Is Your Recruitment Strategy Rubbish?

Mine was.

Whenever I worked in a hiring role within the Builders Merchant industry, my strategy (and many others) was to do things as cheap as possible, and I normally exhausted a familiar list as per below:

• Who do I know I can approach?
• Who do my colleagues/customers know that we can approach?
• Who is at a competitor we can try to tempt to join us?
• Let’s place the cheapest advert on social media & some Job Boards and get the world and their dog to share it in the hope we get a good candidate respond!

I went through the above steps, in this order, and then would hire ‘the best’ from the talent pool that we had (or hadn’t) amassed – pretty poor really and was basically anything to avoid paying a recruitment fee. However, this is still the strategy of many.

Now that I work at a recruitment business of course I am going to bang on in this post and sell you the benefits of using an agency like GCS Associates. However, having been both sides of the fence in this narrow sector I have since learnt some key points…..

What I didn’t realise is recruiting the best talent is a full-time job that involves processes, technology, and experience. When I was a Branch Manager/Area Sales Manager etc. I didn’t have all my time to commit to recruitment. I had my full-time job already, so I tried my best to do both and normally the recruitment suffered. Also, just because someone with a good CV applies/responds to your advert doesn’t mean they are best suited to your role/business – there needs to be an alignment for both client and candidate.

So, what is the solution? 

Work with true, proven, experienced sector specialists who can help you and take this problem away and present you with quality solutions.

It won’t cost you money, it will MAKE you money by hiring the best talent in less time who add value, not to mention all the other benefits having the industries best talent working for you will bring.

GCS Associates are true sector specialists, not just because I say so – they are, that is why I chose to join them. Having worked within the industry ourselves for decades we are best placed to source the best talent, we can also offer so much more than just fee based, contingency recruitment with many tailored service options available to benefit and suit your business needs.

If I had my time again in the Builders Merchant sector, I would have partnered with a specialist agency from the start.

About GCS Associates

From 2 UK offices in the North-West and Midlands, GCS Associates provide specialist recruitment services to the Construction Supply, Manufacturing, Builders Merchant & Hire Sectors. With over 15 years’ experience partnering with a wide range of businesses from FTSE 100s to SME’s & smaller independent businesses – put simply, we provide the right talent to the best organisations.