How recruitment agencies work

Approximate reading time: 5m 35s

Recruitment agencies have established themselves as reliable intermediaries between employers and job seekers. Not everyone understands exactly what such an agency is and whether it can help them. Often people have prejudices.

Agencies for recruitment represent the interests of employers and at the same time can be very useful when looking for a job. In general, we decided to clarify the situation by answering the most common questions of the candidates. And here they are!

 

I am looking for a job and I want to contact the agency to help me find a job. 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 job applicant and the employer and can be useful to you:

• Labor exchange (labor office) - can be found it almost every town, in every neighborhood of a big city. This is a government recruitment agency, it has information on current vacancies. Every citizen can apply to this organization and receive employment assistance or even retraining. All this is free. The applicant is only required to register as unemployed and for this it is necessary to prepare a package of documents: ID card, employment record book, certificate of income for the last three months, certificates and diplomas.
• Employment Agency - This is approximately the same as the labor exchanges, they run the labor offices in Bulgaria. The base of their employers is bigger and their vacancies are more up-to-date. 
• Recruitment agencies - These are recruitment and selection companies that essentially represent the interests of employers. That is, if job vacancies and employment agencies are set up for applicants, recruitment agencies work for the benefit of legal entities in b2b format. Accordingly, they receive money from employers. For candidates, the entry in the database of the agency, the interviews and the negotiations with the recruiting staff is free of charge.

In general, all three organizations can be very useful for job applicants. In case you come across an agency with good experience and skills, you can become an object of attention and it is possible to receive many "tempting" offers. The higher your professional competencies, the more profitable the offers will be.

So recruitment agencies are looking 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 better to go and send your CV specifically for a specific vacancy. The reason is that several hundred emails arrive daily in the recruitment agency's mail, including spam. And your unidentified resume, sent for luck, "just like that", can easily get lost in this work routine.

Why do recruiters almost never give feedback? Did you receive the resume, did you like it, is it worth calling or can't you wait to stretch by the sea and look for a job further?

You can apply for a few vacancies and once you receive invitations, think and choose where to go. If they approve your CV, the recruiter will call immediately and arrange an interview. As a rule, this happens within 2-5 days. After this period, silence can be considered a negative answer.

From a moral and ethical point of view, recruiters have an idea of ​​the rules of business correspondence and the need to respond to letters. But the following should be mentioned here: they receive and send hundreds of letters a day, that is, they do not have enough time physically to respond to everyone. And as practice shows, setting up an answering machine with the message "Thank you for connecting. We will definitely look at your resume ", for some reason infuriates the candidates even more than the lack of an answer. In general, applicants have to come to terms with the fact that there is less feedback.

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

There are many possibilities:

1. At the same time, the employer was looking for employees and without announcing hired a person in the vacancy that the recruiter showed you.
2. Even more competent and experienced employees than you have appeared. Yes, there are some!
3. The employer has slightly changed the selection criteria for this position and as a result you no longer fit perfectly for the vacancy.
4. The manager unexpectedly canceled the post. For example, he suddenly realizes that he doesn't need a secretary or other sales manager.
5. There are also indirect reasons why a new employee may be fired. It is unlikely that you will be announced in plain text, as talking about it is not accepted. There are many examples - from your extremely indecisive look to your involvement in petty theft in adolescence. Be neat, properly dressed, and remember that security never sleeps.

It is annoying that the recruitment agencies' ads do not mention the name of the hiring company. In addition, during the interview, the name of the company is often hidden until the last moment from the candidates. But there are organizations I don't want to work for. 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 take the time to prepare and conduct the interview and eventually realize that the company is not right for you. Fortunately, this awkward moment is extremely rare. We can say that the reasons for hiding the name of the client company are very important:

1. Confidentiality clause in the contract. Alas, we can not bypass it in any way - this is one of the pillars of our reputation and good relations with the employer. He hides his name either to prevent competitors from finding out about the change of staff in his organization, or to prevent unrest in the company itself in time. There are all kinds of situations...
2. The recruitment agency also takes care of its own safety. There were precedents when a job seeker who learned the name of the hiring company applied directly there, bypassing the recruitment agency. And all the work on advertising the ad, on the selection and attraction of candidates (including this one) has been in vain. The order is thwarted and does not generate income. And this is very unpleasant.

"Incompetent employees" by the recruitment company in this profession, unfortunately, are found. It all depends on which agency you are in. In the HR departments of large companies, for example, there is a strict selection of recruiters, each of whom works according to their specialization, which means that they know the terminology and have a full understanding of the specifics of a particular profession. As for the logical tasks that are given to the candidates, they make sense if you are looking for a super creative person with innovative thinking or a professional analyst who is able to look at the situation from different points of view. Of course, these tasks should not be "inadequate". Logic tests are drawn up by professionals and must be within the competence of job applicants.

The question of marriage or the presence of children is also logical: if you are a young mother with a child under three or have recently married and are planning to have children, for obvious reasons the employer will pay close attention to you. It is important for him to know your situation, because the fate of the open post directly depends on him. The manager needs to know how soon you will be on maternity leave and whether you will need to look for a replacement, how often you will be absent from work due to sick children, and so on. Generally, you should not worry, but there will be questions about privacy.

So, what is important to learn is that recruitment agencies operate in the b2b segment and represent the interests of employers. At the same time, the candidates are the main characters in the process and without them the implementation of the service is simply impossible. So, working for the client company, the recruitment specialist at the same time helps the realization of job seekers.

We at NIT - New Internet Technologies Ltd. understand how important it is for every company to find the most suitable employees for it and how this can be a really difficult and long process. That's why we offer you our help - we can organize a variety of recruitment questionnaires: personality test, emotional intelligence test, IQ test, logic tests or proficiency test in English, German or another language through which you can quickly and easily screen your candidates.