Using a recruiter in this market, are you crazy!

I talk with a lot of people any given week about recruitment and admittedly in today's market more and more people think that the role of the recruiter is dying or dead. Many clients have the perception that the need for professional recruiters is low due to high unemployment. The reality is you need a great recruiter in any market.


Here's why. Let's say for example that unemployment is at 10% (currently Hong Kong is about 4% officially but probably likely to e 6% in the near future). That means that there are still 90% of people in the market who are employed. Now let's assume further that of those 90% about 20% are really active. These are the people who are on the jobboards everyday desperately trying to find an opportunity better than their current job. Let's further assume that another 20% of people out there are 'passive' job seekers. These are people who on occassion are looking but they are not desperate to leave their company, they are interested in new opportunities but they don't much if any of their day looking at jobs but occassionaly glance at the Classifieds. So this means that there would still be 40% of the people in the market that are not either Unemployed, Active or Passive who are NOT ACTIVE. Just imagine that's 4 out of every 10 people in the workforce who aren't even thinking about trying to find a new job. (Refer picture above)


My comment to the company who says, I'll just post this on Monster.com or JobsDB.com is always the same. Mr/s Client go ahead, post it online if you want to see the best of the unemployed or underqualified because their is a 40% chance that the candidate you want is not going to even know you were looking! I hear you say well touching 60% of the market is pretty good odds... hmm, doesn't sound too compelling to me.


A recruiter is your best option in any market. There job is to find you the best person for the job, not the best available person or unemployed person but pure and simple the best person. Now it is unrealistic to expect a recruiter to be able to reach all 100% of the market however even if they are able to reach out to 20% of the NOT ACTIVE market you will have increased your odds of getting the best talent. In a market where times are more challenging don't you want the best people. Typically the best people at their jobs aren't looking or even considering leaving their company. They are happy in their job and their employer looks after them because they are very good at what they do. A talented recruiter will know how to reach out to this segment of the market and position your company with the right people, they will sell your business and the opportunity, thats what they do. Added to that in today's market asking people to leave a secure position to join a new company is exceptionally challenging. People don't want to be the last one on and first one off, you will need a professional to help manage this process.


So Mr/s client next time you think about just asking HR to put an advert online just remember that there is a >40% chance that golden candidate you are looking to hire doesn't even know your hiring. Improve your odds engage a professional, the results of the right hire far out weigh the costs of using a professional.