Why do we need recruitment agencies during recession?

mr.interested

So, Why? By all means recruitment agencies play an important role when a country is expanding, because of the lack of the workforce. But what is the rationale of having them during the recession? Surely, if a company needs employees, why should they pay for agencies' service, when they can do the job on their own? After all, when a country has a huge unemployment, it can't be so difficult to find a right employee. Are companies not better off investing in on-line screening system rather than paying more for the service of the agencies?

So, what's your opinion?

kippy

Most of them are nonsense and always have been, even during the boom.
However companies tend to use them because they filter (or are supposed t0) filter all the excess CV's and ****e that take an extra person or two in HR ages to do in the company, saving the company resources.

I've never seen the actual need for them however, most I have dealt with would sit right up there with estate agents in my estimation, with the rare occasion that I have dealt with one that was very good at her job.

mr.interested

Well, I'm not saying that they are NOT good at their job (this would be a separate topic), but IMHO it would be more effective for the company to find employees on their own. But then again in perhaps depends on the level of the position being advertised.

axer

It is and always will be extremely difficult to get good employees.

Welease

Because most of the tasks involved in hiring an employee are not value add to a company..

If I want someone in a sales role, I don't want to have to take one of my sales guys away from customers to sit through 1000's of CV's.. then contact each suitable person, arrange times for interviews, handle all the calls etc.. that would be time spent not making money, and can take weeks..

Far more effective to pay a good agency to present the top 4-5 candidates for me to interview in a day... Good agencies will get repeat business.

testicle

To weed out the thousands of extra applicants you get these days.

Cases in point - 13000 applied for 700 temp jobs in Argos recently.

Denerick

I find the entire principle to be strange. They hire quite a lot of young people who generally have little experience of the professional world. Then they have the audacity of having someone in their early 20s with minimal experience arranging an interview for someone in their 50s with decades of high quality professional experience.

There is some use to the industry, but not much.

axer

Denerick wrote: »

Then they have the audacity of having someone in their early 20s with minimal experience arranging an interview for someone in their 50s with decades of high quality professional experience.

There is some use to the industry, but not much.

Don't see the issue here. It is very easy to spot people that are useless and just wasting time. The lesser experienced are generally put on the front line.

dan_d

I have honestly got no idea.

Particularly when so many companies, offering the so-called professional jobs don't use them - they specifically put "no recruitment agencies need apply" on their job ads.

I don't have a notion what they do, especially now, or how they're still in business. Particularly since I've been in touch with 3 recently, been told to send in my CV and not heard a word since.

Denerick

axer wrote: »

Don't see the issue here. It is very easy to spot people that are useless and just wasting time. The lesser experienced are generally put on the front line.

I'll be frank. I've had two offers from recruitment companies for work. I turned both down. On both occasions the companies entered into the 'why would you make a great consultant' and 'what qualities do you think you could bring to the team'.

This is an industry that values utter bullshít, self promotion and other shameless nonsense such as exaggerating your talents and ambitions. It is an industry that rests on reciprocal deception and embellishment. I fail to see how someone in their early 20s knows better than someone in their 50s looking to find work in IT with 30 years experience in the field.

Eoin

mr.interested wrote: »

Well, I'm not saying that they are NOT good at their job (this would be a separate topic), but IMHO it would be more effective for the company to find employees on their own. But then again in perhaps depends on the level of the position being advertised.

As kippy and testicle said, they can save a company a huge amount of time, especially because of the recession - not despite it. The last two agencies that secured me a job offer managed a lot of the process, including reference checks etc.

They might also have people on their books who are not actively looking at job adverts but might be interested in moving if they're contacted.

Denerick wrote:

I fail to see how someone in their early 20s knows better than someone in their 50s looking to find work in IT with 30 years experience in the field.

Not that all recruitment agents are fresh faced cherubs with zero work experience, but even if they are far younger than some applicants, it does not mean that they don't know more about the current market. I've met plenty of IT people who are very experienced, but are a bit clueless when it comes to recruitment and marketing themselves.

You're in your early 20's as well, right? I'm sure you would consider that you have some knowledge of your industry that you could talk about with some authority?

MysticalRain

I really can't see the point of using recruitment agencies anymore. My current employer manages just fine without them, as do many other companies these days. I think the idea that a young twentysomething recruitment agent can know as much about an employer's business as they do, and match people to their needs is ridiculous.

I do think recruitment agencies could be of some benefit if the industry was a lot more regulated. There is too much unscrupulous behavior and boneheaded idiocy from agencies to make them worthwhile these days. The fake jobs problem alone means they are no longer worth the effort in my case. Plus I'm contacted every couple of months on LinkedIn by a certain agency in Dublin despite the fact that I haven't updated my profile since 2007, and it says I am no longer living in Ireland. Hopefully LinkedIn and Facebook will kill off a lot of agencies.

the_barfly1

A lot of construction firms are also using recruitment agencies at the moment to hire staff on temporary contracts- so the agency actually pays the staff's wages.
A lot of these contracts can easily run for quite a long time, but the companies have the freedom to drop the staff at a moments notice.

kippy

the_barfly1 wrote: »

A lot of construction firms are also using recruitment agencies at the moment to hire staff on temporary contracts- so the agency actually pays the staff's wages.
A lot of these contracts can easily run for quite a long time, but the companies have the freedom to drop the staff at a moments notice.

Not only construction firms.
Companies like HP and many other massive multinationals have been doing the same for years.
The only ones that really lose out are the workers while the agencies make massive money from their skills.

Sardonicat

I wonder why a company would trust recruitment agencies if they took a proper look at how they present vacancies on the various websites. Poorly spelled, appalling grammer etc. If you can't compose a job spec how can you be capable of screening potential candidates for the job?

I keep getting an email from an agency with a vacancy for a NC doctor's position. Apparently, it fits my "profile" which is weird considering I have never studied medicine! I don't think that those clever folks in the agency actually know what an SHO is. Have been getting the email for three months now.