Recruitment agencies face enormous pressure to deliver – but not in the ways that will really grow their organisations.

As a result, they’re stuck between a rock and a hard place; over-delivering hinders their growth but so does under-delivery. Why?

Because they’re viewed by their clients as ‘order takers’. They receive briefs on job roles that need filling, and clients expect nothing more or less than the agency filling such roles. There is no expectation of receiving a consultative service.

There needs to be a significant shift in the way agencies are treated and in turn, the way agencies see themselves to move the industry from being treated as mere order-takers to those who provide true consultancy. This is how they will make the biggest impact on their clients and it’s how agencies can set themselves apart from the rest.

The three steps to transformation

The number one issue here is building genuine credibility. To move from being considered simply as ‘order takers’ to true consultative experts, agencies need to follow three principles that will help their organisation to transform the impact they have on their clients.

1. Become a niche or specialist agency

One big reason recruitment agencies are not able to offer any consultation, is that they often lack the unique and valuable insights needed to do so. Finding a niche or a specialism can move an agency from mere order taking to providing true expertise in their field to employers. This is especially true for markets where the staffing industry is not as mature. 

Having a niche enables you to provide strategic input into how the candidate market is moving, whether that be from new skills being added, or how salaries compare or even what competitors are doing. This gives the organisations you work with invaluable insight and makes you far more indispensable than a more generalised agency.

2. Provide relevant insight

Another crucial part to adopting a consultative approach is offering insight that is most relevant to the time and place of the organisation. This seems simple but just taking into account the current economic climate or news relating to your organisation’s industry positions your agency one step further ahead than the rest.

Uncertainty is constant and the market requires agencies to adapt. By advising talent acquisition teams on handling economic challenges, mergers, and other key issues, agencies secure their revenue and maintain their client base.

3. Gather ‘talent intelligence’

Finally, and most importantly, agencies can boost their credibility through gathering quality data to build narratives and recommendations for the business to take action. With a deep understanding of the organisation itself and knowing who the key decision makers around hires are, data enables recruitment agencies to go beyond opinion and provide a clear business case on their strategy.

Data has become increasingly important across every part of an organisation. To speak the language of the C-Suite, agencies need to be leveraging data too. This should include where’s best to hire certain job roles, what salaries look like in different parts of the region, and what a global hiring strategy looks like based on solid data. 

This data should be provided alongside agency experience and specialist knowledge that includes the different skills areas that they need to hire for or benefit packages that competitors are offering.

Through this holistic view combining people, processes and data, agencies can move beyond order taking, offer true consultation, collaborate with talent acquisition teams, and position themselves for sustainable growth.

RAMP.Global