The whole topic raises penetrating questions for both internal and external recruiters.

Most of the headings and responses are quantitative rather than qualitative. Metrics should instead focus on qualitative, POST-INDUCTION KPI’s.

Ideally there should be a weighting “shared accountability” for sustained outcomes, after induction day one

Ascertaining actual fit, actual performance & behaviour, development, contribution/achievement/potential in a sustained ‘model’ is the best way to measure ongoing successful hires.

both internal and external should focus on the company’s agenda through challenging briefings and ensuring that the hiring managers align their decisions to the Company’s prime drivers, rather than on “inputs” during the recruitment & selection process. It’s fine to review what went well and not so well through the process ( in order to take corrective action) but this should be shaded by qualitative measures after induction.

cheers

Carl

The intent of a short article style like this is to engage and inform but also to allow for expression and get people thinking, not to be the definitive answer to every situation.

When I wrote this, I was actually in transition from Australia to Canada. I am a Senior HR Executive (SHRP Canada) and have never been a recruiter in an agency. I’ve come up from the corp side over 15 years and I have also been a consultant, which I am again at present. I have built and led large staffing functions around the world (50,000 hires annually). I do help people with recruitment strategy, but not exclusively and not with a bias towards or away from outsourcing.

-kh

I also find fault in thinking that staffing companies have a massive database any different than a large corporate entities HR/Recruiting database. The only difference would be if that named staffing agency was more of a niche market, such as only recruiting for Enterprise Architects. Also I worked under very strict metrics when I worked in staffing (time to fill, interviews, pipeline, closes, etc) but I have had no metrics in corporate so your data is incorrect.

This article is biased towards staffing to increase her share in her own consulting company. I think we can all get along and each entity is needed and well versed in recruiting and talent management.

I would love to see an article written with true/unbiased statistics.

Way too many variables on how internal and external recruiters operate and work.

Here it is simply put. When you are external you can pick and choose what you work on and when you work on it. When you are internal theres not saying no, you work everything and generally have way more reqs on your plate. I think quality suffers because of this, but you can some traction with candidates being from the company instead of an external consultant.

Now that the role of a recruiter is more defined, it honestly doesn’t matter if it’s an internal or external person that does it. Internal people have he luxury (end sarcasm) of the politics involved, external people can just put their nose to the grindstone and work. Both should have direct access to the hiring manager (communication is key), and both should be able to easily follow along with the hiring process.

The discussion about the internal person getting mad at the external person….probably happens because the external person is better at “recruiting”.

As for the 5..

Quality of hire – recruiter

Time to fill – hiring manager

Culture fit – recruiter and hiring manager

Candidate experience/impact on EVP – recruiter and hiring manager

Cost – if your company plans to hire more than 5 people per year, save the money and hire a recruiter. If there is a very hard/impossible position to fill, use an agency.

Jobs are sometimes filled faster by Agencies but it isn’t because they have a larger applicant pool. The in-house ATS, combined with a robust CRM, give the in-house Recruiter the edge. In past markets, the in-house team has been buried with 50 plus openings per Recruiter, which prevented quality pipelining. The expense for a couple more internal Recruiters to even the load and allow for
networking and pipelining will easily off set the large Agency fees.

A quality Agency can help tremendously, I just see them being mis-used.

Better to ask hiring managers and candidates. I think candidates would hate on all of us equally, which they have a right to do. Ask the business? I’m not sure what you’d get.

1. Trying to compare internal to external recruiting is like trying to compare Shiraz to Pinot Noir, there is too much variation in either to make an effective comparison. The reality is a great external recruitment option is better than a poor internal recruitment option and vice versa, so the question really becomes what are our specific options and how can we improve them.

2. The second component are the inherent advantages available (note, just because they are available doesn’t mean they are always exploited), and these depend, in my view, primarily on one factor – company size.

In a large organization where it is cost effective to have full time, focused recruiters to cover off the various internal specialties, where the company can gather data on top performers, etc. an internal recruiter has a lot of potential advantages that an external recruiter will have a difficult time gaining (such as liasing internally with the staff to recruit, better connection with the corporate culture and players involved, etc.)

Our business focuses on serving smaller organizations precisely because we find this is where external recruiters offer the greatest value. Where it is easier to get to know the corporate culture and players involved. Where the company can’t possibly invest in the kind of sourcing pipelines available to a company that recruits day in and day out, and can’t possibly gather the same level of performance data that an external recruiter can when this is their sole occupation. Nor can small businesses have a strong employment brand that a recruitment company can create within the job market through her singular focus on the issue.

Finally, how the external recruiter interacts with the client (on both sides) becomes a make it or break it factor.

Cost – RPOs are more cost effective but many have hidden costs. Outsourcing admin activity from staffing process is wise. Depending on level of experience, outsourcing screening activity makes sense also. But I’ve seen RPO’s whose sourcing models are post and pray – nothing elegant or strategic about it and many of the talent within are either kids or inexperienced in being consultative with hiring managers. For high volume transactional positions that don’t require targeted sourcing, RPO’s can seriously benefit a company

Quality – oooh, holy grail stuff here. I like to review turnover compared to source – ie, company, college, etc to view trends as well as performance scores. Corporate Leadership Council has a post-hire survey that goes to hiring manager that is interesting and am using but it’s still too early to evaluate

This aligns to culture fit as well.

I look at comparing external vs internal dependent on level and type of process for the positions. Cost is a factor but industry plays a role in this

I’d also say, that how well does the staffing department (recruiters) impact bottom line in way of:

candidate experience
candidate and employee engagement
competitive intelligence gathering for future talent management planning

2 cents

I agree with the commments that agency recruiters and corporate recruiters are on the same team with the same goals – that is to find quality talent (as defined by the client) to fill positions. I disagree with Neil’s comment that it is ‘apples and oranges’, both are recruiters with the same goal, whether corporate recruiters are ‘doing other things’ – which, they shouldn’t be. If a recruiter is doing too many other things like sourcing, compliance, etc – then a separate position needs to be created to handle that.

Because Agency recruiters are on steeper commmission basis, they have a greater motivation to find and ‘close’ candidates. And, they likely do have a greater focus. Agencies tend to invest more in training and skill development, technology, and look at ways to improve their recruiting/sourcing capability. Not every agency just ‘throws out candidates’, many have processes and do a lot of due diligence.

In fact, given Neil’s comments, one wonders if corporate recruiting departments are as effective as they should be. I know from other discussions corporate recruiting departments are very reluctant to invest in training, usually believing their team is ‘the best’ or ‘the most seasoned’. I have heard that directly from multiple companies – meaning, they are nowhere near the best and the most seasoned. Everyone can’t be so advanced!

My two cents.

You are correct that on the surface these two ‘recruiters’ are separate however; any agency recruiter worth their salt to their corporate counterpart is also part of the internal hiring process.

My organization works to assist its clients with all of the issues that our internal bretheren face, that’s why its a partnership rather than transactional.

Agency recruiters have a very focused and specific job: find people. Doesn’t matter how or why, just find people to fill the positions that are open. A quality agency recruiter is probably on the phone talking with potential candidates 90% of the day.

A Corporate recruiter’s job has many parts: manage the hiring process but also find candidate, deal with compliance issues, handle ER issues, handle new hire orientation, etc.

As an external recruiter, spending nearly 2 years as a contract recruiter in a mid-sized consulting firm was one of the most valuable things I have done in my business life. I appreciate the knife edge that corporate recruiters walk on all the time. And, in most cases, they do it well. Let them do what they are good at and let us do what we are good at, which is focusing on those positions which need to be filled and which cannot be filled by ‘the process’.

To my fellow external recruiters… if you don’t think you are part of your clients’ teams, find some new clients. We are all here to succeed, and for us that means helping our clients succeed. If we give them the respect they deserve, they will give us the respect we deserve. And if they don’t, move on to another one who will.

Best case? Use both! Just make sure you’ve got a good work flow process in place.