Pros and Cons of Using a Hospitality Agency
By Leith James
With all the advertising opportunities on the internet, you might be asking yourself is it necessary to have the extra expense of paying for the services of a hospitality agency?
Here are some points to consider:
Using a hospitality agency
Save time: These days, with so many active job seekers in the market, one ad in the newspaper can draw hundreds of qualified and unqualified résumés. The man hours required to sift through all this data and select those resumes that suit your requirements could end up costing you a lot of time and money. A hospitality agency will not only place the ad for you, but will screen the bulk of applications for the job and present you with a list of only a select few applicants. You will only have to choose your employee from the best and qualified candidates.
Check candidate credentials: Apart from sorting through all the candidate CVs, recruitments agencies have the knowledge and experience to verify the applicants' credentials, check referees, research any lapses in their employment history and find significant inaccuracies in CVs -- tasks you might not have the means or time to do.
Wide data base of applicants: While your options for advertising may be limited, the hospitality agency would have a variety of advertising options, including their own database and website, subscriber job sites, web and CV data bases and internal knowledge through professional connections.
Confidentiality: Many employers in the hospitality industry hire recruitment agencies to help fill job vacancies that require confidentiality. You can go through the whole recruitment process without exposing your company publicly.
Market expertise: If your organization is not very big and you do not have a recruiting department, a high quality hospitality agency will have inside knowledge of the market and will be able to provide advice about candidate availability and current salary levels that might not be available otherwise to you or your personnel staff. They might know of people that are a perfect fit to your job description but who are not actively looking for a job and they may be interested in a move if offered. These people do not necessarily go through the job vacancy ads regularly and would most probably not have heard of the vacancy otherwise.
They will be able to help negotiate on salary and benefits, save you time and alleviate costly mistakes from your staff who are inexperienced in the field.
Skills testing and other assessment tools: All high quality recruiters will have some form of testing to assesses the candidate's skills, competencies and motivations. Any independent, valid and proven assessment tool is going to improve your chances making the right hiring decision.
Hiring Directly
Cost: The cost of hiring a recruitment agency is a consideration for companies looking to fill a job vacancy. As many agencies' fees are based on percentages of the candidates annual salary, this can be considerable for high-paying positions.
Good exposure when advertising directly in job sites: With the Internet available to almost all job seekers these days, countless opportunities exist for advertising your job vacancy - whether in your own website on the careers page, or on the numerous job seeker websites, most of which offer free services or ones for only a nominal fee.
Social networking sites like Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter offer new opportunities to find and interact with potential candidates. This exposes your job vacancy to an unlimited number of qualified job seekers. If you have the time or inclination to sift through all the applications, this could be a most cost effective way of finding your employees. Job websites also offer CV databases for employers, usually for a small fee, giving you access to a huge number of potential candidates without advertising your job publicly.
Your company's career page: Many companies have Career pages on their website. Candidates can find out all the job details, while getting up-to-date information from the website about the company, the workplace, training offered and career development opportunities. Advertising on a good website reaches an untold number of prospective candidates.
Customized skills testing: Rather than use the hospitality agency's generalized skills and evaluation tests, you might want to present the applicant with a very specific evaluation, tailored to the particular job and environment you are offering. Personality assessments are also available now to help you judge the candidate's "emotional intelligence" which will help you focus on those personality trends that you are seeking or want to avoid on the job.
Before you decide to hire a recruitment agency or place a 'wanted' ad for your job vacancy, remember that internal recruitment is always the most cost-effective and efficient way of filling the vacant job. Your own staff, who are knowledgeable and familiar with the way your organization works, might fit the job description better than any 'outsider,' As such, take a good look at who is suitable among your staff that you know and trust -- you might just find the perfect fit at home.
Leith James has been a chef for over fifteen years and knows the secrets of effective business management with a book titled "The Secret ingredient to finding hospitality staff". His vision is to improve hospitality quality and educate employers on effective hiring techniques through personality assessments. Read more articles like Pros and cons of using a hospitality agency or Get instant Access for the Free hospitality mini course at http://www.hospitality1.net/.
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