Will We Get More Success With An Exclusive Recruiting Agreement In Place?

There are positive and negative aspects to entering into an exclusive recruitment agreement with a recruitment agency.

Engaging and securing the right talent is becoming increasingly challenging due to the ever-changing landscape of recruitment. Introducing exclusive recruiting agreements into your approach could be highly strategic and benefit your hiring process significantly. Yet, it’s important to note that it is not an either / or situation. You can utilise combination of both methods, depending on your hiring needs.

Before making any decisions, it is important to understand both exclusive and non-exclusive recruitment agreements to work out what will work for your business.

What are exclusive and non-exclusive recruiting agreements?

Most recruitment agencies will be open to working with you on an exclusive and non-exclusive basis. It is important to understand what both options involve before deciding which is the better option for you and your needs.

Exclusive recruiting agreement meaning: exclusive recruitment refers to when a singular recruitment agency has the responsibility of talent acquisition either for a company’s workforce or singular/ group of roles. This method often has strict deadlines and a success criteria in place to ensure progress. Some businesses who approach an agency on an exclusive basis will stipulate that exclusivity will only last for a set period before the opportunity is opened up to other agencies.

Non-exclusive agreement meaning: non-exclusive recruitment refers to using multiple recruitment agencies to hire for your positions. Often, this would work on a contingency basis, where only the agency that fills the role will get the placement fee.

Reasons you will find success with exclusive recruitment agreement over non-exclusive

Increased investment

When you have an exclusive recruitment partnership in place, the recruitment agency is guaranteed a return on their investment (their time and effort) if they find the right individual. Therefore, they will want to invest time in understanding your role and your company fully because that can be critical to identifying and securing the right talent.

This means that they will be proactive in looking to understand your candidate experience, what your company culture is, and how your brand is seen by the market, in order to accurately convey it to candidates.

76% of candidates want to know about team culture and values before accepting a job offer, according to Harvard Business Review. Having a recruitment agency that can be your brand ambassador and champion your company throughout the recruitment process is vital.

Improved recruitment processes

As an agency with an exclusive recruiting agreement in place is not in competition with others to fill your role, your chosen agency will want to encourage you to streamline your hiring processes in order to get the right candidate across the line. This might include advising you on how to set up hiring committee panels, establishing skills and psychometric tests and processes, and ensuring candidates are communicated with effectively and are engaged from the first touch point to onboarding. Candidates can be put off by ill thought out and poor recruitment processes. An exclusive partnership can ensure that this is not case with your vacancy.

Higher value offering

Recruitment agencies working on an exclusive basis will often provide complimentary services to increase your chances of finding a great candidate. These services might include mapping out the market, salary surveys and competitor EVP analysis. These additional insights are unlikely to be offered unless the agency knows that they have exclusivity for the role, as it can take a lot of time and effort to source this information. However, it can be beneficial to your company and might possibly be key in securing a successful hire.

Are there advantages to non-exclusive recruitment agreements?

The most common reasons we hear companies wanting to choose non-exclusive are the following:

• Access to talent?

Something that we hear is that non-exclusive recruitment agreements can equal access to substantially larger pools of candidates. Each agency curates their own database of candidates via job applications, LinkedIn and job board searches, networking and more. Therefore, some employers take the view that going out to multiple recruitment agencies is more likely to result in the identification of the right candidate.

Correct? In theory yes, but in reality because agencies are competing against each other for time, they will find the first relevant candidates they have on their books to show you without looking for the best. Additionally, if the role requires niche skills and experience, and has other strict requirements, the number of relevant candidates will be much smaller. This means that multiple recruitment agencies will end up contacting the same candidates, which isn’t beneficial as it often will put off those candidates from working with you.

• Swift recruitment processes?

Some clients will not agree to exclusivity because they have an immediate requirement for someone to fill the role. Sometimes they believe that by using multiple recruitment agencies, they are hedging their bets on securing a new starter as soon as possible.  Due to the competition in non-exclusive agreements, agencies may try to show you relevant candidates quickly in the hope that you choose to progress with their candidate first. However, this doesn’t guarantee a high standard of candidate.

Also, when recruitment agencies know they are competing against each other, they will often not put in the same amount of effort because they are aware they have a smaller chance of seeing a return on their investment.

Is a combination of both possible?

Many companies choose to do a combination of both exclusive recruiting agreements and non-exclusive. Some organisations think you can only do one or the other. However, there are pros and cons to both hiring solutions, so a combination can be better depending on each individual requirement.

Combinations can include a two week exclusivity clause, with the option to open the role up to other agencies, if you’re unhappy with the progress being made. Other ways could include using exclusive recruitment for your more important senior level roles and non-exclusive agreements for your lower-level roles. Whichever combination works for you, there will be recruitment agencies that will accommodate your needs.

Overall, whichever option is best for your company will depend on your exact hiring needs, goals, and budgets. In our experience, exclusive recruiting agreements can yield better results for most organisations. However, some choose a combination to get the “best of both worlds”.

VIQU is an award-winning IT recruitment agency. For non-exclusive or exclusive recruitment solutions for your IT hiring, please get in touch with our team here for tailored help and advice.