Download Working with Recruitment Agencies

Swansea University Employability Academy (SEA) Policy
Working with Recruitment/Employment Consultants/Agencies
1. SEA Employment Zone Jobsboard Use
A Recruitment Consultant/Agency is permitted to advertise vacancies on the SEA Employment Zone
Jobsboard if the vacancies are regarding work within the agency itself. This could be in a professional
capacity e.g. A Recruitment Consultant post or in a part-time work capacity, e.g. Part-time
Administration or Compliance work.
However, Recruitment Consultants/Agencies are not permitted to advertise opportunities on behalf
of other organisations that they are representing on the SEA Employment Zone Jobsboard. For
example, they cannot post an opportunity seeking a new Accounts Assistant for a local firm, whether
they name the Accountancy firm or not. Should a vacancy be posted, that is not working directly at
said agency; it will not be permitted to be displayed on the Jobsboard or will be removed at a later
date if approved initially.
2. Partnering
Moreover, we very rarely enter into partnerships with Recruitment Consultants/Agencies. We are
often approached with requests whereby agencies are keen to provide assessment centre
experiences and similar to our students and graduates. Such activities are provided in-house by
SEA’s Employability professionals and thus we hardly ever require these services from an external
organisation. Rare exceptions have been made whereby a highly specialised offer has been made.
3. Promotional Activities
We are also frequently approached to promote the services of specific Recruitment
Consultants/Agencies to our students and graduates. We cannot do this for several reasons. For
example, it would be unfair to promote one brand of agency over another. In addition, we do not
have the staff resource to investigate each vacancy offered by an agency (where the
student/graduate would not be working directly for them) or the agency itself to ensure that we
would be comfortable with its practices and therefore confident in recommending the role or
agency to our students and graduates. An example of agency practices that we have seen and would
consider unethical includes the advertising of non-existent roles in order for that agency to simply
gain new candidates on their books.
On our SEA webpages, we will however signpost students and graduates to well-known job websites.
We explain that we do not endorse these sites but that students may find them useful. Therefore, it
is highly likely that Swansea University students and graduates would be able to view your job
advertisements via these sites but Swansea University would take no responsibility for this.
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4. SEA Careers Fairs
Recruitment Consultants/Agencies are permitted to make bookings for stands at our Careers Fairs
on behalf of organisations that they are representing although the organisation itself, rather than
the agency, must be present on the day of the fairs. We do not permit Recruitment
Consultants/Agencies to take stands at our Fairs, for reasons outlined in point 3 above.
5. SEA Careers Advice & Guidance
Careers advice and guidance is provided to Swansea University students and recent graduates
through various mediums e.g. one-to-one appointments and group guidance. Within these settings,
impartial advice and guidance is provided on a range of employability matters. Therefore,
recruitment agencies may be suggested as one of many methods of seeking employment. In line
with point 3, above, specific consultants/agencies are not endorsed and all discussions on the matter
are generic. Further, we do not use agencies or consultants to provide careers advice and guidance.
As with all SEA staff, they are permanent members of staff, employed in-line with the relevant skills,
qualifications and experience necessary to perform their specific roles, for example, Careers
Advisers, Placement Officers, an Employer Project Co-ordinator (who manages events) etc.
The policy points outlined above are unique to the Swansea Employability Academy (SEA) and not
necessarily the policy for other Swansea University Colleges and Professional Services, e.g. They may
be happy to recommend certain agencies within a newsletter to students and graduates. However,
such colleges and services do often call upon SEA for Employability advice and adoption of the policy
outlined above would be recommended to them, where relevant. This would not be the case if they
were looking to use a Recruitment Agency to hire staff to work directly at Swansea University – this
decision would most likely fall under the remit of Swansea University’s Human Resources
Department.
This SEA policy is revised/reviewed when relevant and evidentially formed following due
consideration. We will not discuss, via email or telephone, this policy with individual Recruitment
Consultants or Agencies owing to time constraints – they will be directed back to this policy
document.
Thank you for your cooperation.
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