Recruitment Agencies

A recruitment agency is an organization that, on a professional level, mediates between the applicant and the employer.

The essence of the work of a recruitment agency is that the employer pays for assistance in searching and selecting personnel that meets his requirements, and the applicant, in turn, is helped to find a suitable job for free in accordance with his wishes.

The amount of the fee that the employer pays for the search for personnel depends on the amount of earnings of the future employee. Usually, this is a certain percentage of the future employee’s monthly salary or his annual salary. The cost of recruitment agency services is determined based on the level of vacancy, level of service, type of selection technology and quality.

In essence, a recruitment agency is a database of employers’ requests and job seekers’ proposals, and the larger this database, the more proposals this agency can offer to both parties, the more reputable it is considered.  

What do employers and job seekers get from working with a recruitment agency?

For an employer, turning to professional recruiters is beneficial because it saves time and its own labor resources. The HR manager does not need to advertise for specialists and engage in preliminary interviews; the secretary does not need to waste time on phone calls, scheduling interviews, preparing questionnaires and other organizational issues. All technical and preparatory operations are carried out by the recruitment agency; as a result, the employer receives carefully selected candidates for the position, in accordance with all his requirements, with whom a final interview must be conducted.
For the applicant, the benefit of collaborating with recruitment agencies is that the search for suitable vacancies is faster. There is no need to waste time on phone calls, unsuccessfully sending out resumes, or on unnecessary interviews.

Modern recruitment agencies

Institutions that use non-traditional methods of personnel search and selection in their work deserve special attention from employers. For example, instead of the usual tests and interviews, they arrange something similar to a stress interview or a test for reaction speed and innovative thinking. 
But most often, the traditional activity of agencies is the search for employees of rare qualifications, narrow specialization with a special specialized education. For the most part, agencies work not on quantity, but on quality. That is why recruiters do not engage in mass searches for workers for non-key positions, or do so on a contractual basis as a subscription service for their regular customers.

Who do recruitment agencies work for?

Absolutely all personnel search agencies position themselves as institutions that work for both the employer and the applicant. But in fact, the key client of any agency is the employer, because it is he who pays for the agency’s services. Recruiters make their profit only at the expense of the hiring party, since all services are free for job seekers. Accordingly, in the Employer-Recruiter-Applicant relationship, the first participant is the buyer who pays and orders, and the last participant is the product that offers itself. This is exactly the way all reputable and trustworthy recruiters work.