Is It Time To Make Friends With That Internal Recruiter?

The rise of the internal recruiter has provoked consternation within some recruitment agencies over the last few years, and the two types of recruiter have traditionally been wary of each other. Yet as time goes on it is becoming clear that there are real opportunities arising from creating good relationships between agency recruiters and corporate recruiters.

Why do internal recruiters need external recruiters?

While the intention of bringing recruitment in-house was to lower the cost of recruitment to the company, it was never considered as a 100% solution to finding candidates. It’s been generally accepted that the work of corporate recruiters often has to be supplemented by the work of agency recruiters- in particular when filling roles with rare skill-sets or senior positions. In practice, external agencies still tend to attract the majority of the star performers, and head-hunters generally have better access to (and success rates with) passive candidates.

So while the idea of bringing all recruitment in-house might have been attractive for the company bottom line, in reality it was never practical for most businesses as a complete recruitment strategy- even during the recession when good candidates were plentiful.

Now, the skill shortage is starting to bite and internal recruiters are increasingly having to look outside to external recruiters to find the talent they so badly need. Internal referral schemes can only go so far, and external recruiters have access to a much wider candidate network- a network that internal recruiters desperately need in order to fill roles. Agency recruiters come into their own particularly well at the senior or niche level, and have excellent talent pipelines in place across sectors that corporate recruiters rarely have access to.

Why do external recruiters need internal recruiters?

However, the relationship extends both ways, as there are some ways in which in-house recruiters have the edge over agency recruiters. For example, corporate recruiters have a much better understanding of company culture and strategic goals. Therefore, they are much more proficient at understanding how the successful candidate is expected to fit into the organisation and what their success will look like. Also importantly, they know which vacancies will be opening up in the future, and have valuable insight into salary constraints and the hiring process.

As such, internal recruiters are a goldmine of information and potential vacancies that can be of immense usefulness to the external recruiter. Which is why external recruiters like you need to reach out to the internal recruiters in order to create a mutually beneficial relationship.

Through forging a positive relationship with the internal recruiters you will gain valuable knowledge about company culture and expectations, as well as become the first person they turn to when they can’t fill a role internally.

How might collaboration work?

Great recruitment results are often arrived at when an in-house recruiter functions with the external support of an agency employed on retainer. The corporate recruiter can then turn to the agency when they need help filling senior and niche roles, or haven’t found the high quality candidates they’re seeking through their normal channels.  The in-house team then has the support of an external agency, and the agency has a steady stream of roles to place. It’s a win-win situation.

It’s obvious that in-house recruiters and agencies stand to be of real benefit to each other in the current marketplace, so reach out to some internal recruiters today and start networking in order to reap the rewards.

Until next time,

Cheryl