A company must first take stock of its situation because everything depends on its current and future needs. It must consider both the quantity and quality of vacancies to be provided.
Regarding the quantity, the rule is simple: the more there are vacancies in various trades and regions, the more a generalist is needed. For reasons of simplicity, of course: having a single contact, present throughout and able to look in all the trades makes it easy. This may also be more interesting in terms of pricing, being that group recruitment agreements can be negotiated with the agency. In contrast, with a reduced number of positions in a sector or a single geographical area, a specialist would be recommended.
As for quality, the more the profile is rare, the more specialist headhunters will be relevant. Expert consultants in a field are often former industry professionals, they have their entries in the business and speak the same language as the candidates. Consequently, their services often sell more expensive: the value of a candidate is more important, research is longer, approach is more complicated.
A vacancy located abroad can be a special case. For a branch outside your country, the solution generally advisable is to consult a local partner, preferentially. He will know better the target market constraints that a domestic firm and be more efficient in the given country raten than an international recruitment agency.
Specialist and generalist recruiting firms have both their weaknesses. Concentrating on one area would certainly give a relevant vision in a specialty, but too far from the whole market. Unable to fetch a profile from other disciplines, specialized agencies are thus too closed, and encourage excessive cloning. As for purely generalist firms, wanting to do everything, they might not know in depth each of the sectors in which they operate.
The best solution seems to be a generalist with specialized practices. Different recruiting services are experts in their niche and they can also communicate between them. For example, a CFO in construction, such firm may seek in both branches at once.
But even if the design is attractive, it also has a reverse. Some recruitment firms organized on the Anglo-Saxon model have a tendency to work at high pressure and ignore the quality. You must admit that being expert in all areas without exception is simply impossible. For positions that are especially rigorous, only someone who has bathed in the industry may know it all to pieces. But in general recruiting agencies with specialized branches, consultants are often young and they "turn" a lot, which hinders their mastery of the subject matter and effective communication with the company.
Another possibility is to combine the best of both worlds: working with several firms at once. Nothing prevents from it and you may well turn to one or the other according to your needs at the moment to make the most of everyone's skills.
Finally, more than the firm, don't forget that the consultant who will address the affairs must be in the center of the "screening". A consultant can work in the best of recruiting agencies, but if he is incompetent or if the relationship goes wrong, it will have a negative impact on the search for candidates and the recruitment process. A meeting is therefore essential to assess his industry knowledge and interviewing expertise.
