The benefits of a hybrid recruitment approach

Typically, recruitment firms offer a one stop approach to recruitment; traditional or headhunting (search and selection). Because of the time and skills, it requires, the latter tends to be exclusively centred on high profile executive roles. But at Sitka, we believe your managerial roles warrant the same level of focus and investment.

First things first: what do we mean by traditional recruitment? In this context, traditional recruitment refers to the high volume, target-drive, database searching, job posting approach favoured by the majority of high street recruitment agencies. By contrast, head hunters, or executive search firms, focus on seeking out people with a specific skillset and level of seniority, often candidates who aren’t active in the job market.

Essentially, traditional recruitment is reactive, where headhunting is proactive; for this reason alone, it’s worth considering a hybrid recruitment approach, but there are a few other reasons combining both works for our clients:   

It puts the emphasis on your business needs

Rather than being driven by high volume targets and time pressures, a hybrid approach to recruitment places the focus on success and taking time to find the right person for the role.  For example, at Sitka we might agree a number of target companies and individuals that we’ll actively approach for a client, and complement this with more traditional searches of our internal Bullhorn database, online networks, such as LinkedIn, job boards and so on.

A valued and trusted recruiter will also encourage you to review the talent you have in-house and identify prospects from within the organisation, ensuring you complement your current team.

It reaches a larger audience of candidates

Even if your industry’s not short on talent, it’s still important to make sure you have a choice from the very best candidates, whether they’re actively job hunting or not.

The LinkedIn Talent Trends 2016 survey found that 86% of candidates are receptive to hearing about job opportunities, but, despite that, 90% of recruiters still prefer to approach only active candidates. Traditional recruitment methods often miss more ‘passive’ candidates, but recruiters who supplement these with a headhunting approach focused on quality over quantity, can dedicate more time to capturing a wider pool of ideal candidates who might otherwise have slipped through the net.

It provides access to higher quality talent

Finding the right person is extremely important; ‘good enough’ isn’t good enough in our book, particularly if you’re looking for dynamic individuals to help you develop your organisation and give it a strategic advantage. 

By extending the search to a broader range of candidates, you’re more likely to find people with the high quality skills you need. In addition, the time dedicated by your recruitment partner to face-to-face meetings and psychometric profiling will mean they can better identify the good-on-paper from the good-in-person candidates.

It leads to better fit and a greater retention rate

Quick wins rarely lead to long-lasting ones, but people who are a good fit with the organisation have greater job satisfaction, are more likely to remain with their organisation and show superior job performance (Forbes). Because of the time spent engaging with candidates prior to shortlisting, a combined approach is far more likely to suss out the candidates with the right balance of hard and soft skills and find those who will be the right cultural fit for your organisation.  From experience, we also know how vital this is for employee engagement and harmonious inter-function working.

By offering a combined approach, we really get to the heart of our candidates’ values and motivations which means we’re better placed to put forward the most compatible matches.

It’s more strategic

If you want your recruitment partner to be an extension of your brand and be dedicated to the long-term success of your business, it’s worth considering one with a blended approach that provides more consultation services and greater strategic insight. A recruiter like this can be even more valuable if the role is given exclusively to them, as they’ll commit more time to searching and are therefore more likely to deliver the right calibre of candidate. 

Recruiters who are qualified to headhunt usually have more up-to-date industry- knowledge and are better positioned to understand your business and the skills needed. They’ll also have a much greater understanding of the talent you can expect to attract and be able to advise you on how best to appeal to those highly sought after candidates. They are likely to already know some people who match your criteria.

It’s more flexible

With a wider range of tools at their disposal, recruiters who offer a blend of headhunting and traditional methods can create a tailored search solution to suit your needs and reach a wider audience. Headhunting won’t be the relevant approach for every job, and in those cases we believe that traditional methods, supplemented with support that prepares candidates for a good interview performance, are the most effective in finding the right person for the job.

The best thing about such a flexible mix-and-match approach, is that it can be adapted when needed, and is often more cost effective than the service provided by firms focused purely on search and selection.

Your previous efforts haven’t been successful

The cost of replacing a bad hire has been estimated to be up to 15 times their annual salary (HR Zone). Limiting your recruitment methods to direct advertising or database searches is unlikely to deliver the right match and can put you at significant financial risk. 

If traditional recruitment techniques or partnerships have left you dissatisfied in the past, or if your current attempts to recruit are taking a long time to deliver results, you might have more success working with someone who offers the hybrid recruitment approach.  By asking a specialist agency like Sitka to proactively seek out a wider range of specific candidates, a combined approach will deliver the talent you need faster and more efficiently.  

All recruitment methods have their merits and add their own unique value to the search process, but a hybrid approach that allows for a more comprehensive search is, in our opinion, the best option.

With over 25 years’ experience of working in-house, in mainstream recruitment and in search and selection, it’s our combined experience that qualifies us to deliver and our combined approach to recruitment that makes us excel. To find out more about how we can help you, please get in touch.

See what our clients think of our hybrid approach.