1. Higher Priority Level - The upfront structure of retained search ensures that the placement takes higher priority than commission-based placements.
2. Lower Risk of Bad Hires - The focus of a retained search is quality. You’ll often be working with the best of the best recruiters with a high success rate. When it’s crucial to get the right candidate for a high-stakes role, retained search offers a lower risk of a bad hire, and thus a higher certainty and comfort level.
3. Take time to Find the Best - When there’s not a race to complete the search, more time can be taken to ensure the very best and most qualified candidate is found — greatly benefiting the company in the long-run.
4. Finding Rare Skill Sets - A retained search opens up potential candidates who are already employed, meaning they’re able to expand their search to a wider range of individuals — increasing the chances of finding the person with the exact, unique skill sets needed for the niche role.
5. More Proactivity - As mentioned above, retained search takes a more proactive approach, considering those who aren’t actively seeking a new role. This enables a much wider selection than just those who are in a database, answered ads or shown interest themselves.
6. Access to Resources You Do Not Have - Simply put, most companies don’t have the time and resources needed to find the best high-level candidate themselves. Utilizing a retained search firm can actually save them time and money because the process will probably take less time than trying to do it internally.
7. More Customized - Retained search enables a more customized search for roles that are often very unique. It’s not a one-size-fits-all approach, but rather the recruiter takes more time to gain a thorough understanding of what the ideal candidate possesses.
8. Most Vetted Candidates - With retained search, you can have confidence knowing your candidates have been fully vetted — from more strenuous background checks, reference checks and so on, you can know only the most genuinely-qualified candidates, both skill-wise and culturally, will be presented.
9. More Feedback and Real-time Updates - Retained search recruiters will provide you with more helpful information throughout the process, including market intelligence, competition, timelines and so on.
10. Multiple Options to Ensure the Best - Versus providing only one potential candidate to fill the role, most retained search agencies will present a handful of highly-qualified candidates who fit skill, culture and salary requirements, so that truly the best fit can be chosen.
