You’re hiring! Adding a new member to your team can be an exciting, and sometimes stressful time. Working with an expert recruiter will help you find great candidates efficiently and effectively, and they’ll walk you through essential referee checks and negotiations.
Here are our tips to get the best out of your recruitment consultant.
1) Know the fee
Get an understanding of your recruiter’s fees and what’s included in the service up front. Some recruiters may be negotiable on fees or can arrange payment via instalments. Make sure you understand the terms and conditions of the replacement guarantee – often if you don’t pay your bill on time, the guarantee is voided. Fees can be fixed (usually for more junior or graduate positions), or a percentage of the salary of the successful candidate. Experienced recruitment consultants aren’t cheap, but access to great candidates, suitable for your business and role and the peace of mind of knowing that you’ll have help with referee checks and negotiations is worth the fee.
2) Understand the replacement guarantee
Recruitment consultants aim to place the very best candidate for a role in the role. If for some unforseen reason the candidate doesn’t work out in the short term (this period will be specified in your terms and conditions) the recruiter will find a replacement candidate at no charge. Keep in mind that if the candidate is leaving your team due to action on your part: a restructure, change of job description or redundancy – the replacement guarantee will not apply.
3) Have an accurate job description
An accurate, detailed job description allows your recruiter to ensure that the candidates they present are appropriate for the job, and also gives recruiters the information they need to sell your company to in-demand professionals.
4) Share information about the job and your workplace
A good recruitment consultant will find out as much as they can about your company – from the location, size and company culture to whether there’s a staff lunch room and coffee machine. They’ll ask about professional development plans for staff, the package on offer, future plans for the company, down to the nitty gritty details: do you provide parking, do you do team lunch, what are the future plans for the role itself? They’ll want to know why the job exists, if it’s new or someone has left the role.
They not only need to know about the working conditions, but as much as they can about the workplace culture to ensure that the candidate’s personality will fit. If your office is nearby the recruiter’s they will often visit and try to get an understanding of the workplace environment.
5) Use your recruiter’s expertise and contacts
There’s a war on talent in the medical industry and a good recruiter will already have candidates in mind when they meet with you. Recruiters who have been in the industry for decades have a database of active and passive job searchers and may be able to approach a candidate directly before advertising the role – saving you time and money. (Medijobs Australia currently has a database of over 18,000 candidates in Australia.)
6) Take a targeted approach to advertising
An expert recruiter has an understanding of which job boards are best for particular types of roles and regions, and will have access to agency-only job boards. They should also have access to buying ‘packs’ of advertisements which are more cost-effective.
7) Consider exclusivity
Partnering with a specialist recruitment agency exclusively – so that you are recruiting for a role only through them is both economically efficient and a great way to push your agency even harder to succeed.
8) Know best practice
You don’t need to know the ins and outs of recruiting but there are a few flags to look out for – the biggest is an agency who sends you candidates’ details before checking with the candidate first. This doesn’t benefit you or the candidate and can result in awkward situations (one we heard of was a candidate being sent to an ex-employer when they’d left on bad terms). You’re well within your rights to tell recruiters you only want to hear about candidates who have expressed interest in your role specifically. Recruitment should be a considered process to find the right candidate, not a race to indiscriminately send resumes to employers.
Your recruiter can’t ask questions which are against the law – like whether the applicant is pregnant or planning a family.
A good recruiter will try and manage your risk, time and money spent. We’ll go through ad responses and put together a short list of candidates who not only have the appropriate skills and cultural fit, but ensure they’re qualified to work in medicine in Australia.
9) Don’t go around your recruiter
If a recruiter sends you a candidate’s details and you hire the candidate within 12 months, you will need to pay the recruitment agency. You can’t use an agency to boost your internal database and then hire candidates six months later – it will get you a bad reputation, it’s highly unethical and the agency is well within its rights to sue you. This also works the other way – if a recruiter sends you a candidate who has applied to work with you in the past 12 months, you don’t have to pay the recruiter.
If an agency has found you a candidate quickly – it’s not because they’ve only spent a couple of days on your job – they have put years of effort into building a database of great candidates so that they’re available for great clients. It takes time, skill and effort and costs money to keep candidates engaged and ready to present to employers.
10) Have your recruiter do reference checks and negotiations
Good recruiters are expert negotiators and have a nuanced understanding of the industry and job market. Quite often they will know the candidate’s referees and be able to get candid responses to reference check questions. They will help you strike a package and benefits deal with your future employee which is fair to both parties. They’ll also check in with you and the candidate before and after they start work.
11) If things aren’t working – ask your recruiter to troubleshoot
If things aren’t working out, call your recruiter as soon as possible. They may have insights into what’s going on, be able to help, or in the unlikely scenario that the situation is unworkable, they can start looking for a replacement.
If you’re an Allied Health employer who would like help finding a new staff member, get in touch. We’ve got over 20 years’ experience working in Allied Health recruitment, and have a proven record for finding amazing candidates time and time again.
Call us: 1300 903 373
Find out more about Team Medijobs Australia here.
If you think you’ve found the perfect candidate make sure you read our blog on what you need to verify before you take on a new hire.
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