As a small or even medium sized business owner, doing all the hiring yourself is simultaneously exciting and dreadful. It’s also incredibly time consuming, as many job advertisements receive hundreds of applicants. So when it comes time to hire a new recruit (or several) you have to start with a question: should you do it yourself, or hire a recruitment agency to help you?
Here are five signs that you should hire a recruitment agency:
1. The position is seasonal or has unusual hours
If you’re looking to hire for a seasonal job or something with unusual hours you might have difficulty finding appropriate employees on your own. This is particularly true if the position you’re hiring for requires a high level of expertise.
Many recruitment agents are specifically trained to help find employees for these positions, and their networks are often much larger than yours. Some recruitment agencies can even help you find freelance workers.
2. You need to hire multiple people
Hiring one employee can be a massive drain on your schedule, and it only becomes more time consuming for every employee you have to hire. It gets even worse if you’re hiring for several different positions, as each position can get hundreds of applicants—yes, even if you’re a small business with little established reputation.
A recruitment agency will have a large pool of talent to draw from, and will be able to help you fill positions at many different levels of your business. If you’re currently in a state of massive growth you can even hire multiple recruitment agencies that specialize in filling different types of positions.
3. You have a high employee turnover rate
Some industries have a naturally high turnover rate, but if you have a high employee turnover rate there’s a good chance you’ve been hiring the wrong people. And a high turnover rate can cost you a fortune, both in lost productivity and in hiring costs.
Recruitment agencies understand people. They have a specific vetting process for anyone they recommend. Most of the time they’ve also already worked with candidates as a consultant, so they’re quite familiar with these people. They can help you hire someone who will stick around.
4. You’re unhappy with your hiring process
Do you feel like your process is awkward, inefficient, or outright ineffective? Do you simply hate wading through resumes and doing job interviews? Are you exhausted at the mere thought of hiring someone new?
If you said “yes” to any of those questions, you should hire a recruitment agency. They will have an efficient, streamlined process, and they work in recruitment because they’re actively good at it. The best recruitment agents actually enjoy the process of hiring people.
5. You have better things to do with your time
This, in the end, is the real reason why small business owners should hire recruitment agencies. You started a business to provide the world with something only you can create. You’re the creative genius behind what you do, the source of ideas that will help your business grow.
There’s absolutely no reason to spend your time on aspects of the business you hate if you can pay a specialist to do them for you. Every hour spent on hiring is an hour you could spend pushing your business forward in other, more exciting ways. Don’t waste that time.
You might notice that only one of these items had anything to do with the size of your business. That’s because even the smallest business can benefit from working with a quality recruitment agency. If you have the resources to work with an agency, it’s definitely worth considering.
