Recruitment Agencies and Advertising Techniques

Nov 3
08:43

2008

John Bult

John Bult

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One of the key factors in the success of recruitment agencies is building the largest candidate database possible.

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The typical British recruitment agency is aimed towards gathering the largest database of candidates possible. They put focus on gaining the highest amount of candidates possible,Recruitment Agencies and Advertising Techniques Articles and are more concerned with this than how many job vacancies they have. Therefore, emphasis is placed on attracting candidates, with advertising as the most obvious and effective tool.

Advertising, although effective, is also expensive. However, with the development of the internet and other technologies, the choices of how to advertise are expanding. New opportunities are arising to reach different audiences, with a wider choice of budget.

General Job Search Websites – These sites are the most recognisable jobs sites on the internet. They are very common and easy to find online. Broad-spectrum job search sites advertise a wide range of jobs from sectors of most industries. Websites of this genre include monster.co.uk and fish4jobs.co.uk. Sites such as these have a large number of hits and visitors, many of who are registered users. Therefore, these sites have an enormous influx of applications. Advantages of websites such as these include your job advert reaching a large audience. However, the exposure of your advert to a wide, varying audience can also cause problems as responses can be non-specific. This can make finding the right applicant very time consuming, especially in the case of filling a role within a niche sector.

General Jobs CV Search –Recruitment agencies often search the CV database of websites and job boards such as monster.co.uk. This enables specific search criteria to be applied, and can be particularly beneficial when finding an applicant for a skill specific role. Niche specific recruitment agencies also benefit from this type of search, as it encourages a response from applicants with specific attributes. Skill-specific CV searches also decrease time spent finding appropriate candidates, and produce a higher quality of suitable candidates. Although these searches have many advantages, there are also negative aspects to CV searches. Easy access inevitably means that many other recruitment agencies will target the same applicants as you. Therefore, precious time may be invested on your behalf, only to lose out to a rival agency.

Advertising through Print Media – Print media such as newspapers and magazines were the only main source of CV’s for recruitment agencies until the last 1990’s. The popularity of using the print media has dwindled in recent years, due to the expensive rates in comparison to the cheaper, more immediate advertisements opportunities available on the internet. However, print media does hold an advantage over the internet as it can create and mould a certain image for an agency; a brand image in an upmarket broadsheet portrays a company as a lead player in the market.

Niche targeted job boards – This is a more constructed, specific targeting by recruitment agencies to generate CV’s in their own sector. Smaller, more focussed job boards dedicated to a particular sector are more attractive to both candidates and recruiters in that sector. Smaller job boards such as these are likely to be selected over general job boards by internet search engines such as Yahoo and Goggle.

Resorcing agencies – This is a developing resourcing tool for recruitment agencies, and is often outsourced to Asia. Resourcing agencies are hired to complete the initial recruitment process for agencies. They have access to an array of job databases and work under instruction from the recruitment agency to create a suitable shortlist. Ultimately, this saves the recruitment consultants time to be spent on developing the process, and also saves the agency money on advertising, which in this scenario, is not relied on. A negative aspect of employing resourcing agencies is that it is unlikely that the people conducting your work are specialized in the sector you work within.

It appears that the most effective advertising technique for recruitment agencies would be to apply a number of techniques, therefore reaching as many candidates as possible.