How recruitment agencies work

Approximate reading time: 6m 31s

Employment agencies have long established themselves as reliable intermediaries between employers and job seekers. Not everyone understands exactly what such an agency is, whether it can help them, and under what conditions. People often have prejudices.

Recruitment agencies represent employers' interests and at the same time can be very useful when you are looking for a job. In general, we decided to clarify the situation by answering the most common questions from candidates. Here they are!

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I am looking for a job and want to contact the agency for help finding one. How much will it cost?

The main thing here is not to confuse the concept. There are several types of organizations that act as intermediaries between the candidate and the employer and can be useful to you:

• Labor exchange /employment office/ - it exists in almost every settlement, in every district of a large city. This is a government agency; it has information about current job vacancies. Any citizen can apply to this organization and receive help with employment or even retraining. All of this is free of charge. The candidate is only required to register as unemployed, and for this they need to prepare a package of documents: ID card, employment record book, income certificate for the last three months, certificates, and diplomas.
• Employment Agency - This is roughly the same as labor exchanges; they oversee the employment offices in Bulgaria. It is said that their employer database is larger and their vacancies are more up to date. 
• Recruitment agencies - These are companies for searching and selecting staff, which essentially represent the interests of employers. That is, if labor exchanges and employment agencies are created for candidates, recruitment agencies work in favor of legal entities in a B2B format. Accordingly, they receive money from employers. For candidates, being entered into the agency database, interviews, and negotiations with recruiters are free of charge.

In principle, all three organizations can be very useful for job seekers.  If you come across a recruitment agency with good experience and skills, you may become the object of attention and may receive many "tempting" offers. The higher your professional competencies, the more advantageous the offers will be.

So recruitment agencies look for workers for specific positions? Can I send my CV to such a company just like that, without referring to a specific vacancy?

Of course, this can be done. Especially if you are a representative of a rare profession or a highly qualified specialist with more than 3 years of experience. But it is still better to focus and send your CV specifically for a particular vacancy. The reason is that several hundred emails arrive in the agency's inbox every day, including spam. And your unidentified CV, sent on a whim, “just like that,” can easily get lost in this routine work.

So, you have received the long-awaited call and an invitation for an interview. How do you prepare for this interview? How do you answer awkward questions, the test? How do you prepare for the test and many other questions rush through your mind. Is there a way to prepare for a job interview? Use the many sites on the internet with free, but unverified information, or sign up for our training 'Successful Job Interview'. Preparing for the first interview is half the way to getting the job. Do not worry, the interviewers are people whom you can impress with your confidence that you are coming prepared. The "Successful Job Interview" course is the guide to that goal.

Why do recruitment agencies almost never give feedback? Did they receive the resume, did they like it, is it worth calling or can't you wait to head to the sea and look for a job later?

Waiting for the time to go to the sea is definitely not worth it. You can apply for several vacancies and after receiving invitations, think about it and choose where to go. If your CV is approved, a representative of the employment agency will immediately call and arrange an interview. As a rule, this happens within 2-5 days. After this period, silence can be considered a negative answer.

How can we help you write your CV: read the article "Create the Perfect CV"

From a moral and ethical standpoint, recruitment agency staff have an idea of the rules of business correspondence and the need to reply to emails. But the following should be mentioned here: they receive and send hundreds of emails a day, which means they physically do not have enough time to respond to everyone. And as practice shows, setting up an answering machine with the message „Thank you for contacting us. We will definitely review your resume“ somehow infuriates candidates even more than the lack of a response. In general, candidates must come to terms with the fact that there is weaker feedback.

After the interview, the manager told me that I was very good and met all the criteria. But they did not call me - why?

There are many possibilities:

1. The employer was simultaneously looking for employees and, without announcing it, hired someone for the vacancy that your recruiter showed you.
2. Even more competent and experienced employees than you appeared. Yes, that happens too!
3. The employer slightly changed the selection criteria for this position and as a result you no longer fit the vacancy perfectly.
4. The manager unexpectedly canceled the position. For example, he suddenly realizes that he does not need a secretary or another sales manager.
5. There are also indirect reasons why a new employee may be rejected. It is unlikely that they will be stated to you in plain terms, since it is not customary to talk about this.

There are many examples - from your extremely indecisive look to your fascination with petty theft in your youth. Be neat, appropriately dressed, and remember that the security service never sleeps.

How can we help ourselves in the job search? Recently social networks have special applications through which employers announce vacancies. LinkedIn is the champion in this field. There, candidates can be searched by many criteria. There are also many opportunities for job seekers. Skills for working with social networks in their job-search segment are key. You can gain the necessary advantage by preparing and using social networks to look for a job by signing up for our training: "Job Search in Social Networks"

It is annoying that job advertisements do not state the name of the hiring company. In addition, during the interview the company name is often kept hidden from candidates until the very end. But there are organizations where I do not want to work. Why not write in the ad which company is recruiting?

Of course, there is some truth in this statement, and it is understandable how frustrating it is to spend time preparing for and conducting the interview and ultimately find out that the company is not right for you. Fortunately, this inconvenient moment is extremely rare.

In defense, we can say that the reasons for hiding the client's company name are very important:

1. Confidentiality clause in the contract. Alas, we cannot bypass it in any way - it is one of the pillars of our reputation and good relations with the employer. They hide the name either to prevent competitors from learning about staff changes in their organization, or to prevent unrest within the company in time. There are all kinds of situations ...
2. The recruitment agency also takes care of its own safety. Alas, there have been precedents when a job seeker, having learned the name of the hiring company, applied there directly, bypassing the recruitment agency. And all the work on advertising the vacancy, selecting and attracting candidates (including this one) was in vain. The order was spoiled and generated no income. And that is very unpleasant.

„Incompetent employees“ on the side of the recruitment company in this profession, unfortunately, are encountered. Everything depends on which employment agency you have come across. In the HR departments of large companies, for example, there is strict selection of recruiters, each of whom works according to their specialization, which means they know the terminology and have a full understanding of the specifics of a particular profession. As for the logical tasks and tests given to candidates, they make sense if a super creative person with innovative thinking or a professional analyst is being sought, someone who is able to view the situation from different perspectives. Of course, these tasks should not be "inadequate". Logic tests are compiled by professionals, and the skills sought should be within the area of competence of job candidates. 

Often job seekers are afraid that they will have to answer awkward questions and take a test. The question about marriage or having children is also logical: if you are a young mother with a child under three years old or have recently gotten married and are planning children, for an obvious reason the employer will treat you with increased attention. It is important for them to know your situation because the fate of the open position directly depends on it. The manager must understand how soon you will go on maternity leave and whether they will need to look for a replacement, how often you will be absent from work due to sick small children, and so on and so on. In principle, without taking offense, there will be questions about your personal life.

So, what is important to learn is that HR agencies operate in the B2B segment and represent the interests of employers. At the same time, candidates are the main actors in the process and without them the service cannot be delivered at all. Working for the client company, the recruitment specialist at the same time helps job seekers find employment.

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We at NIT – New Internet Technologies understand how important it is for every company to find the most suitable employees and how this can be a truly difficult and lengthy process. That is why we offer our help – we can organize a variety of questionnaires for staff recruitment: personality test, test for emotional intelligence, IQ test, logical tests or a test of proficiency in English, German or another language, through which you can quickly and easily filter your candidates. This way we can also be useful to agencies working abroad. Take advantage now and contact us!