I've found myself in the position where I'm responsible for recruitment for my department at work. The main problem is that I really despise recruitment consultants and I know that the moment I place an advert on traditional job websites they'll start hounding me. I really cannot underline how much I hate them. Consequently, I want to consider alternative forms of recruiting and I can only think of two off the top of my head:-
• A staff referral scheme. They had this at the place I worked before and I'd have said almost a third of staff in the equivalent department were recruited in this way; a payment of up to £3,000 was made for each person you referred, depending on their skills and experience, and this was a lot cheaper than recruitment consultants.
• Targeting universities. This would be playing the long game as we'd be talking at least 2/3 years of entry level work before they'd be grounded enough to take a trainee position in my department but there's no harm in getting the ball rolling now. I wouldn't be arsed to go to any careers fairs, but I know universities these days are competitive and like to do all they can to improve their graduate employability figures so I could probably place an advert with them and let them do all the running.
>>12126 >I know that the moment I place an advert on traditional job websites they'll start hounding me
Just put a note at the bottom of the advert saying something along the lines of
>Agencies: Unsolicited CVs are sent at your own risk, and will be taken as gifts with no finder's fee attached.
>>12128 Where I worked before we were told by HR in no uncertain terms that if you so much as opened an email from a recruitment consultant about a candidate and you subsequently hired them, even if this was read by accident and they had no further involvement whatsoever in recruiting this person, then it's highly likely they would sue you.
>>12133 If you put in the advert that you're not working with agencies and will consider any CVs from agencies as freebies, it would be a pretty dumb recruiter who still sends you a CV.
Otherwise it just sounds like you're trying to find ways to do the job without actually doing the job.
>>12136 Specifically the way you've outlined them suggests you want other people to do the recruiting for you before bothering with it yourself. By all means try exploring these options in addition to the usual channels.
Staff referral schemes work if the people working for you are well-connected and the corporate culture is healthy. Be aware that if people are just referring their friends you run the risk of monoculture, and if people don't feel like they're entirely happy working for you they may not want to refer anyone useful to you.
Working with universities is going to require a hell of a lot more effort than just "placing and advert with them and letting them to all the running". If you can't be bothered to go to job fairs, then don't do job fairs. There's no halfway house you can realistically occupy.
>>12136 > What's wrong with the likes of implementing a staff referral scheme
You run the risk of people dragging in anyone with a pulses in hopes of getting them hired for the bonus, coaching them for phone screens and interviews using insider knowledge. Additionally, it can cause friction if you chose not to hire a referal with whom your existing employee has a good relationship or otherwise thinks highly off.
But then again, a referred candidate likely has a decent idea of what the job involves and is thus more likely to apply for the job because they want that role in particular. Additionally, if suitable candidates are scarce, it gives you an in with people already employed elsewhere who might be tempted to switch jobs.
Overall its a reasonable method to find candidates, but it's certainly not a no-brainer.
>>12140 >people already employed elsewhere who might be tempted to switch jobs
Bear in mind that you'll have to pay a substantial premium for these, which together with the referral fee might eat up any savings you make against the cuntsultant's commission. Certainly if I were the person being referred for a fee, I'd be wanting a similar amount myself as a signing-on bonus, on top of an above-market salary.
I always just put 'NO AGENCIES - no finders fee available' at the bottom. If any agents ring just tell them you already stated no agencies and hang up. It's not that big a deal, and you'll probably not get any contacting you.
I rang around recruitment consultants yesterday morning. They really are masters of bullshit. Most of them have placed job adverts with almost entirely fictitious descriptions of the company. Some have inflated the salary on offer by over £20,000 despite this being discussed clearly on the phone. It's also apparent that a number of recruitment consultants we don't have fee agreements with have cloned the adverts, so any candidates who send their CVs over to them will be utterly fucked if we don't agree to their terms.
