When you are looking for the highly specific and relevant skills that Facilities Management requires in addition to needing candidates with a good business cultural fit, it is the specialised fishermen (or recruiters) who know where and when to throw the net who are more successful. These specialists might deliver you with fewer candidates but they will be the right candidates for your role. Experts who take the time to understand exactly what you are looking for, who will professionally interview and screen suitable candidates and be confident that each candidate they put in front of you is a) completely qualified for the role b) interested in the role offered and c) they meet the cultural fit of your business.

A specialist recruiter in the FM market knows and understands the market well. They know and understand the broad range of skills and experience required. They will work with you to get a complete brief about the type of person you want. A specialist FM recruiter will advise you and be realistic about what you can expect; you don't need to be an expert in facilities management recruitment but we do. A good recruiter needs to understand the character and psychology of the candidates available and know which ones will fit culturally and which ones just won't. Most importantly, a good FM recruiter will be able to identify transferable skills and bring new talent into the industry.

Working with just one professional FM recruiter, rather than a number of generalist recruitment company's means that you need to trust your recruitment partner to do the hard work to come up with the right candidates for you. You need to listen to their feedback about salaries, qualifications and other key factors that will impact the success of the recruitment process. You need to be honest with them about your business culture and the qualities that the candidates will need to thrive in your organisation. Once you have found your trusted recruitment partner, the benefits are clear:-

• A single transparent agreed cost structure for all hires.
• A more efficient and pleasant recruitment experience.
• Sector expertise in facilities management.
• A better pool of the right candidates to choose from that are suitable for your business.
• No duplicated candidates from multiple recruiters.
• An honest and open advisory/consultative relationship.
• A business relationship that improves over time to continuously deliver you with successful results.

Of course, we as a specialist FM recruiter are going to say that working with just one trusted partner is better for you and of course it is also better for us. If you use a number of recruitment specialists the quality of the candidates suffer because the agencies work on a fastest CV first basis to ensure that they can claim the introduction. The outcome of this could be lots of candidates in front of you quickly that haven't necessarily been screened or sometimes even spoken to, just to ensure that an agency gets the CV in front of you first. Having duplicate CV's from multiple agencies increases the workload of the hiring manager or HR person who needs to track who introduced which candidate first. As well as being a headache for all concerned, it can reflect negatively on your brand and reputation.

300 North aim to have a different and better relationship with our clients, one based on trust, expertise, experience, professionalism, flexibility and above all honesty. We want to build a relationship with the hiring manager or HR person responsible to understand the nuances of the business and roles to make their lives easier. We don't want a relationship with clients where we have to produce candidates faster than our competitors in order to score the introduction. We know that the clients we work with on an exclusive basis get a superior service, 95% of our clients and candidates would recommend us to a friend or colleague.

"As a busy director, I was cynical about recruitment companies based on previous experiences until I was introduced to 300 North. The last few roles I needed to recruit for were very specialist and 300 North took the time to understand the business and the individual requirements. Their no nonsense, non salesy and professional approach to finding me the right people has been really refreshing. They have found really high quality people in a short space of time, having properly referenced and interviewed them before I needed to consider them myself. I believe their approach is professional and helped to make my life easier, shortcutting the usual unnecessary review and interview process at my end. I have found 300 North to be a really personal service and I will definitely be using them for all of my future recruitment needs – I would positively recommend them to anyone."

So when you need to recruit specialists in FM, don't feel that you need to widen the net and work with lots of recruiters to get the best candidates, just work with the right net, one professional recruitment company that understands exactly what your business needs and does all the hard work to find the right talent for you.