When I ask my friends if they’d apply for a job through a recruitment service, most of them gave me a strict no. Their reasons? They gave me reasons such as the fear that the agency will deduct part of their pay, and the lack of transparency during the recruiting process within recruitment agencies in Hong Kong, to name a few.
I too was skeptical of recruitment agencies, until I found out about Hong Kong job agency BGC Group and promptly applied for a job here. It’s been pretty cool working here so far. Plus, it helped me realize that a lot of the stereotypes about recruiters were wrong.
Here are the 5 benefits to applying for a job through a recruitment service like BGC Group:
1. You (the candidate) are getting help for free!
No, recruitment consultants will not take a part of their pay to cover costs or as part of their commission. There are no “hidden costs” for candidates and clients alike when it comes to using the help and services of specialist recruiters like BGC Group. Instead, recruiters are working on behalf of the clients involved, and will only receive payment from their clients. This means that candidates are getting help for free.
Q: I’m a job seeker, what can my recruitment consultant help me with?
Part of a specialist recruiter job is to make sure that ALL successful candidates sent to their clients shine during their second interview! At BGC Group, you can expect your specialist recruiter to provide you with interview and presentation tips to help you get ahead of the game.
Have you ever been to a job interview and felt extremely nervous because you don’t know who or what to expect? Different companies, hiring managers, and HR executives may have strange habits, likes, and dislikes, as well as a standard set of questions that they would like to ask. A good recruitment consultant will be able to prep and coach you just so you can land the job. The best part? It’s all free (for you)!
2. Recruitment agencies have the inside scoop on upcoming jobs you may be interested in
Whether you’re on the lookout for a temporary event position, or a permanent job during your gap year off, recruitment agencies are your best bet for the jobs you may be interested in. Which is why candidates should be as open as possible during their first interview held with the recruitment agency. Since recruitment agencies often work closely with a number of high profile clients, spending a lot of time, energy, and effort into fostering good relationships with them. It is very likely that agencies will get the first scoop on potential jobs, that candidates will not know of yet.
Keeping a good relationship with a trusted recruitment consultant just means that they’ll be able to keep you in mind when it comes to scouring for profiles (once your contract is up of course). See, when you send your CV to an internal HR department, they’re the only ones reviewing your awesome resume for one position. But when you send your resume to a recruiter, they’re immediately trying to match you to the wealth of clients they have on hand. Pretty awesome right?
3. We want all our candidates to succeed!
It is during this interview that the recruiter will try to find the best match possible for you. At BGC Group, we consider every candidate invited down to our office viable and useful. This means that our recruiters enter the interview with the hope that you (the job seeker) will be the ideal match for the job.
As recruitment agencies rely heavily on candidates and job seekers, we’re always bending over backward to try and get our desired candidates to succeed. It’s important for job seekers to realise that by establishing a good relationship with a trustworthy recruitment consultant, will be able to promote you much better than your CV can. We’ve mentioned this in our earlier article here, but apart from your educational qualifications, skills, and work experience, employers want to hire people that they want to work with. A dedicated specialist recruitment consultant in Hong Kong will be able to help you sell your background and personality traits to a client, landing you that job.
Hong Kong job agency BGC Group has spent 14 years trying to match job seekers out there to our cool clients. So it really is no surprise to us that some of our talented recruitment specialists have been presented with tokens of appreciation (most recently movie tickets) by our job seekers. And no, we’re not hinting anything guys haha! But…gifts can be nice at times.
4. Recruiters know what’s best
In order to be a good recruiter, recruiters need to understand the job market they’re hiring for, their clients, and their clients’ wants and needs. In other words, specialist recruiters will need to do a lot of serious reading if they want to do their job well.
You can always ask your recruitment consultant about the different jobs related to your skills, how often they have to recruit for that position, and how many people they’re looking to help fill the role. Do you have friends? Recommend them for the job, and work with them. That’ll be fun.
5. Recruiters help you save time!
Let’s face it, we spend a lot of our time job hunting. Some of us spend the night scouring different job boards before spending hours fussing over our resume and cover letter, tailoring each to fit the different roles we’re applying for.
That’s a lot of time to waste on just applying for jobs. You have other responsibilities in life that require more attention than just job hunting. Maybe you’re a full-time student trying to save for a holiday. Perhaps you’re still working for your current employer but you’re dreaming of switching jobs. Or maybe you’re a parent with demanding responsibilities and a family to take care of in the morning.
Whatever the reason, just know that by applying for jobs through a recruitment service, you’ll be able to land a decent job as quickly as possible.
Why?
Recruiters spend most of their day looking for candidates like you. They’re the ones scouring through job boards to make sure that the jobs get filled. They also know that you’re out there looking for a job. Go to them!
You’ve probably heard of the saying, “beggars can’t be choosers”. But with a number of top recruitment agencies in Hong Kong, all fighting to bring great jobs to people looking for jobs, you have the option to choose us (BGC Group).
We’re pretty cool and we are trustworthy. You can trust us with your information. We’ll keep it in our database and use it to find you jobs that we think you’ll love. We’re friendly too. Most of our recruitment consultants are a bunch of twenty-something-year-olds and we understand the pain of being a student looking for a job in Hong Kong. Plus we make videos, write articles, and spam Instagram to bring you job hunting tips and show you how fun it is to be at BGC Group.
