It is estimated that a first two quarters of 2012 will see a record number of recruitment agencies go into administration and get brought out by larger rivals. At particular risk are those with large public sector contracts and medium sized businesses with large overheads.
Recruitment agency client bases are disappearing as more and more firms start to use and develop their own internal networks and cease to use conventional recruitment agencies to conduct their general hiring for them.
In one large multinational company it was recently reported that just 2.5% of their recruitment spend was through employment agencies and the remainder was done using internal mechanisms and external networking.
Recruitment agencies have seen an unparalleled reduction in the amount of business they are able to deal with. Unless a recruitment agency is of a particular size and handling very large corporate accounts on a bulk basis, the days of surviving on a few permanent placements each month have long gone.
Recruitment agencies now need to be employment law consultancies, able to assist with HR processes, provide very low and competitive fees, add advertising to their service and generally do a lot more for their money.
Things may change as the jobs market expands again, but as it stands recruitment agencies who do not change are in for a very bleak future indeed.
Changing the way recruitment agencies work is fairly straightforward, provided you are prepared to be innovative. One such example is our own company, Ten Percent Legal Recruitment. We recognised that in future recruitment spend is going to be something practice managers can no longer splash out on (we find practice managers are the most reluctant to apply new techniques and tend to focus specifically on the old style techniques of using a long list of expensive recruitment agencies to fire CVs through). Partners of law firms and owners seem more geared up to changing their habits.
We have altered our services completely to enable every one of our clients to recruit as many staff as they need for less than £800 a year. Over 45 firms have signed up to this so far and they include sole practitioners, LSC funded firms, large regional practices, commercial firms and high street firms.
This is quite a change from the standard conventional contingency fee recruitment of the usual recruitment agency and makes a considerable difference to the costs per client.
For details please come and visit us. You can sign up online or call us for further details. We are changing the face of the recruitment industry and anticipate driving costs down for everyone (apart from Magic Cirlce firms who are a world apart!).
Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment - Legal Recruitment for Solicitors, Legal Executives, Fee Earners, Support Staff, Managers and Paralegals. Visit our Website to search or download our Vacancy Database or view our Candidate Database online.
Our Legal Careers Shop has eBooks on CV Writing for Lawyers, Legal Job Interview Guide, Interview Answers for Lawyers, NQ Career Guide, Guide to Finding Work Experience or a Training Contract and the Entrants Guide to the Legal Profession. To visit our Sale/Clearance section please click here.
www.ten-percent.co.uk/careersshop
