RPO and Talent Management Blog by Ochre House | Ochre Talk

Some Recruitment agencies still picking fights

Why are some recruitment agencies still picking fights with clients and RPO providers and bemoaning their shrinking “slice of the pie”, when the whole resourcing world is changing around them and they risk missing out completely?  There is of course a very valuable role for the best recruitment agencies to play and as an attraction channel for external talent, it will remain key.  Those agencies that focus on their candidates and clients’ needs and provide great service, will of course continue to thrive.
However, it is hard to believe an article/debate like this still gets air time. Perhaps it is because this argument is being perpetuated by agencies whose world is shrinking daily, i.e. those that are not well perceived by their two client communities.  It focuses on what I would call the “transactional” elements of the hiring process and dwells on the age-old fight between recruitment agencies and the client business to make placements and therefore money – forever ignoring what the client needs are and how the whole talent management and resourcing market place has changed.

An effective in-house team or third generation RPO provider has been and is working hard to link a total resourcing solution with the talent management strategy that meets the business needs of today and tomorrow.  This means ensuring the business has the right people in the right place at the right time, many of which exist internally as headcount numbers have needed to stay flat. Whilst many businesses have not been recruiting for the past two years, HR functions have built robust talent management programmes, into which the resourcing function feeds both internal and external candidates. These resourcing functions have become experts in maximising direct, non-agency channels partly because it is so much cheaper and largely because candidates in 2010 behave so differently. They are more discerning, need to be communicated with differently, belong to online professional and social communities, are more brand conscious and are actually more accessible directly. The best resourcing functions are also now communicating directly with external talent up to two years before they might need or want to employ them.  

Combine all of this with the work many organisations have done on their Employee Value Proposition and thus maximising on referrals from existing employees, and you have a whole host or reasons why many agencies should be getting upset.

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