Recruitment consultants are often on the receiving end of a lot of bad press. You don’t have to search far on forums, groups and blogs to hear complaints of a lack of feedback, fake adverts and general shoddy service. But recruitment agencies continue to form a large part of the job hunting/talent attraction process.
If they’re so prevalent, they can’t all be terrible, and there must be value in the service provided by some of them. So if you’re job hunting, should you approach recruitment agencies?
There are certain situations and needs when it is probably advisable. If you’re moving to a new area, for example, talking to recruitment agencies in that region and registering with them is almost certainly going to be valuable. As well as being able to pick their brains about the area they will be able to quickly represent you to a wide variety of companies and jobs not advertised elsewhere. Should you be successful they could also help you to negotiate a relocation package. Having someone working with you during this time can be helpful and reassuring.
Recruiters can be useful for certain skilled job types as well. Niche jobs won’t be advertised as much on the mass market job boards like Monster and Totaljobs, and employers looking for quite specific knowledge and training are more likely to rely on recruiters who work solely within their niche and can spend time hunting the right person. This applies for professions such as lawyers and solicitors, and jobs in actuary professions, accountancy and other highly skilled financial positions. Insurance, actuarial work, risk modelling and finance need certain qualifications and expertise, and it is more time and cost-effective to have a recruiter targeting qualified candidates rather than advertising on a generic job board for something like “actuary jobsâ€. It can also apply to technical recruitment, such as IT and engineering.
Some careers, however, are less likely to need a recruitment consultant. If your job is to promote or sell something you should be able to make yourself visible to employers and find opportunities yourself. Sales, marketing and PR all revolve around making relationships and making something known, so if you want a job in these areas start promoting yourself. It’s true that recruitment agencies can save you time, but if you don’t want to deal with them the good news is that for these positions you can quite easily bypass them.
Star Actuarial Futures was founded to provide leading edge recruitment services to the actuarial market. They provide clients with the talent they need to realise their business strategy and candidates with the opportunities they need to achieve their career goals. Visit http://www.staractuarial.com/clientsfor more information.