There are many reasons why a company would hire a recruiting firm to find staff. Especially when it comes to an executive assistant position. Whenever a company is seeking to hire new talent, it puts pressure on the hiring committee.
These pressures on hiring managers to find the perfect candidate are among the reasons why companies use recruiting firms. However, there are so many others. Some of them are unique to the particular company, some of them are general reasons that are applicable across industries.
What we are going to review here are some of the reasons why so many companies use recruiters.
So, who is the ideal reader for this piece? Well, obviously it’s a good review for companies who are considering hiring either an administrative assistant or an executive assistant. It’s also a good piece for executive assistants who are looking for work, and who wonder if it’s worth it to connect with recruiters on LinkedIn.
Now, on to the list.
Recruiters Have Expertise In Finding The Right Candidate
The number one reason why companies hire recruiting firms is because they want expertise. Recruiters spend all of their time searching for the perfect candidate. Companies, on the other hand, are focused on whatever their primary business it.
Whereas the internal hiring manager at a Hedge Fund might know the general type of candidate that they want to hire, they simply don’t have the experience and expertise in dealing with the applicants.
In the same way, a cosmetics company is expert in many things, but they are not expert in hiring personnel for their team. This is especially true when it comes to hiring for executive support staff.
Recruiters, on the other hand, especially recruiters who work in firms that handle executive support staffing, are adept at finding the right candidate.
Signal to Noise: Recruiting Teams Find Relevant Candidates
Another reason that companies like to use recruiters is that a recruiting agency can filter out the noise. The concept of signal to noise in business is very important. When a company posts a job listing online, there are going to be 100 applicants for ever opening, at a minimum. The real problem is weeding through the endless unqualified applicants.
Recruiters know how to very quickly review resumes and applicants and determine who is a valuable candidate and who is someone who is unqualified.
The ability to filter out all of the noise and work with the signal is an important aspect of a recruiting companies services.
Recruiters Can Check References and Pre-Interview
Companies don’t want to hire people who have fake resumes and can’t provide references. One of the downsides to not using a recruiting agency is that your internal hiring team will have to spend hours and hours vetting every candidate.
The truth, as anyone who has hired an employee will tell you, is that the majority of people who apply for work either embellish their resume or else severely lie about their prior experiences.
This is one reason why so many companies run background checks, do employment verifications, and do professional reference checks.
Some companies have difficulty doing these sorts of checks. They might be hesitant to do them because of laws, or they simply are not staffed enough to handle a background check.
Whatever the cause, most companies want to avoid the headache of dealing with references and background checks. At best, it’s a time consuming process. At worst, it can open them up to liability and cause them to have to deal with lawsuits and other problems from disgruntled candidates who feel that they have been wronged.
Some recent examples of lawsuits- age related lawsuits and large corporate problems with lawsutis from applicants.
Companies Can Avoid Dealing with Problem Candidates
Here is one of the big reasons why companies use recruiters to hire executive assistants. They get to avoid dealing with problem candidates. Problem candidates might encompass any of the following:
-People with fake resumes
-People who have bad references
-People who don’t want to work (habitual jobseekers who are gaming the system)
-Someone who doesn’t work well with others
-People who apply for jobs that they are not qualifed for
Or any number of issues that might not appear obvious from only looking at a resume. Recruiters stand between the company and the applicant when it comes to screening people.
One of the common problems that people face when hiring executive assistants is that many people simply lie on their resume and do not have the requisite skill set. Perhaps they lied on their CV and do not know how to use MS Word or Excel. Or maybe they have suspicious career gaps on their resume.
Whatever the problem, it doesn’t help that when a company posts an ad on LinkedIn they will get a ton of applications which makes it hard to weed through the people.
Worse, if they end up using a major job posting site such as Indeed, then a flood of applications will pour in. What is a common problem is that there is nothing stopping people who are not qualified from applying to these jobs. People with no experience, no skill set, and no real work history can apply for any job they want.
Sometimes people who are seeking part time work and already have a full time job will waste hiring teams precious time even if the job posting clearly states what is needed is a full time employee.
These are all signs of problem candidates. In many cases, once a person is hired by a large company, it can be incredibly difficult to get rid of them. So, many companies try and play it safe and use a recruiter who can weed through the problem people and only setup interviews with those who are actually skilled and qualified to do the job.
The Company Doesn’t Have a Clearly Defined Job Description
One of the more common situations, especially with smaller companies, is that there is no real clear job description. This can make it very difficult for the average hiring manager to sift through resumes.
What happens in less prestigious firms is that a family friend or acquaintance of the hiring manager is simply hired. This is why networking and “knowing” the right person is so important and can make your career.
If the company is insistent on hiring outside of a “friends and family” area, and if they don’t have a job description, then they will have to hire a recruiting firm.
The process is pretty simple for the company. What happens, usually, is that a conference call is scheduled with the recruiting firm and they discuss what type of person they need. If it’s an executive assistant, then the C-level will normally detail that responsibilities of the role, what sort of software is used, and other things that are important when sourcing a resume and finding a good candidate.
Other things that might come up is the personality of the executives. Some executive assistants will have to work with difficulty personalities. It might be that the executive is demanding, or it might be that they are volatile. These are things that almost never make it into official job descriptions.
It’s true that most executive assistants will know that they have to deal with problematic leadership in whatever company they work for, but it’s also true that these details are never explicitly put into the job description—at least not officially.
Recruiting Firms Handle Things With Discretion
Privacy and discretion are both huge reason companies hire recruiters. The confidentiality that a professional recruiting firm can provide is a huge is simply indispensable.
Suppose a company is looking to replace one of their senior executive assistants and they post the job publicly. Well, the person who the company is looking to fire and replace might end up finding out.
This can cause all sorts of problems such as:
- The executive assistant quitting before the company finds a replacement
- Inter-office drama
- Lawsuits, potentially
Besides this, there are also instances where the public job posting on a site like Indeed or LinkedIn or some other career posting site might draw eyes on the company. That in turn might make people look at the company as though it’s in a state of turmoil.
If a company is looking to replace their current executive assistant, who might not be doing the best work, then they likely don’t want that persoBn to know –they might cause a scene, or quit and leave the company without executive support. The preferred option is to find a replacement and then inform the current staff member.
In cities such as NYC and L.A., there is a big stress on confidentiality. If you deal with large scale recruiting companies, then you are likely to run into problems. Smaller and more confidential agencies are going to be a more considerate choice for the discerning firm.
For instance, here are some of the exclusive companies located in the NYC region:
Salary and Benefit Negotiation
Another important reason that firms use recruiters when hiring executive assistants is that they want to avoid difficult salary negotiations.
In some states it is not legal to advertise a job without also giving a salary, however most firms want to interview people before they decide on what they are going to pay. There are very strong laws against questioning people about their salary history (which is why it is not common in the US to see people list their salary requirements on their resume. This is more of a Forigen style resume).
If a company interviews a person with more experience than required, then sometimes they might be flexible in raising the salary budget. On the other hand, if they are interviewing someone who has less experience, then it’s likely that they will want to pay them less.
All of these are difficult and somewhat contentious discussions which can cause tensions to arise.
If a firm is locked into a salary negotiation with every person who comes in to interview, then it can become a drawn out and tiresome process.
In studies where companies are interviewed as to why they use executive search firms to hire assistants, one of the clear responses
Hey I’m Chris . 20+ years in the industry. I’ve worked every role from Executive recrutier to Agency founder and consultant. If you want to learn more or reach me,vist the about page or use my contact form.