Using and working in recruitment agencies

Why use a recruitment agency?

People go to recruitment agencies when they are changing their jobs, as one of the ways to find work alongside networking, cold-calling and looking for vacancies, because:

- agencies are free for the job-seeker – the employer pays the agency

- an agency can match a company’s requirements in terms of qualifications, skills, experience and personality to the candidates on its database

- agencies know the employment market and can prepare candidates for interview

- agencies know realistic salary levels and may even negotiate on a candidate’s behalf

- agencies will guide individuals through the selection process because it is in their interests for the candidate to get the job

- being selected for interview with the potential employer by an agency means that the candidate has at least some of the qualities needed to meet the requirements of the job.

Agencies

There is no such thing as a typical recruitment agency. They vary from huge companies like Manpower and Brook Street to the small, local companies found in any telephone directory. There are also general agencies that are usually well known, and others that specialise in a particular market sector like IT or nursing. Recently, online agencies have arrived (and departed in a few cases), while the Officers’ Association, the Regular Forces Employment Association and The List (see ‘Factfile’ for contact details) should be familiar to Service leavers.

What all have in common, though, is the fact that it is illegal for anyone looking for work to be charged any fees by an agency that helps them to find it. They can be asked to pay for any services like interview training or CV writing, but not for job-finding. The recruitment agency is paid by its client – the organisation recruiting the individual (the hirer) – and this is usually a proportion, typically 15 to 40 per cent, of the first-year salary.

Recruitment agencies should not be confused with outplacement companies. The latter are paid by an individual or more usually the company they are leaving to help them to find other jobs – rather as the Career Transition Partnership does for Service leavers.

Search and selection

Operating at the very top end of the industry are search and selection agencies or headhunters that specialise in finding senior managers for their clients through a network of contacts or broadsheet advertising. Fees reflect the level at which they work and the discreet nature of the service they offer. However, in a knowledge-driven world, specialists in such fields as IT, telecommunications, corporate communications, finance and the web may now find themselves being approached by people asking if they might enjoy a career change.

Search and selection consultants offer a bespoke service that could include every aspect of producing job and personnel specifications, finding a suitable shortlist, grooming candidates for interview (if they are not already known to the hirer), ensuring that packages are fully agreed, and maintaining absolute confidentiality. Only a few, high-value Service leavers will ever meet a headhunter, although many are themselves ex-Forces.

High-street agencies

The next level of recruitment agency is the high-street company. Such companies also find employees for their clients, although the fact that a particular company needs some more engineers may not be confidential and wider publicity may help to recruit them. They maintain a database of people, with details of their qualifications and experience, and may also advertise in national and local media for candidates for particular appointments – sometimes identifying the client and sometimes not.

High-street agencies may be general or they may specialise in a specific sector; if the former they will probably have specialists in key market areas. The job-seeker approaching them can expect an interview, tests of their skills and aptitudes, and possibly some training and help with preparing a CV. The agency will contact employers seeking to fill positions, arrange interviews and possibly take up references if the interview is successful and a job offer is accepted. However, the employer is the hirer – the agency is simply a middleman.

Term employment

Positions may be permanent or term. In both, people are paid with Income Tax and National Insurance deducted at source, but differ in that a term contract is for a specific period of time. However, limited-term jobs often lead to permanent positions and can have advantages:

- the employer and employee effectively have an extended interview

- the employer is not bound to the same extent by employment laws

- the new employee has the chance to see if they like the work

- some people like to work for different employers and enjoy a change every so often.

Interim management is a form of term employment, usually contributing a particular area of personal expertise to an organisation following amalgamation or merger, restructuring, administration or some other major change. Assignments can last from a day to a year, with interim managers helping the company’s own team to run the business.

Temporary employment

There are many temporary jobs on offer due to anything from a sudden surge of work, sickness, holiday or maternity cover, or simply because an organisation has chosen to reduce core employees and hire extra help when it is needed. Many workers enjoy temping – in different organisations, different offices and with different bosses, and taking a break when they want, not according to a holiday roster.

Temps are generally paid by the agency, which is in turn paid by the temporary hirer, so they are employees of the agency. The agency will contact them when a position is available, and they may be interviewed by the prospective employer, unless the work is very simple and only for a day or so. Because you can only do one job at a time, industry advice is to register with two or three agencies only so that you are not constantly refusing assignments.

The Internet

Internet agencies are generally cheap for employers, offer them a wide range of national and international candidates, and can be very quick to find suitable, usually computer-literate, candidates. But they are essentially only another way of attracting and displaying information, although the online recruitment market is big and growing as more people job-hunt from home and are connected to the web.

However, many of the functions such as interviewing, obtaining references, training in specific skills and tailoring of CVs for each individual vacancy – as necessary with a recruitment agency as in any other form of job-seeking – still have to be performed in less high-tech ways. So the net tends to be used widely for less skilled positions and where there is a need for many people rather than a select few.

Specialists

Many recruitment agencies are highly specialised in one or two market sectors. The Recruitment & Employment Confederation (REC) splits specialist agencies into eight categories:

- childcare

- IT

- drivers

- education

- hospitality

- medical

- nurses and carers

- technical.

Individuals should decide which sector they want to work in and whereabouts in the country they wish to live. They can then trawl the REC’s website first by specialism and then by location to obtain a list of local agencies that deal with their work category.

Working in recruitment

About 80,000 people work in recruitment – an industry with an annual turnover of nearly £18 billion. Some are graduates and others left school at 16 with few formal qualifications. A background in sales and marketing or customer service is useful but REC lists the following qualities as essential:

- ambition and confidence

- being goal-oriented

- tenacity

- good interpersonal and communications skills

- good team player

- able to handle multiple priorities

- good listener

- problem solver

- able to work to deadlines and targets

- enjoy responsibility and pressure

- good sense of humour.

Qualifications and/or experience in a particular market sector could obviously be attractive to an agency that operates in that area, and the REC runs a number of training courses in recruitment as well as two professional programmes:

- Foundation Vocational Award in Employment Agency Practice

- Certificate in Recruitment Practice.

Salaries vary hugely, and recruiters can expect an element of salary together with performance-related pay or commission. Small agency packages could start at £20,000 with top head hunters on £500,000.