Recruitment services are offered by professionals who act as intermediary between the employer and the potential employee. These services are generally performed by specialized recruitment agencies who are the interface with the company and are mandated to recruit suitable candidates for specific positions.
Advantages to using recruitment services
For the company the main benefit is that it does not need to deal with the cumbersome process of recruiting and selecting a candidate. Recruitment agencies are highly specialized and already contain a pool of potential candidates, and the agency will select the best applicants in order to present them to the organization, who will only need to give their final approval. The assessment is time-consuming and the company may find it better to pay an external service to perform it, only setting the guidelines and deadline.
For the candidate, it represents a guarantee, since agencies usually work with top companies in the field and are highly specialized in a certain industry. Furthermore, applications usually work as a roster, therefore even a candidate is not successful for a position, their application may still remain in the system and be used for similar ads. The service is usually paid by the business, therefore the candidate only needs to submit a suitable application with the possibility of being pre-selected for future positions in the future.
Disadvantages to outsourcing recruitment services
As with outsourcing in general, the main inconvenient is that the company will not go through the applications themselves and shortlist the suitable ones. It needs to be sure the recruitment agency understands not only the needs of the organization, but also the culture, in order to fill the position with the best possible candidate. It is important to work with a well-known agency that attracts the best applicants and may already have a pool of candidates in the desired field.
For the candidate, going through a recruitment agency may represent no direct contact with the potential employer till the final stages of the application and therefore some may not have the chance to demonstrate their suitability. Moreover, as the recruitment agency will begin its search with the existing candidates from their database, the important feature will be the keywords introduced in the system. Also, the application through the recruitment agency might be longer for the candidate who will need to pass the recruitment stage imposed by the agency and then meet and obtain the approval of the employer.
