How recruitment agencies can build a great brand
Posted by Mitch on 8th May 2014
Easily the best and most cost-effective way for a recruitment agency to build a positive brand is for them to only be concerned with helping to build their client’s employer brands.
They will help enhance their client’s employer brands by running well-written job adverts for them, presenting that client both enthusiastically and transparently to potential candidates during interviews/meetings and treating those candidates not selected for final interviews with respect and compassion.
Then, if they do all of these things, their own brand will take care of itself.
It is practically impossible for any recruitment agency to ever have a strong employer brand, if for no other reason than they’re predominantly in the rejection business rather than the recruitment business – meaning that at least 90% of all the candidates that they ever engage with are deemed unsuitable. That’s on top of the approximate 80% failure rate they have with the hiring companies they engage with.
So, it’s better that they hitch their wagon to their client’s brand rather than naively (or in some cases, arrogantly) believing that anyone has either a positive perception of that agency, or any kind of perception at all.
Let’s stop kidding ourselves. Candidates don’t really care about the recruitment agency; just the employer they’re representing.
The more decent employers agencies represent exclusively, the more candidates will start to associate those agencies with that positivity.