Are You ‘Directly’ Hurting Your Brand?

Why Rethinking Direct Hiring Matters

When companies decide to handle recruitment internally, the motivation often seems straightforward: maintain control, save money, and build direct relationships with potential hires.

This approach, known as direct hiring, can be highly effective when properly resourced and managed. However, without adequate planning and commitment, it can lead to unintended consequences that extend far beyond a single recruitment campaign.

Why Businesses Choose Direct Hiring

Around 28% of businesses choose to hire direct – and this is rising.* Companies gravitate toward direct hiring for several compelling reasons. The most obvious benefit is control – when you manage the entire process internally, you maintain oversight of every interaction, every decision, and every timeline. This hands-on approach appeals to organisations that want to ensure their company culture and values are represented accurately from the first point of contact.

Cost considerations also play a significant role. Agency fees can represent a substantial percentage of a new hire’s first-year salary, making direct hiring appear more economical at first glance. Many companies believe they can achieve the same results while keeping those costs in-house.

Making Direct Hiring Work: Essential Success Factors

If you’re committed to direct hiring, success depends on having the right resources and processes in place.

Here are the key areas that require dedicated attention:

1. Time and Resource Allocation

Direct hiring requires significant time investment from your team for CV reviews, candidate screening, assessments, interviews, and decision-making processes. Without adequate time allocation, even the best intentions can lead to delayed responses and candidate frustration.

2. Communication Excellence

Establishing a robust communication plan is crucial for candidate satisfaction, including prompt application acknowledgements, regular updates, and transparent timelines. Candidates appear to have higher expectations when dealing with a company direct. Rather than relying on generic automated messages, aim for professional, personalised communication that makes candidates feel valued throughout the process. Remember this interaction will impact their first impression of the business.

3. Interview Process Management

A well-structured interview process requires careful planning and coordination, including defined stages, protected stakeholder time, and realistic timelines. Consider whether your team has the bandwidth to manage these logistics, the skillsets to identify key skills and motivations during the initial qualification stage, all while maintaining quality interactions with each candidate.

The Risks of Getting It Wrong

When direct hiring isn’t properly resourced, challenges can arise without the right support in place, including communication gaps that leave candidates waiting for updates, process delays caused by internal coordination issues, and candidate experience problems when recruitment isn’t someone’s primary responsibility.

These challenges highlight why many companies turn to professional recruitment agencies that can dedicate the time, manpower and expertise needed to manage these complexities effectively.

The Long-Term Impact on Your Employer Brand

Candidate experiences during recruitment have lasting implications for your employer brand. In today’s connected world, experiences – both positive and negative – spread quickly through professional networks, social media platforms, and industry forums.

This word-of-mouth effect can be particularly significant in niche sectors where professionals know each other and regularly share experiences.

Candidates who have challenging experiences with your hiring process may be less likely to apply for future positions or recommend your company to others. In competitive talent markets, this can limit your access to qualified candidates over time.

Mitigate Hidden Costs

It’s important to consider the hidden costs that hiring direct can have. The longer a vacancy remains unfilled, the greater the potential financial impact on your business. Gaps in your teams can lead to unsupported employees, mismanaged budgets and suppliers contracts, increased turnover, even fines for non-compliance. By partnering with a recruitment agency, you can secure qualified talent swiftly, mitigating these risks and ensuring smooth business operations.

The Ripple Effect on Employee Satisfaction

Unfilled roles don’t just affect output – they take a toll on the existing team. As workloads are redistributed to cover gaps, employees can quickly become overstretched and disengaged. Over time, this strain can lead to burnout, dissatisfaction, and even resignations.

When experienced team members leave, you don’t just lose capacity – you lose valuable knowledge and momentum. This restarts the hiring cycle, often requiring higher salaries to remain competitive, further increasing overall costs.

When to Consider Professional Recruitment Support

Recruitment agencies bring dedicated resources and expertise that can complement your internal capabilities. Professional recruiters have the time, systems and manpower to conduct thorough CV reviews, engage meaningfully with candidates, and maintain consistent communication throughout the process.

This dedicated focus on recruitment activities allows them to respond quickly to candidate enquiries and provide regular updates on the process status.

Their deep understanding of niche sectors also allows them to qualify high-calibre candidates with speed and accuracy. Experienced recruiters are adept at interpreting CVs, asking the right questions to uncover candidate motivations, and aligning talent with role requirements – often with more precision than internal teams unfamiliar with the specific demands of specialised positions.

Additionally, agencies are well-versed in managing timelines effectively, helping companies avoid the negative impacts of lengthy recruitment processes that can damage both candidate experience and business outcomes.

Established agencies maintain extensive talent pools and networks based on years of relationship-building. These connections enable them to identify and engage with passive candidates who might not be actively applying to job postings but could be interested in the right opportunity.

Should You Reconsider Your Hiring Approach?

With rising employee costs, it’s understandable – and necessary – for businesses to seek ways to manage spend and control growing headcount budgets. However, when evaluating recruitment strategies, it’s important to honestly assess whether hiring directly is truly supporting your employer brand, delivering the candidate experience you want to be known for, and achieving genuine cost savings, all while maintaining employee satisfaction.

If you’re unable to consistently deliver excellent candidate experiences through direct hiring, partnering with specialists who can represent your company professionally while managing the complexities of modern recruitment might be a better path forward.

The investment in professional recruitment services often pays dividends through improved candidate experience, better hiring outcomes, and a strong employer brand that attracts top talent naturally.

*According to Portfolio Payroll Salary Guide 2024/25