Staffing:

The best candidates are generally not available when your job opening is made official. One of the benefits to working with a staffing organization is that they will constantly seek out and monitor available talent suitable to your needs so that you are not forced to simply pick from what is available in the market when your open position becomes authorized. The staffing firm is constantly attempting to discover and implement new creative ways of sourcing professionals you will need to hire.

Employers should make an honest attempt to fill every position on their own. They should use every tool at their disposal  including job boards, referrals, job fairs, and the newspaper. The goal is to  make sure you fill all "easy" openings on your own. Save your recruiting fees  for those positions that are more time-consuming to fill. And when you have identified a position that needs the assistance of an agency, be willing to pay for their efforts. Restricting the fee you are willing to pay to a sub-standard level is only going to force agencies to limit their efforts.

When a position that must be filled has cycled through all of the passive methods of recruiting and still remains open, that position should be earmarked for a smart search whether it's done by your own recruiters or an independent recruiter. A smart  search is an active search, more like a "hunt" than the more traditional passive candidate searches that most companies employ.

A few notes on dealing with agencies:
Make sure the agency has experience filling the types of positions for which they are being hired. A way of determining the level of experience can be ascertained by  paying close attention to the questions the agency asks. The depth of their understanding of your needs will become readily apparent.

Also,  agencies should be providing you only with qualified candidates. When they start  "throwing paper" at you, it's time for a new agency. An agency should be  measured not on how much they bring you, but on how little they  bring you.

Commit yourself to working with the agencies you select. If you want them to do a good job of recruiting on your behalf, then you  must educate them thus enabling them to become competent agents for your organization.

Recruiters' capabilities, like that of any profession, fit a "bell-shaped" curve: 10% are awful, 20% less than average, 40% average, 20% above-average, and 10% excellent. This means that you have a 3 in 10 chance of finding yourself in the hands of an above-average recruiter.