For many businesses, recruiters are just the front line in the hiring process, helping screen out the mountain of uninteresting or irrelevant resumes, lining up the few viable applicants and sending them through the gates to run the gauntlet.

Working with businesses large and small, we’ve seen this a lot, and it’s time to have an honest conversation about why this approach will hurt your business and make every additional hire take longer than it needs.

Maintaining communication and understanding that we’re more than just a reference check or a spell check for a resume has led to major success for some of our clients. We keep in touch with businesses who have successful hires or move into a new area, and we reach out to help them grow when we find the right talent.

Your business is always looking at what’s next and where it can grow. Here are five reasons why you should work with a recruiter now and stay in touch with them beyond the couple months it takes to meet your current staffing needs.

We Always Keep an Eye Out for Talent

Since we work with new clients every month, we’re always building a roster of candidates and businesses who need help. When you’re ready to begin the search for top talent, we aim to have applicants ready and waiting to start the interview process.

Our business relies on your growth, so we look for talent who can help you grow. The better we know you, the easier it is for us to provide the most qualified candidates. Every time you come back, we take the lessons learned in your last hiring and refine the process, so we’ve got an eye out for the talent that’s right just for you and your growth.

We Know Your Competitors and Their Staff

When you start looking for top talent and leaders with years of experience in the field, you have to look beyond the initial efforts that secure a flood of resumes.

That often means looking at your competition to see who they have, how long those people have been at their current position, and gauging interest in making a move to a new home. We do competitor research to highlight your values and offerings, allowing us to position you as a valuable resource.

Additionally, when the best people are looking to move, we’ve already spent time getting to know them and what they’re looking for, allowing us to meet your needs that much sooner.

Our Finger Is Always on the Pulse of Industry

You and your competitors are often growing in tandem, focusing on what’s new in your industry.

The goal of the recruiter is often to look past departments and even individual industries to find the bigger picture on the horizon. Understanding this larger context helps us know what’s coming and how to best position you to take advantage of it.

For example, family leave policies are becoming more and more important for a wider range of employees. Millennials are looking to start families and want to avoid losing their job or benefits if they need to take off some time with a new child. Older employees may be dealing with age-related illnesses and conditions for spouses or parents.

Highlighting that you offer flex time so that they can manage and adjust care would make your offer very compelling, sometimes even if your budget makes the payroll offer slightly lower than a competitor’s.

Think of it like selling your home. You know how much you love it and how much you think it’s worth, but it is likely that a realtor better understands how the market values your home and what sellers are wanting to see in it.

We Know Your Problems and Your Value

While you and your competitors may grow in similar ways, your journey to growth is unique. Your daily office life is unique, as are the ways you celebrate your team. This creates a specific value that only you can offer.

In times like this, there are many external factors that are creating significant concerns in today’s biggest industries. We recently looked at the “War for Talent” that’s going on in the insurance space, but know that many other companies are facing similar talent shortages and increased competition.

As a recruiter, we marry your business and these trends so that we’re able to articulate your value in a way that the modern workforce sees as meaningful. It’s part of the three big problems we solve, which you can learn about here.

We Can Save You Money Today and Tomorrow

Recruiters like The James Allen Companies are experts at finding candidates and placing them in the right location to help your business. We do this by streamlining the process to identify, verify, evaluate and present talent.

Not only does this decrease the time it takes you to interview and hire, but we’ve mastered the process in ways that save you money. Here are just a few ways your bottom line benefits from working with us:

1. We sift through resumes to find the gold, so all you see is gold.
2. We always look for multiple candidates, so you’re never stuck with someone you don’t want to hire.
3. We manage job hunter expectations, so you are placed competitively compared to industry salaries, benefits, perks and offers.
4. We provide the candidate with an honest review of you, giving them an independent look at what you offer and another voice to share how great of a company you are.
5. We offer a path of continuous improvement. Many companies return to us after a successful placement to bolster their team, address weaknesses or move into new areas. Because we’re already focused on your industry, we can provide knowledge about comparable talent, team design and much more.

Just like any friendship, we get to know you and your goals for the company. This allows us to have honest discussions about what’s possible, who is available and where opportunities may be. We’ll help you address gaps right now with a streamlined process, so you’re not paying HR overtime. Then we’ll help you with future growth so you can push into new avenues with the right talent at the right time.

When you’re ready to start a long-term relationship designed to save you money while ushering in the right talent you need to grow and expand, contact The James Allen Companies, Inc. or call me directly at (573) 334-3688.