The Turning Point

Every company comes to a point where in order to grow it needs to invest in recruitment. Having the right team is essential for any company to grow, after all it's the people that makes a company great.

Recruitment comes in many forms and for companies it can be hard a choice to decide between whether to choose building your own internal recruitment department or to use an external agency.

So how do you decide what is the best option? What are the pros and cons of each? What are the types of agency to choose from and which one is best suited to my needs?

These are all the questions companies ask themselves, and this article is here to help you find answers you need, so you can make the decision that works best for you.

A Quick Definition

Let's start with what is the key differences between internal recruitment and agency recruitment.

Internal Recruitment

Pretty much what it says on the tin. Internal or in-house recruitment is about hiring employees that will handle all the recruitment and selection processes in a company from within.

Agency Recruitment

Agencies can come in many shapes and sizes, but one thing tends to remain true throughout. Agencies are specialists who will work for you for usually a set fee per hire, or if working exclusively for a retainer fee agreed at the start, and their sole job is to help you find great people that fit your job criteria and company culture.

Pros

With the definitions out the way, let's look at some of the pros and cons, starting with the pros.

Internal Recruitment

More Control

A big plus of having any process kept in-house, is the extra quality control you have. Internal recruiters' control all the recruitment and selection process, and manage the turnover of a company, they are essentially a function of the HR team that specifically focus on that aspect of the business. By having them in-house you can also rest assured that all their focus is on your company, all the time.

Culture Focused

In-house recruiters are employees, so they live and breathe the culture of your company, meaning they will focus more on bringing individuals in that are a culture fit as a priority and building that employer brand up to attract great talent, they will also be more likely to understand who is likely to fit in with the team as they work with the team daily and understand the complex personalities that make up great teams.

Agency Recruitment

Specialists

Agency recruiters live and breathe recruitment, they have spent their entire careers understanding what makes a great hire, and how to attract them. This expertise is greatly increased when you use an agency that specialises in your industry “ As an example here at Vertex Resourcing, we are specialists in FMCG, meaning we really know how to find and attract amazing talent that are highly experienced in this sector. This doesn't mean if you come to us from another sector, we can't find you a great employee, it just means it might take us longer as our network is specifically catered to the FMCG industry.

Strong Network

Where recruiters are worth their weight is in the strength of their network that they have spent their life building. Recruiters basically are the gold standard of networkers, great recruiters will focus 90% of their efforts in building up strong relationships with top talent from a whole host of high-profile companies, so that when you come knocking at the door with a job description, they know exactly who to speak to.

Having a strong reliable network at your disposal is primarily the number 1 asset as to why people use recruiters, however, that certainly doesn't mean the company with the biggest database wins the race.
- Matthew Higgs - Commercial Director at Vertex Resourcing

Summary

So, to quickly summarise if you are trying to decide which route is best for you, ask yourself this, are you looking to hire lots of people of varying skillsets or are you looking to find top talent to fill specific roles within a specific industry?

If it's the latter, then you should probably consider using an agency that specialise in your industry, if it's not and you can afford to hire a dedicated team, then go in-house and build up first.

Want to hear more top tips? Looking to fill a role, or maybe you want to know more about careers at Vertex?  

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