Picture this; you've won a job and you need to find someone for a three month contract. You've placed your ad up on an online job board and almost instantly, you receive a mountain of applications. Your time is money and you find that the time it takes to work through all those applications is taking you away from the work that brings in the dollars. Then the phone calls start and, before long, you feel like you need to clone yourself just to get your head around all the CV's. Surely there has to be an easier way than this?

Clients and Candidates alike are experiencing a period of Recruitment Enlightenment. They’re currently going through a period where they will begin to appreciate and gain insight into the amount of work that goes into placing a role successfully. As creative recruiters, we may understand design, but we’re not designers. Likewise, agencies may understand how to recruit, however they’re not recruiters. When they weight up the actual time, resources and energy spent into finding that right person, they may begin to appreciate the real cost of recruitment.

A Mountain Of Response

The most common way of finding new talent in this day and age is to advertise on online job boards, such as Seek, MyCareer and CareerOne. A recently placed job ad for Artisan produced nearly as many views within 72 hours of being placed than a similar ad for it’s entire life duration just a month earlier. And of that amount, only a small portion will be at the level of standard required to proceed forward. When you consider that one ad may yield 200-400 responses, you have to question the time involved in going through each individual application. On top of this, there is the experienced eye who knows what to look for, to read between the lines of the CV so that when you have someone who is highly skilled but struggle to articulate themselves properly apply, that they don’t get lost in amongst all the rest.

Meanwhile, your normal work still continues to pile up on the desk behind you... You don’t find the time to look at all the responses... You lose good people because they get snapped up quickly... And you spend up to several days working your way through a mountain of responses.

And So We Meet... At Last!

Once you’ve narrowed down your 200-400 applications to a short list of 5-10, it is time to get your first round of interviews underway. Depending on the role, this may require only one interview or it may require up to three or four! And as interviewing people is not a frequent occurrence, it also means that many people may not be sufficiently prepared for how to interview properly. More often than not, poorly prepared interviews could result in badly qualified candidates or, even worse, scaring off good people because you’ve come across as ill prepared.

Once you’ve interviewed your 5-10 people, it’s time for you to commence your reference checks.

So... Are They Good n’ Stuff?

Because of the vast number of interviews that we’ve conducted day in, day out, Artisan staff are capable of quickly qualifying potential candidates as well as conducting thorough reference checks that are relevant to the sector of the design industry that they belong too. A proper reference check needs to be comprehensive and not rely solely upon a ‘she’ll be right’ attitude. Additionally, each candidate should have at least a minimum of three reference checks from their career to verify their ability in their role. As with initial interviews, poorly performed References will result in you not really getting the information that you want, as well as spending up to a handful of days chasing up people to speak with.

And So We Meet... Again!

And then it is onto the next interview, often to meet with Senior Team Members and generally focusing on the company culture. By this stage, several days worth of work, including senior level staff, has been involved to get to this point in the process. However, there is a light at the end of the tunnel and the hopeful outcome of this meeting would be to determine who the job should be offered to.

Yeah, I’ve Actually Just Had Another Offer... With More Money.

So, you’ve picked your successful candidate and you’re about to make an offer. It’s at this point they decide to tell you that they’ve had a second offer with substantially more money or that their existing job has increased the salary to keep them to stay. Counter offers claim more time than many may realise and, without the knowledge on how to successfully handle these, could see your process revert all the way back to step one. Not only does working with an agency give you an insight into industry trends to ensure you’re offering an attractive package from the start but will also ensure that they’re working with the candidate every step of the way to ensure that you’re not getting this far into the process only to find you don’t get the one you want. Just because there is a lot more fish to choose from, it doesn’t mean that you still don’t risk telling the story of ‘the one that got away’.

It’s Not You, It’s Me.

You can imagine the frustration of going through the entire process, spending the money to set up their workstation, new equipment and software, training them up, getting them up to speed... And then they drop the bombshell... The corporate version of ‘It’s not you, it’s me’. The job isn’t what they expected and they’ve decided to move on. Or their old counter offer came back with a better deal. You’re saying good bye, not just to them, but to hours, energy and resources spent getting just to this point. At least with an agency, you have a guarantee period that you’re covered for 90 days meaning that, worst case scenario, it isn’t going to cost you to replace.

When you tally up the time taken at each step of the process and the risk of doing it directly, you can begin to appreciate the increasing cost involved in recruiting directly. It isn’t just the $200 you placed to get your ad up online. It is the man hours taken to work through applications and to qualify them. It’s the time taken at Senior team level to meet and to give their approval. It’s the risk involved in ensuring that they accept and that they don’t disappear shortly after joining. Too often, agencies are called in straight after a bad ‘direct’ experience to work with the company, to fix up the situation and to get someone who is perfect for that role in quickly and easily. When you add it all up, how much is the cost of recruiting when it is done quickly, efficiently and professionally from the start?

Lawrence Akers is a Senior Account Manager for the Corporate and Government Teams at Artisan. If you wish to comment on the above article or you have an experience you would like to share, email here and we'll publish your story.