What is Recruitment?

Recruitment is slightly different from secondment or temping. This page answers frequently asked questions as objectively as possible.

The recruitment process

There is a lot involved in recruitment, so it is a profession. In most cases, these are the steps in the recruitment and selection process;

1. Drawing up the profile and terms of employment. Our scorecard can help you with this
2. Define the selection process; who is involved, who takes the decision, which questions are we going to ask, whether or not to do an assessment, at what point are references checked [link to blog], who will do it.
3. Create the recruitment campaign; set up google ads campaign, post vacancy on job boards and social media, set up “working at page”
4. Find candidates on job boards and Linkedin and approach and convince them to interview (“pitch”) with you
5. Pre-qualifying candidates by telephone and, if suitable, inviting them for an interview
6. Conduct selection interviews
7. Follow-up interviews and possible assessments
8. Salary negotiations and signing contracts

Outsource recruitment or do it yourself?

As you can see, there is a lot involved in the recruitment and selection of sales people. The question now is; will you do it yourself or is it better to outsource? Employers who need to hire a lot of people often employ one or more Corporate Recruiters. Is this wise? Sometimes yes, sometimes no.

List the pros and cons of outsourcing;

Advantages of outsourcing recruitment:

• You use expert knowledge, experience and tools
• Valuable advice on labour market, profiles and salaries
• Cost flexibility (even more so with no cure, no pay)
• Recruiters have larger online marketing budgets and knowledge and therefore dominate the online environment, competing with this as an employer is not easy
• Corporate recruiters are often responsible for the recruitment and selection of multiple job areas such as ICT, Finance, Operations and Sales. They get into a knot when it comes to prioritising and do not understand all functions. Often sales recruitment altogether
• The process goes faster because the external recruiter focuses entirely on your vacancies
• The external recruiter is often able to find and convince better candidates, they often know how to pitch your organisation and the vacancy better than the Corporate Recruiter
• No hidden costs, the recruitment fee covers all costs such as online marketing, hours spent searching and pre-selecting candidates, scheduling interviews and checking references.
• If a guarantee scheme is agreed, the external recruiter will provide a replacement at no cost if the new colleague unexpectedly leaves or has to leave early

Disadvantages of outsourcing recruitment:

In fact, there is only one disadvantage; You need a budget to work with an external recruiter. If done right, this is an excellent investment. But it is, however, an investment that must be paid in one lump sum at a time when the vendor is not yet profitable.

Should you hire a huge number of people, it is advisable to do a good calculation that includes all integral (and hidden) costs. It may then be financially advantageous to do recruitment yourself, although often a concession has to be made on the quality of the candidates.

What does recruitment cost?

Often the client pays a recruitment fee that is a percentage of the fixed salary of the placed candidate (excluding variable remuneration). Sometimes a “fixed fee” can also be agreed, so there are no surprises for the client should the salary be higher. Another advantage is that the external recruiter has no incentive to negotiate a higher salary for the candidate.

With “no cure, no pay”, the invoice is paid only when a contract is actually concluded between employer and candidate. Some agencies charge a “pre-investment”, with the risk that the client may lose the money if the vacancy is withdrawn anyway or if the cooperation is not satisfactory.

Specialist or generalist?

Is it better to leave recruitment to job-specific specialists or a generalist? A specialist knows everything about a specific job group, such as ICT, Finance or Sales. Through specialisation, they have developed techniques to find and select the best people.

A Generalist is easy because it is a “one-stop shop”; one party that mediates all positions for you, which is convenient. But they cannot possibly have the same understanding of all job groups, so somewhere it goes wrong. So the question is: do you choose convenience or quality? Want to read more about Salesrecruiters? Then take a look at this page.