Why internal TA teams and external recruiters make a powerful combination

Introduction: never the twain shall meet?

There’s often a misconception that having an internal talent attraction team means you don’t need to work with external recruiters, who are an unnecessary expense. At the same time, I’ve seen too many recruiters put down the phone and say they can’t possibly work with a business because it already has its own TA team, which is at best an obstruction and at worst, a rival. It might seem almost a contradiction in terms that an internal TA team and external recruiters can work together, but as an industry, we need to move away from the idea that they exist in separate worlds. In reality, there are many ways in which the two can complement and support each other. Let’s look at how TA teams and recruiters can partner effectively – and how organisations can benefit from working with a specialist recruiter.

Going beyond the transactional

A client might principally use its own talent attraction team to bring in new hires, but this doesn’t have to be a barrier to working successfully with a recruiter. There’s so much more a recruiter can bring to the relationship than candidates. Deeply embedded in their markets and having daily conversations with industry experts, recruiters understand the prevailing market sentiment. They see new trends taking shape almost before anyone else. That’s why they need to utilise that knowledge by providing updates on new and upcoming trends, useful thought leadership content, salary benchmarking and insight into competitor hiring activity. It’s about being non-transactional – giving their clients something a little unexpected to equip them with the market knowledge they need.

Back in 2020, a leading London market insurer, who we’d been working with for some time, brought in a new TA team. Rather than viewing this as an obstacle, our team spent the next couple of years building a rapport with the new team and sharing relevant knowledge of the big trends in their market. As a result of that hard work, we’re delighted to now be their go-to supplier of actuarial and tech talent. It’s not about making a hire and then disappearing when you’ve got what you came for. It’s about staying in touch over a period of time, showing the client that you understand their business and their market, and being on hand to provide advice when they need it. If that extends to assisting their search for talent, then you’ll be equipped to do that too.

The knowhow to fill niche roles

There will be times when the client finds it difficult filling a particular role, maybe because it requires a niche skillset or there’s a limited pool of candidates. Similarly, an executive-level role will require a more tailored search. On their own, the client won’t necessarily have the right access to quality candidates with the specific skills required, or a detailed enough knowledge of the recruitment market. That’s when recruiters have the chance to come into their own and act as an extension of the TA team.

When a US-based private equity fund specialising in renewables and green energy approached us looking for a finance business partner, the pool of candidates with the right skillset and specific background to do the job was particularly small, but it also meant we knew exactly where to look. Being firmly embedded in the private equity sector within finance, we could dip into this small pool of highly qualified professionals and find the right finance business partner for this environmentally conscious investment firm.

Every day, our team are building relationships with professionals in niche markets. It’s by speaking to these candidates that we can identify skills that aren’t immediately obvious from a LinkedIn profile. By utilising our network and our specialist expertise in niche areas, we can help organisations access new talent pools that they otherwise wouldn’t know how to find. That means taking the time to really understand a business before we know the profile of candidate that will fit the team, not just based on their CV and skillset but on their alignment of values, personality and ambition.

Providing more than contingent recruitment

Making a one-off hire is one thing. Hiring an entire team, or delivering a project, is something else entirely. Organisations often won’t have the structures or capabilities in place to run a recruitment process outsourcing (RPO) or managed service provider (MSP) project on their own. They might not even be entirely sure what they need.

When we were engaged pre-launch by a global broking start-up as they prepared to enter the market in 2018, we were able to advise them on the talent landscape, regulatory exposure and competitor sensitivity, as well as mapping out their own target operating structures. We then set about bringing in the talent they needed to bring that structure to life. Eames Partnership mapped out the best senior execs in the marketplace against each role. We then built each function, with ECMS delivering projects and managing any ancillary recruitment. Eames Consulting then handled any requirement for more junior hires. By utilising all our service lines, we were able to help launch this specialty insurer from the ground up. In total we hired nearly 200 people for the firm.

Conclusion: it’s a two-way street

Any good relationship is two-way. We can’t possibly know a business as well as its TA team. By working closely with them over a long period of time, we gain a thorough understanding of how they work, the challenges they come across in their daily operations and how we can support their talent needs.

Recruiters should not be working at cross-purposes with the TA team. If they are, then all they’re doing is alienating the client and reducing their chances of a successful future relationship. By going beyond the transactional, using their specialist knowledge to fill niche roles, and leveraging their networks and structures to deliver more complex, non-contingent engagements, recruiters can make themselves essential talent partners. All the while, we need to be consultative, transparent and focused on building a long term, mutually beneficial relationship.

If you’d like to find out more about how we can work with your talent attraction team as a trusted partner who can keep you informed on the market and help you fulfil your talent needs, or if you’re looking to make the right hire for your organisation, please get in touch with me or contact our team.