Congratulationsー you’re ready to make those 2025 hires! An internal recruiter, or better yet, an internal recruitment team is supremely valuable ー we surely agree. However, advances in recruitment technology are leaving many internal recruiters feeling like they’re underwater and swimming through applications with no end in sight. With easy-apply tools becoming the norm in places like Linkedin and on many popular jobseeker websites, it’s easier than ever for talent to apply to many jobs in minutes. The problem with this is that ー from a recruitment standpoint ー it’s nearly impossible to measure candidate intent based on an application alone. Candidates are also using AI more than ever to re-tool their experience sets to speak in keywords designed to pass through ATS screening tools ー oftentimes these are falsely engineered. A full recruiter inbox of job applications is going to take hours each day to sort through, and that’s before reaching out, screening, qualifying and arranging for interviews with candidates. The worst part? The candidates that are not only qualified, but actually interested in the position can often be the first to drop out of a process for another opportunity ー all due to the ease by which they could apply to so many jobs online in the first place. By the time recruiting teams actually shortlist the best matches, strong candidates could be off the market and may not even answer recruiter phone calls.

So what is a business leader to do to support their talent acquisition pros? Encourage the ultimate recruitment optimization strategy ー partnership between your internal recruiters anda  trusted recruitment agency. Supercharging your recruiting team with genuine expertise from a talent consultancy or well-networked agency (or both, in the case of Clarity) is the most powerful strategy for organizations looking to optimize their hiring efforts. Internal recruiters and agency recruiters really are better together! 

Here’s why having internal recruiters and agency recruiters working together to meet hiring goals can be advantageous. The partnership can…

1.) Drive Speed and Efficiency

Calling in an agency partner with proven experience in a sector can help your team by working in parallel to expedite the hiring process. Clarity has a broad range of expertise in talent that includes admin support, HR, finance, legal, creative, tech and executive level, so we’d have you covered with any positions you need extra support filling. Many companies trust us as an extension of their team. In some cases we’re brought on to run all of their recruitment in a sector ーfor example, all their support roles or all of their temp or technical needsー while others hand off harder to fill roles including specialist positions and executive-level roles that have fewer qualified applicants in the pool. Together, we can strategically support internal teams by dividing and conquering priorities, and coming up with a tailor made plan to expedite and meet, or scale, your hiring goals.

Whether you have multiple openings or only one that’s mission critical, sorting through applications is difficult. Whether you have 0-20 applicants or 2,000+, qualifying candidates takes up an enormous amount of time and energy. Consider delegating agency recruiters to handle the time-intensive sourcing, vetting and pre-screening processes, and then allowing internal recruiters to focus on internal candidate experience, coordination with hiring managers, interview scheduling, alignment with company values and ultimately onboarding. There’s plenty of work to go around.

2.) Gain Access to a Broader Talent Pool

In addition to speeding up the overall process for your team,  agency partners have access to a unique pool of active applicants that are ready to interviewー many of which may not have come across your opening yet. The candidates we ultimately present to our clients are pre-vetted as well, and we interview them and qualify them before introducing them. Our pool of active talent includes industry specialists, niche talent not readily visible on the market, passive candidates waiting for the right next step, and candidates direct-sourced for your roles, specifically. Many job-seekers enter our talent community and trust that we’ll call them when the right fit for their experience profile arises ー and that’s just what we’ll do once we learn the specs of your team’s openings. From networking organizations, alumni groups, client and candidate referrals and direct-sourcing, our network is expansive and growing daily.

3.) Acquire Market Intelligence

Internal recruiting teams thrive in their ability to communicate your company’s business goals, ethos, and culture. They have in-depth knowledge of your values and first hand exposure to internal team dynamics. This is great! Agency recruiters offer insights into broader market trends, salary benchmarks, and competitor hiring practices. Clarity prides itself in being true partners and consultants and will share metrics on what the talent market is seeking, or what they’re expecting based on our own data, experience, and dedicated research. We can help you craft job descriptions and give insight into what competition is offering for similar roles, provide salary ranges, and share insight from talent to ensure your search is optimized. We’re also skilled at marketing positions to talent based on overall industry feedback.

4.) Drive Cost-Effectiveness

While agency fees are an expense, the best agencies reduce time-to-hire and deliver higher-quality candidates due to their genuine expertise, communication skills, and effort to serve as true partners to their clients. We also offer a satisfaction guarantee. We’ve been doing this since 2000 afterall, and are no stranger to challenging market conditions and disruption in talent markets. Direct-hire placements with Clarity’s talent are also contingency based which means we do not charge any fees whatsoever until you make a hire. This can reduce long-term costs associated with vacancies, making the wrong hire, and overall turnover, which is especially costly for management and senior level positions. If you’re using Clarity for temporary recruitment and staffing services, Clarity’s hourly markup includes everything from insurance to payroll taxes and everything in between you’d otherwise have to deploy and finance yourself.

5.) Mitigate Hiring Bias

External perspective from an agency can help counter internal biases and offer more diverse candidate pools. We believe that strength lies in diversity on any type of team, and our recruiters are trained to eliminate bias that can hinder companies from bringing in fresh perspectives. We’re also certified diversity recruiters who apply tactics to reach qualified talent from many different sources. 

Using both internal and agency recruiters creates a complementary partnership. While internal recruiters maintain alignment with company culture and strategic goals, agency recruiters bring expertise, scalability, and access to untapped talent poolsー and much more! Together, this partnership ensures your hiring process is efficient, comprehensive, and aligned with your business objectives. We’re here to build better teams, afterall! Have a job you’d like to share with us and create a hiring plan for? Submit it HERE.