With 77% of businesses currently reporting difficulties in filling positions – a 17-year high – according to the ManpowerGroup, the importance for HR teams and recruiters to work together well has never been clearer.
Despite this, cultivating a strong relationship between HR professionals and their external recruiters is often easier said than done, especially if both parties don’t fully appreciate or understand the functions of the other.
Only through mutual understanding can HR teams hope to get the very best out of their partnerships with recruiters, and vice versa.
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Though external recruiters work in a different location and serve a different function, HR teams must recognise that, ultimately, they are working towards the same goal.
With HR professionals responsible for managing the entire employee lifecycle, not just the onboarding process, their workloads are often bursting at the seams.
With so much time spent ensuring the satisfaction of existing workers, HR departments can be left with little time to focus on the hiring process itself.
As such, recruiters play a vital role in supporting HR teams, freeing them up to devote their efforts to making sure current staff are happy and motivated in their positions.
It is in the best interest of HR professionals, therefore, to work with recruiters, rather than seeing them as a thorn in their side. Recruiters should be treated as an extension of the organisation’s team, not as outsiders whose goals are at odds with those of HR teams.
Yes, recruiters typically get paid commission for each new hire they secure, but the business needs to be satisfied that they’re the right person for the job before this happens.
As such, recruiters aren’t going to want to send sub-par candidates in HR teams’ direction, they’ll want to ensure that they’re putting the very best talent forward for consideration.
HR departments need to ensure that recruiters have everything they need to understand the organisation and its needs inside-out.
In turn, this should help external recruiters to source candidates who are best suited for the specific requirements of the business in question, cutting down on the number of hires who eventually turn out to be duds.
Of course, there is an onus on recruiters to make an effort to understand the company they’re hiring for, but their knowledge of the organisation can only go so far without the input of HR teams.
By giving recruiters the tools they need to succeed, HR professionals and their organisations will likely find themselves benefitting from a pool of highly-skilled, industry-leading talent as a result.
Alexander Dick is CEO of Alexander Lyons Solutions
