In-House Recruiting vs Agency: How to Make the Transition

There are fundamental differences in strategy between agency-style recruiting and in-house recruiting. The purpose of this post isn’t to promote one recruiting style over the other, but rather to give perspective on the best fit for you and how to transition if you choose to. Finding the right fit Recruiting is a funky cross between sales and HR. Instead of selling a defined product to a customer, you’re essentially playing professional matchmaker – like Tinder, but matching job seekers and companies instead. How you bring these people in isn’t really that important – whether agency or in-house recruiting, it’s all about preference. So, which one is right for you? If you’re more inclined to manage your client portfolio and measure deliverables from a purely financial sense, an agency is your best bet. If your interests are more along the lines of building an organization piece by piece, go in-house. Prioritizing your requisition load Plain and simple, being in-house means you can’t ignore positions. You have to be on top of your game, always. Instead of being able to pick and choose which jobs you’ll focus on and which can fall to the bottom of the barrel, in-house recruiting requires an equal focus on all positions, not just easy-to-fill roles or those that will be the most profitable. When taking an in-house approach, the first step is figuring out which positions are most important for your business and which have the potential to cause major bottlenecks. Though you have to balance your requisition load and ensure all openings get equal attention, these will have to be prioritized based on need. From there, move on to analytics. If a certain role is seeing a steady flow of applicants, it wouldn’t make sense to spend time and resources sourcing for it. If you have a high priority role with a weak candidate flow, you will need to carve out time to market your positions to the right people. Managing employer brand vs. your own One of the biggest tools missing in agency recruiting is being able to leverage brand. The most successful agency recruiters have a personal brand that encourages trust between candidates and generates referral business. Therefore, a huge advantage of in-house recruiting is being able to leverage your brand. Showcase your culture (and not only that – boast it!). Your messaging should reference as much information as possible that promotes your brand. This could mean many things, from linking to your company reviews on Glassdoor, social media pages or even relevant blogs or team videos. Which metrics matter? There’s a wide variety of agencies out there, from boutiques to conglomerates. For the purposes of this post, let’s focus on the conglomerates. Many agencies have metrics that are similar to a sales organization, putting focus on metrics like attempted contacts, phone conversations, submittals and deal profits. Oftentimes, this can lead to micromanaging within agencies. When moving in-house, these metrics are handled differently. At Glassdoor, there are two things we view as most important to measure: fills and interview feedback. Ultimately, if you’re not producing, you’re slowing the entire organization down, which is why number of fills is so crucial. The expectation isn’t to make 100 calls a day – it’s more about closing your requisitions whatever way you can. Interview feedback is the second key metric we measure in-house. Each recruiter should own this part of the recruiting process – it’s up to them to stay informed with Glassdoor feedback to make sure their team is assessing the right things and representing the company well. The battle is on: in-house vs. agency An in-house team is a marketing machine with a strong personal sales focus, while the agency model presses harder on sales and direct outreach. However, the most effective recruiters use a blend of each strategy. To learn more about recruiting with agencies, check out our blog post Working With Recruiting Agencies? What You Need to Know!