Why outsourcing your recruitment is a bad idea
Recruitment is hard, time-consuming & costly. At least that’s what the recruiting agencies will tell you during their sales pitch. And maybe it truly is. In the UK, for instance, it costs over £ 30,000 to replace a staff member and takes nearly 30 days. Large companies such as Amazon or Google receive 50,000 CVs per week! It’s also thus not uncommon to see most recruiting agencies use the tagline “We handle your recruitment so that you can handle your core business functions.” But what could be more important than choosing who joins your company? We already know a company is only as good as its people. While we see many business leaders and career sites repeat this & other statements about how valuable people are to their business, the proof of investing in hiring can be seen in the success of companies whose leaders not only say but believe & act on the power of recruiting including Steve Jobs(Apple), Bill Gates(Microsoft) or Marc Benioff (Salesforce).
Joe Kraus : “The cost of hiring someone bad is so much greater than missing out on someone good.”
Marc Bennioff, CEO Salesforce: “Acquiring the right talent is the most important key to growth. Hiring was-and still is- the most important thing we do.”
Lawrence Bossidy, Former COO General Electric: “Nothing we do is more important than hiring. At the end of the day, you bet on people, not strategies.”
Bill Gates, Microsoft: “The key for us, number one, has always been hiring smart people.”
V Khosla- A company becomes the people it hires and not the plan it makes.
The talent team has the hardest and most important job in the company.-Anon
So why shouldn’t you outsource your hiring process?
1. It’s your #1 job
Steve Jobs from Apple particularly enforced strict hiring & people management principles at the company that is now one of the best performing in the world. And this is no coincidence. He wanted a specific set of people. Not just anyone. Some even deem him as being too nitty-picky. He wanted & got followers who believed in the vision he saw to create something beautiful & functional in the hands of users. A lot of people would have otherwise compromised on some aspects of Apple products & business practices that Steve insisted on but because he was relentless in the quality of people, it showed in profits & employer brand.
2. The more you control, the more you can improve
From the ad to the interview experience to the offer, overseeing the entire process is advisable. Monitoring this will also show you where candidates are dropping off in the process or are most dissatisfied and with these insights, you can learn how to improve the process. If the agency is messing up on a stage, it’s unlikely you will find this out unless someone outs them out. For more on key hiring metrics and how to become a high-performing hiring team check out our earlier post.
3. Nobody can sell you better than you
There’s no louder message in recruiting in the 21st century, than focusing on employer branding. Millennials and Gen Z are a group that is defined as ‘spoilt for choice’. The statistics speak for themselves. Even when job seekers are jobless, they still expect you to convince them to work for you. No one can sell you better than you! Also, millennials can smell fake a mile away. Only the authentic messages for candidates will get passed through the first impression. The only way to make yourself memorable is to tell your own stories in an authentic way using your voice. And with over 75% of jobseekers being passive candidates, how will an agency with tens of other clients and jobs maintain good candidate relationships & partnerships with collaborators in a way that’s unique & competitive for you? From communicating your company culture & mission to designing your careers website, your recruiting collateral will help drive better talent for you.
4. It improves candidate satisfaction
A high percentage of candidates admit to sharing their negative candidate experience online while others decide never to apply with your company again if it's bad. Retention/repeat candidates is a great metric for your team to evaluate candidate satisfaction rates. And just like how the NPS score is the most critical metric for businesses, asking this simple question at the end of your hiring process could provide key insights into what you should put into your hiring process and what you should take out e.g. outsiders. Candidates want a personalized approach to hiring engagement and dealing with automated bots or agencies puts just one more wall between you and your next potential champ.
5. If your hiring is just boring admin work, then you’re doing it wrong
In his book Linchpin, Seth Godin describes in great detail the tragedy that is a job. In the quest for profit, companies & factories chose over 200 years ago the industrial model that Adam Smith tells in Wealth of Nations, makes it clear that the way for businesses to win is to break the production of goods into tiny tasks, tasks that can be undertaken by low-paid people following simple instructions. A culture then was established in the workplace called Faustian bargain, in which we trade our genius and artistry for apparent stability. He further goes on to show how most white-collar jobs in today’s economy are still designed to be like factory work in the 1900s.
“It’s factory work because it’s planned, controlled, and measured.”
So if you’re outsourcing your hiring because it's ‘menial repetitive boring’ then you’re probably doing it wrong. That’s the difference between recruitment and talent acquisition. TA is a long-term play that requires an intentional approach to help the business meet its current & future talent needs. It’s work that’s creative, human, and impactful. Learn more about the 4Bs of the workplace of the future and after analyzing your current process, needs, capabilities & aspirations, you can wisely & creatively use a mix of elements to help make the work easier e.g. using bots to automate onboarding or interview schedules. It's said that over 70% of hiring can be automated or streamlined. As we mentioned here, TA is about reconfiguring your hiring teams’ mindset, skillset & toolset to make your company top of mind for candidates & the community while achieving tangible business value and ensuring you’re maximizing your teams’ efforts, time & budget.
Yes, hiring can be expensive and time-consuming. But it is your most important role. It’s a process you can't afford to outsource & neglect. And if you do, the results will speak for themselves.
All the best.
Still looking for more? Check out https://medium.com/jobonics/is-your-job-ad-the-weakest-link-in-your-hiring-process-part-3-cffd57aca588
