Specialist agency vital to find quality staff

Compuways IT Professional Search managing director Arnold Graaff recently spoke about why it is essential to use a specialist recruitment agency and how to engage with them when hiring top IT staff. "Finding top quality candidates which then result in top class appointments is not that trivial and requires a lot of different skills and means," Graaff says.

Maintaining relationships with candidates over long periods is crucial. "This is only possible with an independent recruitment agency. HR departments cannot maintain relationships with potential candidates to the same extent that an independent recruitment agency with a strong independent brand can."

Strategies to locate good candidates

Furthermore, finding candidates is an art in itself. A decent recruitment agency use strategies to locate good candidates that go beyond job sites and print advertising and depends more and more on personal references and relationships with people in the industry. Social networking tools are nowadays more and more required to attract top candidates.

"Screening should not only filter out fake qualifications, but also ensure a candidate is genuinely interested in a position and competent enough to do the job. This can be done better by a specialist agency due to the fact that the candidate is interviewed and matched not only for one job, and as part of a relationship building process," he explains.

"The offer stage negotiations are crucial and can make or break a deal. The recruitment agency should have the knowledge and skills to bring the parties together to result in a win-win situation for both. It is only easier for an independent person to get into detailed and delicate negotiations."

Understanding the employer's needs

A specialist recruitment agency should also understand the employer's needs, especially considering its expertise in dealing with many companies in the industry and seeing the big picture. A recruiter should then be able to convey the employer needs properly to the candidate during the screening process. The candidate wants to compare the employer to similar companies in the industry too.

A face-to-face meeting between employer and recruiter is crucial as this brings the recruiter into contact with the real world of the employer and issues like culture-fit can best be experienced during such a meeting.

The employer is an active participant in the process and should be available throughout the recruitment cycle. Changing requirements or parameters on the employer's side should be communicated instantly so that it can be communicated to the interested candidate pool to avoid wasting people's time and effort.