Hiring A Recruitment Agency

Here are ten questions you should be ready to answer:

1. Why have you decided to partner with a recruiter? 

There are a range of reasons so it’s important for your recruiter partner to understand your why. Is it to cover a short term need, to limit direct employment costs, support your long term talent acquisition strategy, or perhaps because you need to augment your existing internal recruitment resources? 

Working with a recruiter is an opportunity to improve the process by which you attract and engage the best people.

2. Have you engaged a recruiter previously? 

If you have, openly discuss previous experiences you’ve had - including what worked and what didn't work well. This will provide an insight into your expectations, the type of relationship you need and how you’d like your recruitment partner to communicate with you. 

If you haven’t worked with a recruiter before, this is a good opportunity to understand how you can work with a recruiter, the value they can add and how they can customer elements of the recruitment process to fit your unique needs.

3. What recruitment challenges have you faced in the past? 

Let’s face it - finding great talent is never easy. A good recruiter genuinely wants to know what your biggest hiring headaches have been so they can diagnose how best to tackle them. 

It’s important not to hide your recruitment headaches or previous challenges - a skilled recruiter can work with you to analyse them and design solutions to resolve them.

4. What is your current recruitment process and broader talent acquisition strategy? 

This question focuses on what your organisation currently does to find, attract, hire and retain great people. Recruitment is a critical part of your broader talent acquisition strategy, but it’s not the whole picture. 

Understanding what your organisation does to support ongoing employee needs is beneficial for the recruiter.

5. What are your expected outcomes from this partnership?

While the natural answer is ‘to recruit someone’, a good recruiter will want to go deeper and broader than that. 

Good recruitment is so much more than a hiring transaction - you ideally want your recruitment partner to understand your challenges, objectives and future plans at an organisational level - in order to best understand the current recruitment need - and how to present this opportunity to potential employees.

Be aware that some recruitment businesses don’t offer a transactional relationship with clients. This type of recruitment firm specialises in supporting their clients with workforce planning and development over the long term, tackling both immediate and long-range hiring needs.

If you’re unsure about what type of partnership you want or need, don’t worry - an in-depth discussion with a good recruiter will help you get clear on what is best for your organisation.

6. Is this partnership part of your long term talent acquisition strategy or a one-off need?

Naturally, a recruitment business will want to work with your organisations over the long term, supporting you to build high performing teams, building a talent pipeline and helping you to grow or meet other objectives. 

Recruiters can also support one-off hiring needs, although a long term approach will reap more benefits.

7. How do you benchmark high performance in your organisation?

Understanding your performance metrics will allow your recruiter to compare candidate profiles with these benchmarks in mind. This will ensure you get a top-quality shortlist that meets your expectations. 

No matter what your business is, high performing employees are critical for your success.

8. What is your employee value proposition? 

The days of engaging prospective employees with a job description and salary alone are long gone. Recruitment is a two-way street, people want to know why your organisation is a great choice for them. This will be different for everyone, but your employee value proposition (EVP) or ‘offer’ to employees includes things like career growth opportunities, your senior leadership, training and development, workplace culture, flexible working arrangements, social responsibility and diversity and inclusion.

Your recruitment partner needs to understand and be able to articulate your EVP to candidates.

9. What is your approach to diversity and inclusion (D&I)?

Similar to the question above, D&I is another part of your offering to employees. Demonstrating diversity and practising inclusion will attract more people to be interested in working for your organisation.

Expect your recruitment partner to ask about D&I - so they can discuss it with potential candidates. This might include an inclusive workplace policy or model, employee-led inclusion initiatives and diversity at all levels and in all departments of your organisation.

10. What is your budget and timeline?

Establishing a shared understanding of timing and cost expectations is critical to any successful professional consulting arrangement. You need to get recruitment right the first time and within your budget, so discussing these things up front is important. 

Recruitment is a professional service. As the client, you should seek to understand what your recruitment partner can do for you and what that service costs. It’s equally important to discuss your expectations around the timeline for each stage of the recruitment process.