Why Use a Specialist Recruitment Agency?
Using a specialist recruitment agency will help you save your time and effort in your search for the best candidate or role. Having a specialist agency to help fill your niche jobs will relieve the pressure on internal teams, especially if recruitment and selection is not their primary role. For a candidate, a specialist agency can make sure that you’re paid your worth for the work you produce.
Greenlight People is a specialist IT recruitment agency in Manchester. We specialise in .NET recruitment, amongst other IT roles. If you’re wondering the difference between a general and specialist recruitment agency and why you should use the latter, this blog will help.
- Knowledge of the skills required
- Knowledge of the candidate’s expectations
- Access to specialist job boards
- Special relationships with companies
- Advice on CV and cover letter writing
- Salary advice and benchmarks
FOR COMPANIES
- Knowledge of the skills required
Simply put, a specialist recruitment agency understands the role and what kind of candidate you are recruiting for. A specialist IT recruitment agency will be used to finding candidates with similar skillsets and may already have a database of suitable candidates. Additionally, the quality of CVs you receive from a specialist recruitment consultant is usually higher. This is because rather than taking a candidate’s CV at face value, they can ask more in-depth questions about the candidate’s knowledge and what projects they have worked on.
- Knowledge of the candidate’s expectations
This is an important aspect of recruitment, especially within the IT space. As the industry suffers from a huge skills shortage, it’s not enough to offer basic benefits and a mediocre salary, if you’re looking for the best candidates. For 34% of candidates, benefits are the most important consideration before accepting a role with a company. A specialist recruitment consultant knows the average salary expectation for the level of IT talent and can work with you to develop a benefits package which will truly appeal to the candidates you’re looking for.
- Access to specialist job-boards
Having access to sector-specific job-boards is invaluable to find the right candidates for your roles. Having to sign up to and monitor multiple job-boards is an expense of time and money that a number of companies can’t afford. This is especially true for smaller companies that have perhaps one member in their in-house team. However, with a specialist recruiter, they will have access to the specialist job boards which are relevant to your industry. Though general job boards such as Indeed are a good option for some roles, in a tight labour market with niche roles you will need those specialist boards.
FOR CANDIDATES
- Special relationships with companies
Working with a specialist recruiter means they may already have established relationships with companies that hire candidates like you. If you’re a .NET Developer working with a specialist IT recruitment agency, they can directly recommend you to employers who may not be actively looking but are still interested in finding talented candidates.
- Advice on CV and cover letter writing
A general recruiter can give you general advice about how to make a good CV. However, with more technical or niche roles, often the information included has to be more detailed to showcase your abilities. For example, a .NET Developer CV would be different from a Sales Executive CV as you would include a portfolio and have examples of the technologies used for each role listed. A specifically tailored .NET Developer CV is more effective at showing off your key skills and knowledge of languages, meaning that you are more likely to have interviews offered.
- Salary advice and benchmarks
Everyone wants to be paid their worth. Speaking to a consultant at a specialist recruitment agency will help you to gauge the salary you should look for in your next role. Whether you’re a graduate looking to take your first step, or an experienced professional looking to take your next one – a recruitment consultant with experience of hiring in your area will only benefit you.