When done correctly, an effective recruitment process can serve as the catalyst for growth. From improving retention rates and employee productivity to enhancing the customer experience and boosting revenue, with the right strategy in place the knock-on effect can be huge.
One of the fastest growing solutions is embedded recruitment, which provides a much more collaborative approach compared to traditional hiring models. Here explains more about what embedded recruitment is, how it works and the benefits it can offer to your organisation.
What is embedded recruitment?
Embedded recruitment is the process of adding external recruitment specialists who can work within your existing team to find the best talent solutions for your business. Companies often find it to be a cost efficient (as there is no ‘fee per hire’), time saving option that can deliver high quality talent to help their business grow.
How does embedded recruitment work?
In most cases, recruitment is often seen as a ‘service’, with candidates sourced, interviewed and placed into roles by an external agency, making it a transactional process that ensures objectives are met, but nothing more. With the ultimate goal of the agency to secure a high fee at the end of the process!
As an alternative, an embedded recruitment model enables a collaborative partnership to develop, with both parties able to invest in the process to ensure the best possible outcome. Of course, similar to an external recruitment firm, an embedded talent partner will also source, interview and place candidates as needed, but the overall experience is significantly different as talent partners work from within the business.
Embedded talent specialists work as an extension of your existing team to create a cohesive unit. It’s a mid to long-term approach that allows for collaboration on all tactical and strategic talent acquisition matters, covering everything from engaging and hiring the best candidates to salary benchmarking, talent market mapping and much more.
The embedded talent model is often used by startups and scaleups to expedite the hiring process, as they are aware of the importance of building a strong recruitment foundation to help their business succeed.
What are the benefits of using embedded recruitment?
Introducing an embedded recruitment model can benefit your business in several ways, such as:
Offering a better cultural fit
Finding candidates that have the right cultural fit is just as important as the skill sets they can offer to your business. Being able to succeed and represent your business requires more than technical ability but also a personality fit that understands what your business stands for and how to represent it in the market.
External recruitment firms are generally less effective in this area as their focus is often on ticking the right skill boxes. After all, they have never experienced your business culture first-hand, so their understanding will always be limited by circumstance. An embedded talent solution is a more natural fit in this regard, with specialists working within your teams every day, so they have a much better understanding of the type of personality fit required to succeed. They are totally immersed in your business’s brand and culture, meaning they have a deeper and first-hand grasp of vision, mission, goals and general working style.
Shorter hiring times
The age old adage of ‘Time kills deals’ is still relevant today, meaning the length of time it takes to hire new staff is critical. A large percentage of job seekers tend to lose interest in a job when the process takes too long, so it needs to be as concise as possible. The longer you take to hire, the more chance there is that the best talent will have been snapped up elsewhere, as their skills would have already grabbed the attention of others.
Working with an embedded recruitment provider avoids this issue, working to your timelines and ensuring the hiring process is completed efficiently without compromising on quality. This is achieved by the embedded partner being part of your ecosystem and techstack, they will be on your slack, your email and your ATS, allowing them to react quickly and get up to the minute and direct feedback from hiring managers and teams.
Better transparency
When your business works with a recruitment agency you often have very little insight into the type of candidates that are initially being considered, or the process used to identify the right talent. This can create a disconnect that means time is wasted interviewing people who are not the right fit for the role.
Using an embedded recruitment solution offers more transparency and involvement in the hiring process. After all, the recruitment specialist will be using your communication channels and essentially representing your business and can provide updates and reports as needed along the way.
More control over strategy
Another issue with the traditional hiring model is that you have to put faith in a recruitment company’s ability to implement a successful hiring strategy. It doesn’t offer your business enough control over how your messages are being communicated and you may not be engaging with the best talent currently available.
With embedded recruitment solutions, talent specialists join your team and work under your guidance. You remain in charge of everything, with the embedded team using their experience to mould and implement the strategy in line with your goals. It’s a team-based approach that gives you the best of both worlds, as you can get exactly what you want out of the process, while benefiting from the experienced recruitment specialists who remain as part of your team at your disposal.
Clear brand representation
A typical approach used by recruitment companies when sourcing candidates is to use their own communication channels and brand to generate interest. Quite often they do not disclose the name of the company they are representing to discourage candidates from using the information to apply directly and cut them out of the equation. But while this minimal information approach protects the agency, it can mean the best talent on the market are not so keen on engaging as it does not promote trust or authenticity.
The embedded recruitment process is vastly different in this respect, utilising your channels and brand to present the full details of the role. It ensures full transparency and opens your business up to a much broader field of candidates, including those at the very top of their field. This approach can help significantly grow and progress your employer brand, as the overall experience your candidate has will be consistent, credible and enjoyable.
Final thoughts
In many respects, embedded recruitment could be seen as the future of the recruitment industry. While traditional recruitment models still have value, modern businesses are looking for flexible models that are more closely aligned with their vision. Embedded recruitment offers the opportunity to work in partnership by integrating specialists who are focussed solely on an individual brand, using their skills to source the best talent around.
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