Obtaining Exclusivity as a Placement Consultant

Human Capital – The spine of any organization; and stronger the spine, better is the growth. This is where, choosing the right Candidate for any Organization becomes extremely important. A good Resource can do wonders if He / She is given a correct role and proper responsibilities, but if a good resource is placed in an incorrect job then it will tremendously affect the Organization as well as his / her own confidence. Hence, a right person has to be Hired for the Right Job at a rational compensation and in the shortest of time, and then only, it will a win-win situation for both the Organization & the Employee. This is where the expertise of a Placement Consultant comes into play.

The data shows that Recruitment by deploying Placement Consultants / Executive Search Agencies save up to 40% of the Recruitment Costs of an Organization. Therefore, the Growth of the Recruitment Industry has been phenomenal in recent times. At present, the Value of Recruitment Process Outsourcing Industry (RPO) in India stands at a whopping $2.5 Billion & is projected to Grow at an Annual Rate of 30 to 40% for a few more Years. (Ref: Human Resource Management by Mr. Pravin Duari, Published by PEARSON).

Organizations, on the other hand is taking this opportunity to fill in vacant positions at the earliest by floating same mandates to numerous placement consultants. idea is to give the same work to multiple agencies and pay to only one. Though this practice looks amazingly beneficial to organizations but it leads to serious unrecognized problems which impacts the company in the long run.

When a job description or a profile is floated among many placement consultants, it loses its exclusivity. The question is, “So what?” Well, many premium consultants think that they lose the passion to work on those mandates as there is no exclusivity in them. Everyone wants to be one among the mass, and so do the consultants. Giving specific mandates to specific consultants make them feel important to the organization and most importantly they feel trusted as they know that the organization has faith and confidence in them that they will be able to deliver. Apart from this, there is also a chance of peeking into the insights of an organization’s human capital by the competitors. This becomes not so difficult if there are multiple recruitment consultants working for an organization and their competitors. Hence, it is more than necessary to work with good but limited consultants.

At times, with sheer aggression to get in more clients, lots of consultants have lowered down their rates without having a proper understanding of the mandates or profiles. Later, they either cannot justify the remuneration with the work they have agreed for or they take way too long to deliver which hampers the organization’s time and effort in interviewing the undeserving candidates. The company takes the maximum hit which has a multiplier effect in the overall recruitment process and the loss of time.

It is extremely important to choose the right recruitment consultant as they are the people who will help you get the most important capital for your organization. With technology showing the world a brighter day every day, it is gaining prominence in every industry. Various job portals have literally become the backbone of these placement consultants. An organization should be aware of the quality of portals or the database a consultant has, before choosing them. They should be well equipped with a proper CV management system and should have subscriptions to premium job postings also with tracking software which is a must. These tools will help a consultant to screen and filter out the most relevant candidates from the mass.

However accuracy technology gives, it can never substitute the passion of human intelligence. While choosing a placement consultant, the organization must be aware of the consultant’s key employees and recruiters and their track records. It becomes very important to know their client base and the kind of profiles they pioneer in or they have successfully closed. A proven track record of the consultant will always help an organization to decide upon.

Most importantly, an organization should not have a recruitment consultant as their vendor but should have them as a partner. Being a recruitment partner, a consultant will be entrusted with more responsibility and confidence. They will be a part of the organization’s mission, vision and policies.

3 comments on “Obtaining Exclusivity as a Placement Consultant

Comments are closed.