recruitment agency

If you have recently qualified as a teacher or are looking for work in a new school then you may well want to enlist the help of a teaching agency.

Teaching posts are sometimes not advertised like other job posts, you may not find them in the shop window or even in the local paper. They are normally shown on specialist websites such as TES and also on local authority websites.

It may be that you want to do supply work but don’t know how you go about getting yourself recognised by different schools. There are some recruitment agencies out there that specialise specifically in education recruitment. The posts available usually range from full time teaching posts to teaching assistances and office admin roles in schools. If you are looking for a job within the education industry then this would be a great place to start. Many of the recruitment agencies will also offer you other support. They may help you with interview techniques and if you get the job they may even have a portal which you can access to download work sheets or lesson planning ideas.

You will often have to either pay a monthly fee to register with these agencies or they may take a percentage of your salary when working through them instead.

Recruitment can be a nightmare for business owners. Recruitment costs can ver quickly spiral and you may find that you or members of your staff spend too much time checking CV’s, carrying out interviews and training a new recruit. This is why many businesses put of hiring someone new as you could got through the whole process for them to up and leave after a few weeks.

If you would rather take the stress and hassle out of recruitment then why not hire a recruitment agency.

If you are looking to employ a member for staff on a permanent basis then you will pay a fee often based on a percentage of their salary. This fee is usually a fixed fee that has been agreed upfront.

A recruitment agency may well be able to offer you a range of services from simply advertising the job and putting candidates forward to carrying out the initial interview processes too.  If you then decide to employ the member of staff that has come through the agency, you will need to pay the fee to the recruitment agency. Many agencies work on the policy of not charging you unless they find a suitable candidate.

Finding the right job can be a battle at the best of the times, but with so many agencies now involved in the recruitment process it can often feel like there’s just too much ‘noise’. However, they can be a really useful resource, as they will do much of the job hunting for you, so here’s some quick tips for getting the best out of them.

First up – do some research. Some agencies are very general, whereas others are extremely specialist. The best agency for you is the one that most matches the type of role you’re looking for. If you’re looking for an executive position for example, you’ll need to look for a specialist – you’re not going to find Director positions at Office Angels, for example. However, if you’re looking for general office work or temporary work, a specialist recruiter probably isn’t the place to go.

Next up – keep in touch. Build a relationship with your agency or agent. It’s a well-established fact that someone will work harder for you if you have a good rapport, but agencies are also far more likely to prioritise those individuals who call and email regularly – particularly for roles that involve customer contact.

If you are in the process of searching for work then you may decide to us a recruitment agency. Their role is to find your suitable work that you can apply for. If the role is for a permanent position, then you will often still have to go through the interview process with the employer and once you have been offered the job, will report directly to the employer. If the work is temporary then you usually won’t have interviews but may be offered work at different locations each day. You will usually be paid by the agency who will take a percentage of your earnings.

It is important to remember that you will not be the only candidate on their books, so if you are serious about finding employment then you will still need to apply for jobs yourself as well and also may need to chase the agency to ensure that you get put forward for positions.

Try and build up a relationship with your agency. You may want to register with 2 or 3 but be sure to take the time to find out who your main point of contact is and spend time with them talking through your previous experiences and qualifications.

It can be a nightmare trying to find the right candidate for a position you have within your company. Some companies advertise the position themselves and carry out the whole recruitment process where as others chose to go through a recruitment agency.

There are many advantages to using a recruitment agency below are a few examples:

Knowledge of the market: any good recruitment consultant will know the market in terms of the types of candidates available, where to find them, what salary they will expect, career expectations and the hiring issues a candidate may have. With this knowledge they should be able to find you the right candidate or a number of candidates quite quickly.

Knowing how to contact candidates – Some candidates can be hard to reach. It may be that they are not currently actively looking for a job but that if the right recruitment consultant can put a proposition forward to them in an attractive way they may be interested. Recruitment agencies tend to be able to do this better than an employer trying to do it directly.

If you are an employer looking to fill a vacancy that you have you will probably be all too familiar with the usual time consuming process and costly expense of advertising the job and then trawling through a mountain of CV’s the then having to interview a number of candidates before finding the right one.

It is thought that on average it costs a business approximately £4500 to fill a vacancy, this is in advertising and time. Agencies take a lot of the hassle away from you but doing all the advertising of the job, filtering through CV’s and then pre assessing people that you wish to attend an interview.

Agencies charge a fee for their service which is often a percentage of the job roles’ annual salary. This is often why it is a good idea to employ more than one agency to find you candidates as you will only pay the one who supplied the applicant that you employ. Although this is the way most agencies work, be sure to check the terms and conditions of each one.

With so many recruitment agencies out there it can be very confusing knowing which one to register with.

If you are looking for work in a particular sector there may be specific recruitment agencies that specialise in that field so it’s worth looking around.

Also you can look for reviews online of the different agencies to check if they have a good reputation from other people who have found work through them.

If you are looking for temp work it can be a good idea to register with a number of agencies as it’s unlikely that one agency will be able to supply you with continual temp work on a regular basis.

When you go into the agency ensure that you are clear about the type of work that you are after and the wage that you are willing to work for, often recruitment agents will try to get you to negotiate the wage down as low as possible but realistically you are not going to be able to sustain working for a low wage long term.

If you are looking to become a recruitment consultant then you will need to understand what the role entails and what you will be expected to do on a day to day basis.

Recruitment consultants tend to work from a central office although some do work from home and travel to meet clients. The business is often split in to two sides, dealing with the employers and dealing with potential recruits. Recruitment agencies work in different ways, some contact employers and build relationships with them so when they have a post to advertise, it is all done via the agency, whereas others tend to find potential employees and then search existing job adverts and contact the employer to discuss a candidate that they feel may be suitable.

You need to have great communication skills for this role and must also be very organised. You may be required to complete a training course by the agency before they will let you speak with clients.

Many employers are now choosing to advertise their vacancies with recruitment agencies rather than do it themselves. Although the agency will obviously charge a fee for their services, there is many advantages to using one. Allowing an agency to source potential candidates for you will take the pressure off and free up your time to carry on with your daily job tasks.

A good recruitment agency will take a detailed description of the position that you require to be filled and then search through jobs boards and their own database of applicants to suggest some to you. If the quality of CV’s that you are receiving from them is not good enough, do not be sacred to tell them so as you are paying them for their services.  Once they have found some people that you think may be suitable, they should then carry out their own brief interview to run through their CV and explain the position on offer. After this process is complete the candidate is normally passed over to you to then carry out your own interview.

For any business, starting recruitment can be a stressful time. Many things can lead you to the conclusion that you need to start a recruitment campaign, but depending on the way you go about it, you can get very mixed results. With experience in the matter, you will surely gain a  better understanding of what needs to be done and in what way. Luckily, there is a huge industry revolving around introducing job seekers to job creators. The many recruitment agencies have experience in these areas so that you don’t have to. The services they offer depend upon the position that the business is seeking to fulfil. Of course, as they work on commission, the higher paying job it is, then the more resources they can dedicate towards the issue, and therefore the better the situation for the business. Any businesses goals when recruiting has to start, first of all, with getting as many potential applicants on their list as possible. Accomplishing this is what a recruitment agencies primary role is. From there though, the business in question needs to take on a leading role during the process by which the applicants are vetted. Of course, the recruitment agency will be able to help with this, largely by checking the validity of the applicants claims on their CV. Ultimately, for any business which needs skilled employees, nothing will bring in potential applicants like a dedicated recruitment agency.