what am I doing for living what am I doing in this office each time I’m being asked that question I struggle to give a clear answer which is weird because I really do love small talk and socialization and I noticed that I was not the only one professional of the recruitment industry are struggling to explain to their friends family and relatives what they are doing for living and to be fair.
I had pretty much no idea myself before joining a staffing company eight years ago and when you think about it actually makes sense we are dealing with very sensitive information we are basically helping people to leave a company to another one confidentiality is in the recruitment DNA and the requirement industry by its nature always had to keep the profile and this is why it’s quite of an opaque industry.
so whatever you are considering taking a job in the recruitment industry using recruitment services for your company or looking for a job through a recruitment partner stay with me and I will give you an overview in four points of what is the recruitment industry and what is the service that is fitting the best you need and to do so.
Recruitment challenge
let me give you an example you can all relate to so let’s say you have a friend and he’s starting a car dealership he’s doing pretty well and very soon if he wants to grow he will have to hire and he will face the recruitment challenge so what are the options for your friend the first option is looking through his network let’s say that your friend is lucky and he manages to find the people that he needs he was looking for administrative assistant and two sales so now he has a team and they are doing very well.
they are growing even more so now they need to recruit new people as you can imagine at one point the network is no longer sufficient because they are looking for more specialized people and every network has its limits so what is the second option the second option is to start a classic recruitment process but the thing is that your friend and his team they are very busy this is why they want to hire more people so they have no time moreover they don’t have the expertise internally they don’t really know how to do and those are the main reasons.
Temporary Agency
the two main reasons why you would outsource your problem to an external partner and if you want to outsource his recruitment needs what are your options for your friend the first option for your friend is to hire a temporary agency a temporary agency will help you to find a great variety of profiles this is what we call a generalist the offer is very high there are a lot of candidates but the demand is reasonable so for example we all had contacts with a temporary agency when we were looking for a first job or for student job the candidates are often wishing them out and they don’t have to source actively candidates and what are the benefits for your friend it will save him a lot of time but also it would use the risk because those employees those people.
they won’t be on his payroll so it doesn’t have the cost and the liability associated but also it offers a great flexibility because those are a weekly contracts and last but not least it is also kind of trial prior because if he wants to hire permanently the candidate after six months it is still a possibility for him and how much will it cost to your friend the temporary agency will apply a coefficient to the weekly gross salary of the candidate and if your friend’s expectations are not too high it is ideal to hire a back office a junior to meet your accountant engineer to media her assistant and very soon the team is growing they are doing very well and they now have an hr. team in her team they have an internal recruiter or a talent acquisition manager so they can take care of their recruitment by themselves but for temporary needs for example a replacement or because there is a peak in the activities.
Staffing Agency
they could still use a temporary agency but very soon with the company growing they will face new challenges for example in it they will need a network engineer they will need a software engineer and the requirements are increasing and from generis profile they need specialized profile and this is where you will hire a staffing agency they will help you to find specialized profiles in each market so the demand is very high but the offer is low they have to actively source the candidates and one of the benefits for your friend is the expertise they will manage to find people that they are not able to find by themselves and we usually use the words head hunters recruitment consultants agency recruiters to qualify those recruiting professionals.
how much would it cost to your friend so I won’t go in detail here but basically the staffing agency will charge a percentage of the annual gross salary but it was to hire people on a permanent basis to hire people on your payroll but let’s say that now your friend has a need for a specific skill set for a limited period for example he needs to upgrade his operating system to delete his version here a temporary agency won’t be able to help because it is really too niche but no problem a staffing agency is also proposing contract and permanent recruitment services and how does it work let’s say that your friends need a windows system engineer for six months.
so he will contact a recruitment agency and they will connect your friends with a contractor someone who is able to perform the job and who is available at that time to do it the contractor has a daily or hourly rate and this is what he’s going to charge to the Rocket man agency and the recruitment agency is going to charge that amount to your friends and they will add their margin and it is basically how contract recruitment works.
Consulting Agency
it is important to not be confused with consultancy business let me give you an example your friends wants to create an app or a new website to sell cars he has two options option number one he can do it internally either with his team but if he doesn’t have the resources he will have to hire but it doesn’t make sense to hire here because he knows that it is a limited project for 12 to 18 months (about 1 and a half years) for example so the second option is to outsource the project and here there are two options you can either go for a contractor as I mentioned previously or you can outsource the job to a consultancy company so what is the main difference the main difference is that the consultancy company.
it is a company having several consultants and they are all on the payroll so they are the employees and you as a client you will outsource your project to that company and there are mainly two ways of working either fixed price or time and material so with the fixed price it is result oriented you will agree with the consulting company on a delivery deadlines and a budget with time and material it is means oriented so you will pay for each resource and the time that they spent on the project and this is where it is a bit confusing because it is pretty close to a contractor the main difference actually being that the contractor is a freelance he works for himself and the consultant is working for a consulting company.
Executive Search
the last actor of the recruitment landscape is the head hunting and executive search and even if your friend’s business becomes very successful the chances are very low that he will ever need their services they can help you to find really high level profile where there is a lot at stake you will never find those people applying for a job posting their resume or speaking with a random recruiter they are unreachable you need to use different methods you can’t rely on LinkedIn recruiter or your database you will mostly find those people through your network and this is why within that industry usually the recruiters.
they don’t have a recruitment background they are often very senior and they have a valuable network in a specific domain and they learn to monetize it basically in this industry you will make way less placement but for way more money and the recruiters they will also charge you a percentage of the annual gross salary and here I took a small business as an example but you can all imagine how even more of a challenge it is for bigger companies especially with the work for talent in i.t pharmaceutical and engineering sectors and where do I fit in all of this.
And what am I doing?
what am I doing for a living I’m actually in the second category the staffing agency so I have eight years of experience five years working as an employee for a staffing agency and three is through my own business I’m providing my clients with contract and permanent recruitment services and I’m helping them to identify and to find the right profiles in niche and very competitive markets and in my case I’m focusing on it and I have created this website to show you the behind the scenes to unveil.
the secrets of the recruitment industry and to show my knowledge and expertise whatever you are a recruiter yourself you are looking for a job you are wanting to grow in your career or you are facing recruitment challenges in your own business and also I will share my entrepreneurship journey and my plan to scale my business I will be posting an article every week so if you are interested in any of those topics please visit website and share the article to support me