10 Things To Look For When Choosing A Recruitment Agency

Recruiters not knowing their clients on first meeting


This is an unforgivable ‘sin’ for a recruiter to commit. To go into a meeting with a new client without knowing key elements at a minimum about their business has to be a non-starter. It is simply an elementary requirement to have conducted research on your potential client’s business before going to meet with them. It would be showing you disrespect if no research has been carried out and you should not hire them on this basis.



Recruiters promising you everything and then immediately not delivering


The signs will be there early on. If you notice inefficiencies and broken promises about call-backs or information not arriving right from the start, then that pattern will be repeated and only get worse. Get rid of them straight away and move on. There are recruitment companies all over the UK offering services they then fail to provide whatever the reasons for it be. But there are many good ones too – just look for the obvious signs!



Your email inbox get overloaded with irrelevant candidates


You’ve left it in your recruiter’s capable hands, or so you thought, but then notice many candidates coming through quickly but they are of no use and wasting your time. This is a sure sign that your recruiters has not understood your requirements and not taken the time to filter or sift through the CVs themselves. This will not save you any time and cause much frustration. Bin them and move on to a recruitment agency that does the job properly and who sends you only quality pre-vetted candidates.



Recruiters sending poorly edited/formatted CV’s


Your recruiter should know very well how frustrating it is to receive a poorly edited or formatted worker profiles or CVs so it’s unforgivable to then as a professional recruiter to put you their client through the same frustration. CVs should have been proof read and filtered before only suitable ones are passed on to you.



Poorly prepped candidates


You’ve given your job to your chosen agency. Profiles of workers or CV’s have come through and you have a day of interviews or inductions even booked for what on the face of it looks like some very good candidates. However, they turn up knowing little or nothing about the job, know nothing about your building project or company and their qualifications do not match. Your agency should have briefed your candidates with as much information as they can about the job and also given them a preliminary health and safety briefings – as well as ensuring they have the rights cards and qualifications for the role. They should further be ensuring that you carry out an induction process and an on-site health and safety briefing prior to any work starting. These are all signs of a quality recruitment agency.



Candidate ‘No-shows’


All seems to be going well but on your pre-arranged day for interviews or inductions, which may have even involved travel to another location for you, you find that most of your candidates failed to show up! This is a certain sign that your agency is weak in dealing with candidates and in sorting out the ‘wheat from the chaff’. They have not been thorough in questioning their candidates, checking their motivations and may also not have been in constant communication with them throughout the process. Had they been, they would have known that their candidates were ‘flakey’ in their responses and likely to let you down.



Your Recruitment Agency is not listening to your needs


Along with receiving irrelevant CVs, this is in the same vein. There’s nothing more frustrating than after having taken much time in briefing your agency fully on the type of worker and the job only to have irrelevant profiles or the wrong type of person or unqualified workers show up.



You have multiple points of contact


If you end up speaking to lots of different people at your agency’s offices than much can get lost in translation and the personal approach is lost. Your agency should appoint just one point of contact and maybe a deputy if the main one is away. This will allow you to build up an understanding and establish a modus operandi.



Recruiters thinking a successful placement is the end of it and ‘job done’


Your new worker goes through your induction well and makes a good start. You wait for your next call from them to check all is well or if you have any more vacancies – but silence! Nothing happens and you can’t even get hold of your recruiter. This is madness. If this happens to you and your recruiter does not stay in regular contact with you or all you get is further prospecting emails from them, then they don’t value your business and you should look elsewhere.



Recruiters being inflexible about their fees


Now, a quality recruitment agency will not come at the cheapest price and the old adage of ‘you get what you pay for’ is definitely true here. However, once a relationship has been established and business has perhaps been ramped up a bit, they should be prepared to negotiate with you and give you better rates or reach a common ground with you on fees. Be careful you don’t push it too far though as if you ‘skin’ their margins a bit too much and they end up not making anything significant then they will be looking to offload you. That may well lead to a much greater loss and frustration for you in the long run in in trying to find an equally good agency.