The 5 Most Important Things in Achieving a Successful Relationship with a Recruitment Agency

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The goal of a recruiting agency is to serve as the recruiting extension of your existing Human Resources department as seamlessly as possible. Partnering with such an agency can be a powerful business move, but with so many players in the field, it can be tough to determine the right fit for your team. In this 5-part series, I am taking a deeper look into the 5 key factors that contribute to a successful relationship with a recruitment agency.



1) Selecting the Right One
Before bringing an outside agency into your organisation, take care to thoroughly think through your hiring needs. Every business is different and accordingly, there are a wide range of recruitment agencies available to accommodate the unique hiring needs from various sectors. At Purple House HR, we specialise in recruiting Human Resources professionals which has allowed us to guatemala phone number resource become experts in our field and put our expertise to work for our clients. Agencies that specialise in other fields take this approach for the same reason. The benefits of narrowing your focus on agencies that specialise in the area that you’re looking to hire means that the agency not only understands the role you want to fill, but they also understand the market and how to leverage it for recruiting success.


When selecting and evaluating an agency, consider the challenges and successes of your hiring efforts thus far. Are there any markets or areas that you struggle to find quality candidates in? Or, are you drowning in a sea of applicants, of which only a few are qualified for the position? Are there any recruiting initiatives that you would like to start, but do not know where to begin? Identifying what your department needs is the first step. From there, you can begin to narrow your focus into finding the best agency for your company.



2) Briefing on Role Requirements and Internal Staff Agreement
A successful agency-client relationship is anchored in clarity, communication and collaboration. For success, you must establish a clear understanding of the role requirements, recruiting process, and timeframe for each position. Part of this is identifying the requisitions, or job orders, that could benefit from an agency’s expertise and additional resources more so than others that you may not have challenges with. It is important that all necessary internal parties agree on the process, timeframes and any related protocols before moving forward with an agency. Typically, your HR generalist and hiring manager for the area would be the main points of contact for the agency’s account manager.



Establish an agreed plan for communicating a job order to the agency as well as expected follow-up and procedure. Would you like the agency to send CVs directly to the hiring manger or do you only want to see candidates who have been pre-qualified via a phone screen with questions that your department pre-approves? When you place a new job order, how would you like to brief the agency’s recruiters on the position? A helpful practice is to hold intake meetings during which the hiring manager would discuss their department’s current need and provide any other insight they have into the candidate profile they are looking for. In these meetings, recruiters will be able to make any suggestions they think would be beneficial based on the conversation as well as ask the hiring manager questions that will help them better understand your company’s candidate market (e.g. local competition, current recruiting challenges).