Getting the right start to your career can be both critical to the rest of your life. If you haven’t dealt with them before, graduate recruitment agencies can be a great help in offering you a choice of career direction but also in helping you secure a new role after completing your degree.
1. If you’ve ever wondered how graduate recruitment agencies make their money, and whether it will cost you anything, it’s good news for you. Agencies get fees from employers if they are successful in finding the employer the right candidate. This means that their help costs you nothing, and indeed they will only get paid if they are successful in finding you a job.
2. Registering with graduate recruitment agencies is a ‘must’ if you are determined to get a job with a good employer. Almost all large employers will use graduate recruitment companies to fill their positions. If they were to do it themselves it would cost a lot to advertise, but also responses can be huge requiring large resources just to filter down the response. They use agencies to avoid the advertising costs and also as a first stage filter down to a manageable number of applicants.
3. There’s one negative feature to be aware of with a graduate recruitmentagency. They will constantly advertise in many places to build up a large pool of people they can place. If you don’t stay in touch, when good jobs arise, you may not be remembered in front of more recent candidates, or candidates who have constantly kept in touch with recruitment consultants. To maximise your chances, keep in touch on a regular basis.
4. Most agencies will a have a ‘claw back’ term in their contract with employers. This means if they place you into an unsuitable role and you leave within 12 weeks, they are likely to have to pay back some, or perhaps their entire hard earned fee. If you are a recruitment consultant, this is one of the worst things as these will be fees you had considered as ‘in the bag’. What this does mean is that they will be motivated to ensure the role they find is the right one, and one which you will stick at.
5. The graduate recruitment agency fee is based upon a percentage of starting salary and is normally in the range of 15-20%, a pretty healthy fee when it arrives. What this does mean is the higher salary you get offered, the more money they earn, so they are likely to want to get you the best possible salary they can.
6. When you attend interviews, understanding your interviewer and knowing the nature of their graduate recruitment process can be critical to your chances of success. Your recruitment consultant is likely to work with the same clients all the time, so should be able to give you good insight into the recruiting manager and his style as well as the mechanics of their recruitment process.
If you are graduate and looking for employment for the first time, graduate recruitment agencies are, on the whole, good news for you. If they don’t place you, they don’t make any money out of you. However, always remember you may not be the only candidate they can make money from, so once you have registered, pester them until they get you job.
Graduate Recruitment Jobs Boards Explained
Jobs boards are a vital recruitment tool within the graduate recruitment process. When used correctly, they become more than a list of job vacancies a...
Top tips from big money recruitment consultants
This article comprises of a set of hints to improve your earnings as a recruitment consultant. To be successful a recruitment consultant must possess ...
Recruitment agencies for those just starting out in their careers
If it’s the first time in your life you are searching for jobs, and you don’t yet know what recruitment agencies are about, the following is some basi...
