Exploring Determinants Influencing Organizations' Selection of Recruitment Agencies for Hiring New Employees : A Case of Selected Organisations in Lusaka

Abstract

The study investigates the factors that determine an organization's choice of recruitment agencies for the selection of new employees. The key objectives were to identify main factors considered by organizations, analyze how determinants vary between industries, and identify stakeholders involved in the selection process. A qualitative research design was adopted, wherein 15 semi structured interviews were conducted with organizations across different sectors, such as finance, ICT, manufacturing, service industries, and NGOs. The findings show that the organizations base their decision to choose a recruitment agency on various factors, including agency reputation, industry experience, candidate shortlist quality, cost, turnaround time, communication, and rigor of screening. Their relative importance varies across the industries; for example, financial organizations give much priority to compliance and candidate integrity, ICT sectors to speed and readiness, manufacturing to technical competence, service industries to interpersonal skills, and NGOs to ethical alignment. It also emerged that the selection of a recruitment agency was often a collaborative process, engaging HR departments, departmental managers, senior management, finance, and sometimes procurement teams to ensure decisions are comprehensive, strategically aligned, and operationally feasible. The study concludes that the selection of a recruitment agency is multidimensional, context dependent, and requires input from several stakeholders. Recommendations include formalizing an organization's selection criteria and agencies offering services to meet the needs of particular industries. This study lays the foundation for future research into quantitative assessment, comparisons across countries, and the impact of agency selection on recruitment outcomes. Keywords: Recruitment agencies, selection determinants, industry-specific priorities, stakeholders, qualitative research.