You have a stellar in-house HR department. They’ve handled plenty of hiring over the years. So, why would you need a recruitment agency to help with staffing needs?
Let’s go with a baseball analogy: A team’s pitching staff is full of specialists—starting pitchers, long relief pitchers, short relief pitchers, set-up pitchers and closers. While a starting pitcher can certainly pitch the whole game, it doesn’t mean he should. Your HR department is your starting pitcher. They need to be in the game all season long, not only handling hiring but also seeing to day-to-day employee needs, implementing training, dealing with government regulations and more.
A recruitment firm, on the other hand, is like a relief pitcher who specializes in giving the team a few good innings each game. We only focus on staffing, which means we can step in to provide temporary hires or fill critical permanent positions. We have connections and resources that go beyond what an in-house HR department can offer.
But isn’t it just cheaper to do it yourself? Let’s take a look at the value a good recruiting firm brings to the table.
Understanding the contract
Staffing firm fees can be confusing, so it’s important to first understand how they work and what you’re paying for.
Hourly fees – Some firms may charge for each hour they spend working on your hire. Most of the time this means you won’t pay an additional fee when you hire someone.
Temp-to-perm fees – Many staffing firms can help by offering a temporary person for a position. Sometimes that works so well your company wants to hire the temporary person for the position full-time. In that case, you pay the staffing company a temp-to-perm fee, which is often a percentage of the first-year salary, pro-rated for the months between the hire and the end of the year.
Contingent fees – With this fee structure, the staffing firm only charges a fee if you end up hiring a candidate they bring to you. The fee is usually a percentage of the employee’s first-year salary. The search to fill contingent positions often takes less time than the search for a position requiring a retainer fee.
Retainer fees – A retainer fee is often paid when a search is expected to take longer, generally for C-suite or specialized positions that may be harder to fill. You pay the staffing firm an upfront fee to conduct the search, then pay another fee when a hire is made.
Bringing in the wins
Just as a relief pitcher is only a good investment if he can get a few outs and save the starter’s arm, a staffing firm is only a good investment if they provide solid ROI. While the upfront fee for a staffing firm may seem daunting, it’s important to factor in the costs of leaving a position unfilled. Matthew Rowles elaborates in an article from Business News Daily:
“Many companies will only look at the agency’s fees to determine the cost but typically fail to realize the value and savings they can provide as well. Time to hire is an important factor when it comes to how much an open position can cost a company. The longer a position is open, the higher the cost, due to a loss in productivity and diverting resources. Working with a staffing firm can help decrease the time to hire and help decrease a loss in productivity.”
When considering the cost of hiring a staffing firm, be sure to take into account the cost of the time that position goes unfilled. If the average time to fill a position is 30 days, that’s 30 days of lost productivity. Even worse than not filling a job quickly is the cost of filling the job with the wrong person and having to start over when that person doesn’t stick around.
Because a staffing firm is solely focused on finding the right fit for the job, the people you hire are often a better match. And with extensive contacts in a variety of industries, Kansas City-based recruitment firms have the ability to reach out to people who may not be actively searching for a job but are willing to investigate a position presented to them.
Working as a team
Every member of a baseball team has a role to play that benefits the team as a whole. When you hire a staffing firm, we become part of your team, working together to give you a staffing advantage.
A Society for Human Resource Management study placed the average time to fill a position at 36 days, but a quarter of jobs take 45 or more days to fill. For high-priority C-suite-level jobs, that’s 45 days your HR department needs to focus on a single thing, which means pushing back the timeline for other important projects.
Morgan Hunter fills most jobs within five weeks, with nearly half of all roles filled in three weeks or less. That’s because we have a vast network of contacts we can use to find the person just right for your company. We can present candidates who we already know will be a good fit with your culture and work processes because we’ve already put in the work to get to know them before you ever meet them.
And because Morgan Hunter already knows our pool of candidates, we can drastically speed up the timeline of when you can reach out to a candidate. In nearly 75% of cases, we’re able to present our first qualified candidate within two days of beginning our talent search.
Finding the right fit for the job requires teamwork. Like a talented relief pitcher, staffing firms like Morgan Hunter are experts at what we do, which lets your HR department focus on being experts at what they do. It’s all about working together to get the win.
Adam Loewen is director of the Information Technology Team at Morgan Hunter, serving Kansas City-area employers to help them meet a range of hiring needs, from temporary staffing to direct-hire placements. Share your thoughts on Facebook, LinkedIn or on Twitter @MorganHunterCo.