Taking the Hassle Out Of The Recruitment Process

Well you’re here on our site, so hopefully you’re most of the way towards picking up the phone and speaking to us! But if you’re still in any doubt as to whether or not to use us, consider the following points:

Time & Money

You have a job to do and it’s not to recruit! Your job is to focus your efforts on what you do best and not spend time filling your vacancy. You can very rarely do both! Yes you can access LinkedIn and the various job boards online; but time, as they say, is money and this can be a hidden cost to your business when looking to fill an open position without using a recruiter. Also consider that it has been estimated that an unfilled vacancy can cost a business between three to five times the annual salary in terms of value to the business. So a £30,000 position can cost you between £7,500 and £12,500 per month. So not only can we save you the time and money it costs by trying to fill a vacancy yourself, they can also save you the money by filling your vacancy a lot quicker.

Consultancy Not Agency

We spend a lot of time right at the start of the process in finding out what your recruitment needs are and what your company is all about – its vision, its culture, its structure. We need to be thorough and spending an initial twenty to thirty minutes talking to us in a very focused question and answer session is time well spent. It’s not just about taking the job brief either – we can advise as to whether the salary is right to attract candidates, whether the skills required are commensurate with the salary/title and other criteria that the market may be dictating. In this sense we like to differentiate ourselves from Recruitment Agencies who tend to have a “bums on seats” mentality and consider our approach to be more consultative and geared towards building a long-term partnership.

Access to the Best Candidates Available

If you try and recruit yourself, you’re probably only going to be contacting qualified, active/semi-active candidates on the job market by using Online Employment Websites. You’ll maybe scratch the surface of the qualified non-active candidate pool with LinkedIn. The problem is that from our experience, the people actively looking or who are “testing the water” about making a move account for about 30% of the total pool of relevant candidates for most vacancies. With over 23 years of experience in each of our specialist markets, we have built a huge network of people. This network contains pretty much anyone relevant to your vacancy – both directly and indirectly – and it’s growing all the time. A large part of what we do is networking and this is made up of headhunting those people who aren’t registered with online Employment Sites – they’re too busy being good at what they do and you probably want to be interviewing them!

Marketing Your Company & Attracting The Best Candidates

Your business probably spends a considerable amount of money on marketing your brand. Can a website, a brochure or an advert really convey the essence of your business? Possibly – but more than likely not. We also advertise (and often at a much discounted rate), but when it comes to marketing your business and your vacancy none of those media come close to what we can do as a recruiter. The next step is for us to take as much of our in-depth discussions as possible (confidentiality allowing) to market. We are a well-drilled, highly informed, proactive sales and marketing tool for your vacancy and your business. Crucially for you, our networking skills always involve Headhunting. This means that you can be confident that we’ve thoroughly searched the market and presented the best candidates possible at any given time.

Managing The Whole Process!

A lot of clients don’t realise the importance of what we do behind the scenes. So what is involved?

• Preparation
  We’ve already got candidates buy-in for your vacancy and your company, but we spend a lot of time making sure the candidate is prepped properly on the job description and the company and advocate they do their own research. But even beyond that we can help you as the employer if you need help with interview techniques, formats, and general best practice. We even have a page for this here.
• Feedback and Momentum
  Getting timely feedback, especially if positive, is imperative for us to make sure you don’t miss out. Employers can also miss out because communication has not been effective enough to keep the momentum going. What about feedback to unsuccessful applicants? We will always be professional and sensitive when delivering bad news. This in itself is an excellent PR exercise in itself as an unsuccessful candidate now is still a potential employee in the future.
• Offer Management
  We like to get the offer right first time. The advantage of Key is that we will talk with you before you put pen to paper and discuss what the offer needs to be and how it should be best constructed, based on the detailed information we have on each candidate. Beyond that, once the offer has been presented, we often act as a liaison for candidates who can often have questions about the offer and feel more comfortable addressing these through us. We not only negotiate on their behalf but also on yours as the client, taking the emotion out of it and more importantly, being realistic.
• Counter Offer
  We are always qualifying and re-qualifying a candidate’s interest in your vacancy and motivations for leaving their present company. After all, with the exception of retainers, we work on a success-only basis, so only get paid once the successful candidate walks through the door. It would be as frustrating for you as it would be for us if someone turns down an offer at the final hurdle. So, while we can’t predict what a person will do with absolute certainty, we can give you a very accurate assessment as to whether a candidate will accept an offer. We make sure that during any notice period, we maintain communication with the successful candidate to make sure there aren’t any nasty surprises! Even if there are, we always have a contingency plan well beforehand if either we or a client has a doubt over acceptance with at least one other potential candidate.

In It To Win It

You don’t always need to have a vacancy to use us. We are always building our network and we’re always actively looking for good people. A lot of our clients will take advantage of this and will always want us to inform them of what’s happening in the market.

As part of the dedicated service we provide, the consultants at Key Recruitment will always help you through this process. We may have a vested interest in placing people with you, but we’ve always taken the long term view that getting it right is more important and ultimately more profitable than getting a quick win. For more help and advice on this and any other part of the recruitment process, please give us a call today on 0161 443 0000.