Taking the Agency out of Recruitment

With the increasing pressure on the skills marketplace, businesses are being forced to rely more and more on agencies to source suitable IT skills. BlueGlue discusses it's cost-effective and unique approach that removes agencies almost altogether.

Until recently, RPO (Recruitment Process Outsourcing) has been something that only large corporates would do across their entire business. With the increasing demand for IT skills throughout the UK; the prospect of the one-size fits all approach of the big RPO providers can seem somewhat high-risk and restrictive from an IT directorís point of view.

The alternative of engaging multiple agencies can appear to be in many cases the only option available taking into account time and internal resource constraints. Some companies have implemented fairly successful direct and online recruitment strategies. However, many still find the need to augment their activities with third party support for more niche or high-demand skills.

Youíve probably asked yourself on more than one occasion if you are getting value for money from the agency model. There again there have probably been other times when you wonder if agencies really are all that bad; particularly when they do deliver the right skills to your doorstep.

Itís always worth bearing in mind that the whole focus of the traditional contingency agency is on its candidates. In other words, agencies concentrate on finding a core of highly valuable candidates and then work to find suitable employers willing to bid the right fee, salary, and package to secure the candidate. Sadly this does not always mean that agencies take care of said candidates. On the contrary the majority of applications sent to an agency are handled with the very minimum customer service and this can leave candidates with a very dim view of you as the end-employer.

The result of this is a high-risk business model, varying levels of service and an all-too-often undesirable price-tag.

One company that presents an example of making your IT recruitment work is BlueGlue. Founded in early 2005, BlueGlueís core aim was to take the very best aspects of large-scale RPO models and online recruitment technology and deliver them in a low-risk and affordable manner into the technology marketplace.

Unlike traditional outsourced recruitment providers, BlueGlue does not rely heavily on third party agencies to generate candidates. Instead BlueGlue makes use of its own unique recruitment web-portal combined with the latest online recruitment technology to fulfil customer requirements directly. Subsequently, customers benefit from substantial cost-savings and significantly improved levels of efficiency in the hiring process.

While the BlueGlue portal does not remove the valuable human element of hiring, it does bring efficiencies in the administration element which frees up HR and hiring managers alike to focus on their core business activities.

To date BlueGlue has had a pretty impressive track-record ñ filling over 96% of all client vacancies without even needing to look at a third-party. What makes the BlueGlue proposition so attractive is that despite carrying many of the hallmarks of classic outsource agreements; there are no upfront costs and no minimum use criteria. Whatís more, its account managers are not paid in commission ñ they are paid a reasonable salary to start with and further incentivised on achieving very high levels of customer service ñ a term that is often altogether forgotten in traditional agency recruitment.

The best way to look at it is that BlueGlue provides a true vehicle through which contingency agencies can be utilised as exactly that ñ a contingency rather than a service that your business is forced to rely on.