If you’re using more than one agency at the same time to recruit someone into your team, there can be negative consequences.
Here are five things you might not be aware of that can impact you.
Quality control
Thorough candidate assessments take time. Understanding your brief, your culture, the selling points of your job all take time too. Time you take away from recruiters if you turn your process into a CV race. So, if you do use multiple agencies at the same time, expect to have to filter through more CVs of varying relevance yourself. There are just no shortcuts for this. We all know that quality demands time – recruitment is no different.
Your Time
Do you really want to be having the same conversations, multiple times with different agencies? Briefing calls, answering questions, candidate feedback, updates. Do you even have time for that given that you’re probably already one team member down? Seriously, are you actually clear on the benefit to you in return for all this extra time you have to invest?
Coverage vs. Engagement
Every recruiter now has access to more or less everyone, thanks to social media. So the quality and number of candidates in your shortlist is now down to your recruiter’s ability to write credible adverts that really engage people. It’s no longer about how many agencies you use. The whole ‘coverage’ argument is just a hangover from long ago when people were much harder to get hold of. Times have changed.
Value
Most recruiters will offer discounts in return for exclusivity, because they can bank on filling the job. You may think using two agencies means you have more negotiating power, but don’t kid yourself that low rates and a 50% chance of filling the job means you’ll be either agencies priority compared with the other jobs they are recruiting for, with full commitment from their client.
Candidate experience
All of these points make for a pretty poor candidate experience because it reduces everything to a big mad rush. With multiple agencies involved, the focus often shifts to speed over quality and there is potential for miscommunication with candidates receiving mixed messages from different consultants. It’s your responsibility to craft a recruitment process that takes care of the people you engage with, giving candidates the best impression of your company right from the start.
So, when it comes to recruitment agencies, less is more. You’ll get much better results by using only one agency per job role that you are recruiting for.
Remember you can always use another agency afterwards if the first one doesn’t deliver, but make sure you check out this video on how to pick a recruitment agency to make sure you won’t have to.
