Using a Retained Search Firm can be an intimidating prospect for companies, HR executives, and C-level hiring authorities who are used to engaging contingent firms with assistance on filling their companies’ needs. While contingent firms offer a “work for free” up front engagement model, more and more companies are finding the benefits of using a Retained Search Firm far outweigh those of using contingent firms, while getting better service and higher quality in the hiring process.
Help with the hiring process
As the hiring manager responsible for filling a niche position, you’re probably wondering which type of recruitment service will be the most helpful. Maybe you have a niche, hard-to-find role or executive position that needs to be filled. Or, perhaps you’re even filling production level roles in sales or customer service and are wondering how to get the best candidates on the market.
While contingent search is the more common model on the market, staffing is changing. Have you considered that retained search is your best option? We’ll explain a few reasons why committing to a true staffing partner who provides retained search services may be the best option for you!
What is a retained and executive search? How does it differ from Contingent?
Retained and Executive Search are similar, but different. Picture it like this – Executive Search is the search for executives, while Retained Search uses a similar quality recruiting model, however used across the organization.
Recruitment agencies use the term “retained search” to refer to an agreement where part of an engagement fee is paid to an exclusive recruitment agency to begin a search. The remainder of this fee is paid upon completion of hire. Through this model, companies can engage with committed, long-term resources and guarantee that their need is treated with a high degree of urgency by their staffing partner.
The opposite of this is what most companies are used to – the contingency model. Using this model, hiring managers make no up-front commitment, but receive no commitment from staffing agencies. They often engage dozens of staffing firms at once, with more of a “spray-and-pray” model that typically promises volume – but not quality.
Using a Retained Search Firm consolidates the work it takes you to hire talent, while receiving top service from a company that typically has a more detailed process – along with the contractual obligation to fill your open needs.
Benefits of using Retained Search
There are many benefits to retained search over contingent, which is part of the reason why this model is increasing in popularity for even mid to low-level needs among companies who are hiring. Here are 10 reasons to utilize retained search for your next big hire:
Quality over Speed or Volume
When there’s not a race to complete the search, more time can be taken to ensure the very best and most qualified candidate is found — greatly benefiting the company in the long-run.
Get Hard-to-Find Talent
A retained search opens up potential candidates who are already employed, meaning they’re able to expand their search to a wider range of individuals — increasing the chances of finding the person with the exact, unique skill sets needed for the niche role.
Better Service
The upfront structure of retained search ensures that the placement takes higher priority than commission-based placements.
Market Intelligence
Retained search recruiters will provide you with more helpful information throughout the process, including market intelligence, competition, timelines and so on.
Less Turnover
The focus of a retained search is quality. You’ll often be working with the best of the best recruiters with a high success rate. When it’s crucial to get the right candidate for a high-stakes role, retained search offers a lower risk of a bad hire, and thus a higher certainty and comfort level.
More proactivity
As mentioned above, retained search takes a more proactive approach, considering those who aren’t actively seeking a new role. This enables a much wider selection than just those who are in a database, answered ads or shown interest themselves.
Truly vetted candidates
With retained search, you can have confidence knowing your candidates have been fully vetted — from more strenuous background checks, reference checks and so on, you can know only the most genuinely-qualified candidates, both skill-wise and culturally, will be presented.
Options
Versus providing only one potential candidate to fill the role, most retained search agencies will present a handful of highly-qualified candidates who fit skill, culture and salary requirements, so that truly the best fit can be chosen.
Access to resources you don’t have otherwise
Simply put, most companies don’t have the time and resources needed to find the best high-level candidate themselves. Utilizing a retained search firm can actually save them time and money because the process will probably take less time than trying to do it internally.
More customized
Retained search enables a more customized search for roles that are often very unique. It’s not a one-size-fits-all approach, but rather the recruiter takes more time to gain a thorough understanding of what the ideal candidate possesses.
With retained search, priority trumps speed
When an agency is given a new role to fill, it must be prioritized. There is not enough time to treat every new role as the number one priority. Further, for a contingent search, you might have given your role to multiple recruiting agencies. Those agencies want to fill that role as fast as they possibly can, creating a race to the finish line to be paid. Sometimes, speed can take priority over candidate quality. Retained or executive search gives you access to a team committed to giving your role priority.
Quality over quantity
Looking for candidates for multiple roles? Using multiple recruitment firms can mean juggling many candidates and having to keep up with which candidate comes from which firm. A retained search offers a single point of contact for the entire recruitment process. You are kept informed at every phase so you can keep track of the activity, enabling complete control of the process. Instead of being overwhelmed by multiple candidates from multiple sources, you now have a streamlined and time-effective process.
With an upfront financial investment, retained search enables you to focus on other tasks while the recruitment process is handled for you.
The best part? The myth that retained search is more costly than contingent search doesn’t apply at Bluemont Search. The initial payment is deducted from your invoice, and doesn’t lock you into a “minimum” offer to any candidates presented by Bluemont.
Contact us today for information on how Bluemont’s retained search will help you find the talent you need to grow your company.
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