If ever there was a time for Small recruitment Agencies and their clients to do good business, it must surely be now!

With the recession now “admitted” in South Africa, many small recruitment Companies are being forced to deal with - what appears to be - a lower demand for their services. Companies cannot justify large recruitment fees and so are hungry for alternative means to fill their reduced number of (but nevertheless inevitable) vacancies. At the same time those Companies that “go it alone” are finding that recruitment is a time consuming and “resource hungry” exercise.

Many small generalist Recruitment Agencies are therefore now burdened with underutilised resources; tools of the trade such as costly subscriptions to on-line recruitment websites, IT infrastructure, and of course… their staff.

Unlike their large or “specialist agency” counterparts these small agencies need to consider altering their offering, especially to their regular client base.

Many Companies have key operational positions from Junior up to management level, where staff turnover is traditionally quite high. Call Centre staff are one example. The result is that they are constantly on the look out for promising young talent, with a few years experience who fit a specific profile. Traditionally many Companies would pay a typical placement fee as a specific percentage of annual salary for a single placement.

Recruitment Agencies should now rather be offering a response handling / trawling service, whereby the recruiters resources are put to good use; more specifically the process should be something along the line of the following:

• The clients key position(s) is placed in all the online media / recruitment sites to which the recruiter in any event subscribes to as a monthly expense (or those media used for free)

• CVs are short listed by the recruiter and those meeting requirements - provided to the client. This need not be a one off exercise, but rather the recruiter provides this short listing service on a day by day / month by month basis, so that at any moment whenever a seemingly suitable applicant emerges, the details are supplied to the client.

•  The fee charged to the client on a monthly basis could be the equivalent of one placement fee or even less.

In this way:

Recruitment Companies

• Manage to utilise or at least “tick over” their resources.
• No longer have to deal with the risk factor associated with traditional recruitment (where the recruitment Co. is only paid upon successful placement). Instead a guaranteed albeit reduced monthly fee is applicable.

Client Organisations

• Have a steady stream of suitable candidates being supplied.
• Are able to forge a longer term relationship with their recruitment provider whereby the recruiters understanding of the clients needs and position(s) is continually enriched and refined.
• Ultimately fill key vacancies quicker and at greatly reduced costs.

Permutations of the above type of arrangement can of course be made. For example:

The recruiter could provide additional services over and above mere short listing of CVs. More senior level vacancies could also be subject to this type of arrangement.

Simply put, now more than ever (Client) Organisations and Recruiters should be talking with each other outside of the traditional recruitment paradigm.

Sean Quinn
H.R. Interactive.