Transactional Recruitment is Dead! So where to from here….

The mere mention of the term “Recruitment Agency” often sends shudders down the spines of both candidates and clients. Over the past 10 years the number of “recruitment agencies” has grown over 50% in South Africa alone with over 3145 agencies being registered and an estimated 2000 not being registered. More often than not, many of these agencies are started on the back of failed careers and a view that recruitment is easy. As a result, untrained transactional recruiters have flooded the market. Below I break down why it is so important for both clients and candidates to know the difference between a Transactional Recruiter and a Consultative Recruiter.

Transactional Recruitment

Your average recruiter is often someone who has very little knowledge about the space they are recruiting in and even less knowledge about the client they are recruiting for. The rush to get any candidate across to a client as quickly as possible to fill a role becomes the goal; regardless of whether they have qualified some or all of the client’s requirements for a particular role. Hires on the back of this result in poor culture fit; lack of industry knowledge; high staff turnover rates and financial losses for both client and candidate. Time to hire is often very long and managers are extremely frustrated at not having the required resource on their team, the strain on the existing team at being short staffed as well as the time being wasted interviewing candidates who are not a good fit.

Candidate and client management are an afterthought and this leaves nothing more than a bitter taste with everyone, tarnishing anyone who works in the industry whether they are exceptional or not.

Consultative Recruitment

Whether you’re a client looking for exceptional talent or a candidate looking to fast track your career, this is the type of agency you want to entrust your future with and that of your organisation. A consultative approach allows a recruiter to consider both their client and candidate holistically making sure that culture fit and skillset match well for a successful partnership.

Being a consultative recruiter allows you to look at and consider both sides. It gives you the opportunity to accurately match a required skillset to a specific candidate while also ensuring that the values and vision of your candidate are met within your client’s environment. Being proactive and gaining as much knowledge at every step of the process allows you to build a long-term career strategy with your candidate for their future at your client’s organisation. Not to mention, being able to advise your client on their hiring and succession planning strategies.

Partnering with a client is so much more than receiving a job description and a briefing; it is becoming an extension of the client’s brand and getting to know every aspect of the organisation from understanding the manager, the team, the things that are not on the job spec and what a successful candidate would ideally look like to that manager. It would be understanding the cultural dynamics and knowing what the drivers are for the team and the overall business.

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