faster than if done in-house.   

However, if your goal is to hire individuals who are a perfect mix of the right personality fit, thrive in your workplace culture and stay with you for a long time (along with having the relevant skills to do the job well!), looking to an agency might not be the best solution. 

In this article, we explore the view and reasons why recruitment agencies can’t possibly grasp a deep enough understanding to do an effective job in finding and securing the best people for your teams, compared to an in-house recruitment partner. Not because agencies lack effort or intelligence – but simply because their operating model won’t enable them to. 

Truly understanding an organisation takes time that recruitment agencies don’t have 

It’s no secret that most agencies are optimised for volume, speed and placements – not immersion within the clients they’re recruiting on behalf of. And in larger agencies, their recruiters can often be juggling 15-20 roles across multiple industries at one time, which leaves little time in their schedule to gain a deep understanding of each client. 

To gather the insights required to make the most impactful hires, individuals tasked with your people acquisition should have: 

• Exposure to leadership thinking – including any future business plans, such as organisational structure or priority changes. 

• Context around culture and strategy, so they can pick up on the personality traits that indicate a candidate would be a good cultural fit (which is just as important as skills and experience if you want high-performing teams). 

• Time to observe patterns, not just job briefs. Patterns that can help inform successful future hires include things like who leaves within six months and why, which skills you thought were critical but weren’t so important in reality, and which ‘nice-to-haves’ turned out to be deal-breakers.

Although this isn’t always the case, most recruitment agency models don’t provide the time to access this level of focus and insight required. 

Agencies react to roles, while in-house partners anticipate needs 

Typically, recruitment agencies hire for roles that have already been created, essentially once a vacancy exists. As a result, this reinforces a reactive mindset with them responding to requests to “fill this role” or “find someone like the last person”. They also tend to work off information provided to them through pre-determined job descriptions and previous placements. 

This approach captures what you think you need, but not why you need it. Proactive in-house recruitment partners will have that existing understanding of where the organisation is heading in terms of growth, and what skills will be required next, enabling them to assist in strategically shaping future vacancies to achieve organisational goals. And sometimes, this will be different from what was first thought to be needed. 

Incentives drive behaviours, and understanding is not incentivised 

Referring to a point made earlier about speed and volume, agency success metrics tend to include the number of placements, speed to shortlist and revenue per recruiter. 

These metrics are often incentivised through rewards schemes or bonuses, along with the typical commission structure per placement. Plus, agency recruiters typically only need to fill two or three roles per month to hit their target if it’s set at a certain value, meaning they will likely prioritise a smaller number of easy-to-fill vacancies. 

None of these targets rewards the activities that matter most when it comes to gaining deep business and culture understanding, such as investing in long-term fit (which could sometimes mean advising against a hire). 

Striving for long-term recruitment success is one way to achieve powerful and productive teams, but sometimes, this can slow things down slightly – and in agency life, slowdown is penalised. 

High client turnover prevents consistency and knowledge sharing 

Due to the size and nature of most agencies, many find themselves frequently rotating account managers, losing recruiters to attrition, or reassigning roles following high client turnover or internal changes. 

As a result, context and overall client knowledge can be lost easily. This leaves new engagements and assignments starting from scratch, and unable to utilise past learnings from previous placements to make better, more informed hiring decisions in the future. 

In addition, many recruitment agencies specialise in a particular sector or type of role. This can mean that if you’re looking to hire a marketing or sales manager, you’ll be dealing with one agency, but if you’re also looking to fill a tech vacancy, you could be having to deal with two different companies. 

So, what’s the alternative to using recruitment agencies? 

If your goal is to secure candidates who can not only do the job well, but also gel with your existing team, fit within your wider business as if they have been there for years, and ultimately help drive organisational success through high-flying performance and productivity, you might want to explore alternative recruitment support. 

Consider engaging a talent acquisition partner that acts exactly as an in-house recruitment team would, but without the high overheads and responsibility of employing an internal team yourself. 

When you partner with Omny for any of our HR solutions, you automatically gain access to our exclusive, in-house recruitment team. With a deep understanding of your organisation and culture – including your people policies, plans and strategies – our team of talent experts is armed to find you perfect-fit candidates across all your business areas. 

With major cost savings due to capped fees and gaining valuable time back from our team conducting all first-stage interviews, sourcing and CV reviews on your behalf, it’s an option worth trying. 

Find out more about our in-house recruitment service or get in touch with our team here.