By Staff Contributor

Recruitment is handled by the company’s human resource department.  They are tasked with handling job recruitment either by their own efforts or through utilizing recruitment agencies.  Whether the company is a small business or a big conglomerate, the decision to utilize the services of job recruitment agencies must be based on their needs.

The recruitment industry is big business.  Different recruitment agencies specialize in different types of job positions.  Some specifically handle temping jobs, others offer high level career recruitment and some can provide applicants for any and all levels of an organization.  Depending on the type of job recruitment agency, their clients can be both the company looking to hire and individuals looking to be hired.

The key in hiring a job recruitment agency is finding the one who can find you the best people for your company.  To utilize job recruitment agencies to your advantage:

  1. Define your needs.  Are you looking for temps to perform office work? Does your company have specific requirements in terms of junior recruitment for middle management positions?  Present the agency with clearly defined job descriptions for the positions you are hiring for.
  2. Find an agency.  You can find a recruitment agency on the web, the phone book or through referrals of colleagues or from the association of human resource practitioners.  One advantage of referred agencies is that you can find out if the person or company referring the agency was satisfied with the service.  With agencies you find on the web or other sources, you will need to investigate more thoroughly.
  3. Check their track record.  Ask the agency for companies that they service.  Find out from other human resource practitioners what their experience is with the agency.  Look for online comments and reviews as well.
  4. Check if the agency is a member of a professional organization.  To ensure that you are hiring a professional company, ask if the agency is a member of an industry body.  Members are governed by specific rules of their professional organization.
  5. Ask what their mission and vision is.   This is important to know if you plan to partner with a recruitment company for a long time.  You should have aligned policies when it comes to recruitment.
  6. Find out how they screen applicants.  You will be paying for the services of the recruitment agency, so most of the grunt work should be done by them.  When you are given a list of candidates, it is assumed that the list has been verified, references have been checked, and more importantly, the candidates are right for the position.  The short list of people they submit should be right and ripe for the job.
  7. Talk to their staff.  As a recruitment agency, their staff should be professional and highly qualified.  You can gauge their hiring standards based on their own people.  Their staff should be knowledgeable in employment laws as well as legal and ethical issues.  They should ask you specific questions that can help them in looking for the best people for your company.

Hiring the right agency to do job recruitment for your company can help find the best people you need.  Highly professional recruitment firms are adept at filling the human resource requirements of an organization.  The key is finding the right agency to serve as your partner in hiring the best personnel to further your business.  Once you find the right agency, you can utilize them to your advantage whenever there is a job opening in your company.  This will help your human resource department channel their resources and efforts on more important activities related to personnel management.