Find advice on choosing and using recruitment marketing agencies - including a searchable database. Produced in conjunction with Ri5, providers of market intelligence for the recruitment industry.
How to select an agency
Advice on finding the right agency. And how much you should expect to pay.
Date:
20 June 2005
Source:
Recruitment marketing
Finding the right agency
You’ll find details on UK recruitment advertising and communications agencies, including those with international and global networks, in the ‘For recruiters’ Advertising agency database, produced in conjunction with recruitment industry specialist Ri5. This will help you to identify suppliers of potential interest and provide a sound basis for your initial selection.
If you would like to do some background reading before taking the plunge, take a look at articles from the Guide to Recruitment Marketing 2005, as well as our Viewpoints and Case studies. There is also a Your questions section, where you can find answers to frequently asked questions - and submit your own queries (anonymously, if you wish) for an expert response.
Once you’ve identified your targets, you should contact them, meet their people and, if you like what you see, request a full capability statement. This level of contact may be enough to convince you that a particular supplier is right for you. Alternatively, you may wish (or be required) to set up a competitive pitch to assess how different suppliers approach the same task.
The pitching process
If you do have to organise a formal selection process, the following rules should help to optimise the exercise for all concerned.
1. Keep it short
Don’t ask too many organisations to pitch (a common error). A shortlist should be what it says. If you’ve undertaken your initial assessment of suppliers’ capabilities with sufficient rigour, you should have more than enough information to reduce the field to a final, relevant few.
2. Keep it simple
Don’t ask for, or focus unnecessarily on, services you don’t need or won’t be using.
3. Buy now
If you’re planning to involve your purchasing function, bring them into play as soon as possible, not at the end of the process.
4. Get real
Make any competitive exercise as relevant and realistic as possible. Ideally, use a live recruitment project – preferably in a discrete area – as a basis for testing new suppliers. If you design this properly, the resulting work should be usable without further modification. Brief the competing agencies fully, and be prepared to answer their specific questions. Rremember, the pitch should be a two-way process.
5. Be fair
Don’t expect agencies to invest huge amounts of time, effort and expenditure in unwarranted speculative work. Instead, ensure that your chosen project embodies all the skills and expertise you need to see. Industry best practice recommends that client organisations recompense short-listed suppliers for pitch-related expenditure to pre-agreed levels.
6. Be objective
Know what you’re trying to assess, then do this as fairly and objectively as possible. Provide all short-listed suppliers with accurate feedback after the event.
7. Be inclusive
Involve all potential users in the decision-making process!
If you keep the above requirements in mind, you’re likely to end up with the right agency for a valuable, lasting and productive relationship. As long as you can sort out the money…
How do agencies charge for their services?
It used to be simple. If an employer opted to use the services of a recruitment ad agency, it ended up costing them about the same as if they had produced the advertising themselves - and no more. This was because “recognised” ad agencies derived their principal income from media commissions on the advertising they placed, effectively enabling them to provide “free” advice and consultancy for their clients.
A number of factors – including significantly enhanced expectations of agency input as well as the migration to lower-cost media and consequent fall in income from media commissions – mean that this traditional charging model has all but disappeared. Different agencies now have different ways of charging for their services, including project-specific fees, regular management fees and retainers. In addition, many large clients – especially those in the public sector – routinely expect to negotiate discounts or split media commissions with their agency.
Charging is something you should explore with potential suppliers at the earliest opportunity. You’ll want the best deal possible but, remember, the less revenue your agency earns from your business, the less important your account is likely to be to them – an important consideration if you’re looking for a premium service.
|