Recruitment Services: How and When to Work with an HR Agency

When we think of or talk about recruitment, most people think of a long and winding process. But few people realize that finding the right talent doesn’t mean you’re done.

In fact, there are other areas to consider before and after finding the best candidate for your company.

These types of services generally fall under the broad term, recruitment services. And often, they’re carried out by recruitment agencies because of the load and time-consuming efforts involved.

In this article, we’ll explain what recruitment services are, what recruitment agencies do, and how and when to consider working with an agency.

 What are recruitment services?

Recruitment services are services that involve managing one or more steps in the recruitment cycle or process.

The hiring process involves a series of steps from identifying needs and creating a job description to hiring a candidate.

Whether you’re a small, medium, or large business, the most important step is to identify your needs. What do you want this candidate to do?

There’s nothing wrong in asking for help creating a job description and in finding the most suitable candidate for your business.

What is considered wrong, a common hiring mistake, however, is asking the world and offering peanuts for a salary. The world’s best recruitment agency won’t be able to help you. Simply because what you’re looking for doesn’t exist. 

So, what kinds of services fall under recruitment services?

Types of recruitment services

Generally, all the steps in the hiring process fall under recruitment services. You may choose to perform some steps in-house or have the agency manage the entire process except the selection stage.

The standard hiring process looks like this:

• Identify business needs
• Create a job description
• Share vacancy on social media, job boards, or via an agency
• Screen resumes received
• Initial filtration and conducting screening interviews (via phone or in-person)
• Conduct role-specific tests
• Filter candidates based on test results and selecting the best candidates
• Present an offer to the top candidate
• Onboard the candidate if they accept the offer

Companies are generally responsible for creating the role-based test and selecting the candidates who pass it. There are many kinds of testing software that can perform this process for you or for the agency.

In addition, your company should have a salary range for the agency to follow.

If you’re unsure what salary range you should offer this candidate, you should review a salary survey for that role in your market.

As a company, you may choose to hire an HR agency to perform one or more of the above hiring steps.

Other recruitment services

There are many hiring-process-related services that don’t involve hiring the candidates themselves but are essential to an organization’s success.

These include:

• Creating a flexible salary structure for the entire company
• Managing payroll, including income taxes, paid time off, absences and late-ins, and early-leaves
• Managing employees’ legal and labor documents
• Creating an inclusive compensation and benefits strategy
• The employee onboarding process
• Conducting psychometric assessments for employees to be promoted to managerial or senior roles or for managerial hires

What does a recruitment agency do?

By now, you should have an idea about the hiring process and the different types of recruitment services you may need.

But which of these services does a recruitment agency actually offer?

Most recruitment companies perform one or more of the following tasks:

• Create job descriptions
• Publish job vacancies to their platform and on social media
• Filter resumes based on your company’s requirements and job description
• Conduct initial screening
• Conduct interviews and assess candidates’ interpersonal skills
• Facilitate and coordinate advanced interviews, or final interviews, with hiring managers
• Extend job offers to top candidates
• Manage negotiations with potential hires
• Conduct financial and legal onboarding for new hires

It’s worth mentioning that not all recruitment agencies conduct financial and legal onboarding for employees, which comes with administrative paperwork, opening new bank accounts for new hires,…etc.

When to use a recruitment agency?

Should you manage the hiring process in-house or hire a recruitment company?

The answer is ‘it depends.’

It depends on

• Your needs
• Your in-house capabilities, like your team’s ability to create a role-based test and evaluate those who have taken the test
• Your team’s skills to manage the process
• The time you have available to review hundreds if not thousands of resumes for a single role

Among others.

For example, if you’re the type of business that performs mass hiring, then it’s best to let an agency do the hard work. They’ll give you the top candidates based on your requirements.

On the other hand, if you’re a one-person business, it might be better to manage the hiring yourself until you can grow your business. Still, if you’re hiring in a niche you’re not familiar with, you may turn to recruitment agencies like Tawzef to help you navigate those unfamiliar waters.

It’s worth mentioning that Tawzef is not just a recruitment agency. Tawzef is a complete HR consultancy firm. This means that we offer all recruitment services, alongside broader services like:

• GAP analysis
• business process outsourcing (BPO)
• Creating and improving companies’ HR strategies
• Create effective organizational charts
• Building effective performance management programs
• Creating employee rewards and recognition programs
• Creating a salary structure and salary grade system
• Offering manpower outsourcing services

Among other HR and business-related services.

Why use a recruitment agency?

Working with a recruitment company has many benefits. Chief among those is that it saves you tons of time and can save you money.

Here are more reasons to consider working with a recruitment firm:

• They can speed up hiring
• They have a better understanding of the market
• They are familiar with average salaries
• Some recruitment agencies can offer recruitment advice
• Some agencies provide payroll services
• Some agencies are able to offer overseas recruitment services

How to work with a recruitment agency

The first step in any successful business relationship includes researching the potential agency you want to work with and getting an idea about their services.

The next step is to have a chat with them. This can be a virtual chat or an in-person one.

After that, if you feel that they’re easy to work with, it’s time to identify and communicate your needs. You should always have a contract between you and the agency you’re working with. The contract should include

• Services to be provided by the agency
• Timelines or deadlines for delivery
• Expectations
• Contact person(s) from your company and the agency
• Payment details including methods, when an initial deposit will be made, the timing for the final payment,…etc.

Need recruitment services? Want to improve employee retention in your company? Talk to Tawzef.

Our company has been providing recruitment services and supporting businesses across the Middle East and Europe for over 15 years. During that time, we’ve collaborated with our partners and offered services across dozens of industries, from banking to oil and gas, to FMCG to construction to retail and more.

Get in touch with Tawzef for all your hiring and HR needs today!