Agency types
The recruitment industry has five main types of agencies. Their recruiters aim to channel candidates into the hiring organizations application process. As a general rule, the agencies are paid by the companies, not the candidates. David Lord of Executive Search Information Services suggests that "...retained search is a management consulting service. Contingency recruiting is one of many forms of candidate identification, no more, no less."[1]
[edit]Traditional agency
Also known as employment agencies, recruitment agencies have historically had a physical location. A candidate visits a local branch for a short interview and an assessment before being taken onto the agency’s books. Recruitment consultants then work to match their pool of candidates to their clients' open positions. Suitable candidates are short-listed and put forward for an interview with potential employers on a temporary ("temp") or permanent ("perm") basis.
Compensation to agencies take several forms, the most popular:
A contingency fee paid by the company when a recommended candidate accepts a job with the client company (typically 20%-30% based and calculated on the candidates first-year base salary – though fees as low as 12.5% can be found online[2], which usually has some form of guarantee (30–90 days standard), should the candidate fail to perform and is terminated within a set period of time (refundable fully or prorated)
An advance payment that serves as a retainer, also paid by the company, non-refundable paid in full depending on outcome and success (eg. 30% up front, 30% in 90 days and the remainder once a search is completed). This form of compensation is generally reserved for high level executive search/headhunters
Hourly Compensation for temporary workers and projects. A pre-negotiated hourly fee, in which the agency is paid and pays the applicant as a consultant for services as a third party. Many contracts allow a consultant to transition to a full-time status upon completion of a certain number of hours with or without a conversion fee.
[edit]Headhunters
A "headhunter" is industry term for a third-party recruiter who seeks out candidates, often when normal recruitment efforts have failed. Headhunters are generally considered more aggressive than in-house recruiters or may have preexisting industry experience and contacts. They may use advanced sales techniques, such as initially posing as clients to gather employee contacts, as well as visiting candidate offices. They may also purchase expensive lists of names and job titles, but more often will generate their own lists. They may prepare a candidate for the interview, help negotiate the salary, and conduct closure to the search. They are frequently members in good standing of industry trade groups and associations. Headhunters will often attend trade shows and other meetings nationally or even internationally that may be attended by potential candidates and hiring managers. Headhunters are typically small operations that make high margins on candidate placements (sometimes more than 30% of the candidate’s annual compensation). Due to their higher costs, headhunters are usually employed to fill senior management and executive level roles. Headhunters are also used to recruit very specialized individuals; for example, in some fields, such as emerging scientific research areas, there may only be a handful of top-level professionals who are active in the field. In this case, since there are so few qualified candidates, it makes more sense to directly recruit them one-by-one, rather than advertise internationally for candidates. While in-house recruiters tend to attract candidates for specific jobs, headhunters will both attract candidates and actively seek them out as well. To do so, they may network, cultivate relationships with various companies, maintain large databases, purchase company directories or candidate lists, and cold call prospective recruits.
[edit]Niche recruiters
More and more we are seeing the emergence of specialized firms which only staff for a very narrow specialty. Because of their focus, these firms can very often produce superior results due to their ability to channel all of their resources into networking for a very specific skill set. This specialization in staffing allows them to offer more jobs for their specific demographic which in turn attracts more specialized candidates from that specific demographic over time building large proprietary databases. These Niche firms tend to be more focused on building ongoing relationships with their candidates as is very common the same candidates are placed many times throughout their careers.
[edit]In-house recruitment
Larger employers tend to undertake their own in-house recruitment, using their human resources department, front-line hiring managers and recruitment personnel who handle targeted functions and populations. In addition to coordinating with the agencies mentioned above, in-house recruiters may advertise job vacancies on their own websites, coordinate internal employee referrals, work with external associations, trade groups and/or focus on campus graduate recruitment. While job postings are common, networking is by far the most significant approach when reaching out to fill positions. Alternatively a large employer may choose to outsource all or some of their recruitment process (recruitment process outsourcing).
[edit]Passive candidate research firms and sourcing firms
These firms are the new hybrid firms in the recruitment world able to combine the research aspects (discovering passive candidates) of recruiting and combine them with the ability to make hires for their clients. These firms provide competitive passive candidate intelligence to support company's recruiting efforts. Normally they will generate varying degrees of candidate information from those people currently engaged in the position a company is looking to fill. These firms usually charge a per hour fee or by candidate lead. Many times this uncovers names that cannot be found with other methods and will allow internal recruiters the ability to focus their efforts solely on recruiting.
The recruitment industry has five main types of agencies. Their recruiters aim to channel candidates into the hiring organizations application process. As a general rule, the agencies are paid by the companies, not the candidates. David Lord of Executive Search Information Services suggests that "...retained search is a management consulting service. Contingency recruiting is one of many forms of candidate identification, no more, no less."[1]
[edit]Traditional agency
Also known as employment agencies, recruitment agencies have historically had a physical location. A candidate visits a local branch for a short interview and an assessment before being taken onto the agency’s books. Recruitment consultants then work to match their pool of candidates to their clients' open positions. Suitable candidates are short-listed and put forward for an interview with potential employers on a temporary ("temp") or permanent ("perm") basis.
Compensation to agencies take several forms, the most popular:
A contingency fee paid by the company when a recommended candidate accepts a job with the client company (typically 20%-30% based and calculated on the candidates first-year base salary – though fees as low as 12.5% can be found online[2], which usually has some form of guarantee (30–90 days standard), should the candidate fail to perform and is terminated within a set period of time (refundable fully or prorated)
An advance payment that serves as a retainer, also paid by the company, non-refundable paid in full depending on outcome and success (eg. 30% up front, 30% in 90 days and the remainder once a search is completed). This form of compensation is generally reserved for high level executive search/headhunters
Hourly Compensation for temporary workers and projects. A pre-negotiated hourly fee, in which the agency is paid and pays the applicant as a consultant for services as a third party. Many contracts allow a consultant to transition to a full-time status upon completion of a certain number of hours with or without a conversion fee.
[edit]Headhunters
A "headhunter" is industry term for a third-party recruiter who seeks out candidates, often when normal recruitment efforts have failed. Headhunters are generally considered more aggressive than in-house recruiters or may have preexisting industry experience and contacts. They may use advanced sales techniques, such as initially posing as clients to gather employee contacts, as well as visiting candidate offices. They may also purchase expensive lists of names and job titles, but more often will generate their own lists. They may prepare a candidate for the interview, help negotiate the salary, and conduct closure to the search. They are frequently members in good standing of industry trade groups and associations. Headhunters will often attend trade shows and other meetings nationally or even internationally that may be attended by potential candidates and hiring managers. Headhunters are typically small operations that make high margins on candidate placements (sometimes more than 30% of the candidate’s annual compensation). Due to their higher costs, headhunters are usually employed to fill senior management and executive level roles. Headhunters are also used to recruit very specialized individuals; for example, in some fields, such as emerging scientific research areas, there may only be a handful of top-level professionals who are active in the field. In this case, since there are so few qualified candidates, it makes more sense to directly recruit them one-by-one, rather than advertise internationally for candidates. While in-house recruiters tend to attract candidates for specific jobs, headhunters will both attract candidates and actively seek them out as well. To do so, they may network, cultivate relationships with various companies, maintain large databases, purchase company directories or candidate lists, and cold call prospective recruits.
[edit]Niche recruiters
More and more we are seeing the emergence of specialized firms which only staff for a very narrow specialty. Because of their focus, these firms can very often produce superior results due to their ability to channel all of their resources into networking for a very specific skill set. This specialization in staffing allows them to offer more jobs for their specific demographic which in turn attracts more specialized candidates from that specific demographic over time building large proprietary databases. These Niche firms tend to be more focused on building ongoing relationships with their candidates as is very common the same candidates are placed many times throughout their careers.
[edit]In-house recruitment
Larger employers tend to undertake their own in-house recruitment, using their human resources department, front-line hiring managers and recruitment personnel who handle targeted functions and populations. In addition to coordinating with the agencies mentioned above, in-house recruiters may advertise job vacancies on their own websites, coordinate internal employee referrals, work with external associations, trade groups and/or focus on campus graduate recruitment. While job postings are common, networking is by far the most significant approach when reaching out to fill positions. Alternatively a large employer may choose to outsource all or some of their recruitment process (recruitment process outsourcing).
[edit]Passive candidate research firms and sourcing firms
These firms are the new hybrid firms in the recruitment world able to combine the research aspects (discovering passive candidates) of recruiting and combine them with the ability to make hires for their clients. These firms provide competitive passive candidate intelligence to support company's recruiting efforts. Normally they will generate varying degrees of candidate information from those people currently engaged in the position a company is looking to fill. These firms usually charge a per hour fee or by candidate lead. Many times this uncovers names that cannot be found with other methods and will allow internal recruiters the ability to focus their efforts solely on recruiting.
