Did you know that, in some cases, the fee charged by a recruitment agency may actually be less than handling the recruitment in-house? People often turn to an executive search firm when they have had trouble recruiting for a certain position. They may have had a low response to adverts, or discovered that all the CVs that have been sent in are from people who are under qualified or inappropriate for the role. This can be very frustrating, particularly as it is very expensive to place recruitment adverts in the local and national press.

Businesses who don't have a full-time Human Resources function, or who are too busy to handle top recruitment themselves often outsource to an agency. Whilst it has a cost attached, it removes the majority of the recruitment burden from the company's internal resources and makes sure that the best candidates are put forward for the job. This use of external expertise is really no different from using a design agency to run a website, or a sanitary company to do the cleaning, and leaves the company's management free to approach the interview stage fresh and enthusiastic.

Executive recruitment is normally for specialised roles and candidates therefore need to have a very well-defined set of skills and experience. For this reason, businesses are often less concerned with the time taken to employ someone than they are with the quality of the person they eventually hire. This can turn the search and selection process into a long one and managers can go through several sets of candidates before offering the position.

Specialist recruitment agencies come into their own here. Their databases help to search out possible candidates who have the right combination of qualifications, experience and skills, and can even undertake the first round of interviews on the company's behalf, so that the final list includes only the best candidates available. This outsourcing of basic recruitment functions allows the company to concentrate on running the business and leaves them feeling confident that the candidates that come for interview are all suitable for the job.