Use recruiter or apply through website? (employee, job opening, applying, job)

[Berteau]

There is a job opening through the company's website that a recruiter also wants to submit me for. Problem is if I apply through the website, the recruiter can't submit me, so I can't do both right now. I'm not sure which will give me the better chance of getting hired, because it depends on how the company does things.

Recruiter - With some companies, HR might just screen me out or not even look at it. But if they have a relationship with the recruiter, it could go straight to the hiring manager or he could sell me to them.

Website - If I apply through the website, I will be cheaper to hire. It also shows that I know about the company and reached out myself.

My last job I applied through the website and used a recruiter, but they never even called me when I applied through their website. Later though the recruiter submitted me and they ended up hiring me, so HR screened me out.

[jjbradleynyc]

It really all depends on a couple factors.

a) the relationship the company has with the recruiter. If the recruiter has a "solid in" and is a trusted partner with the company, then a recruiter could be the way to go here.

You won't be able to determine the relationship the recruiter has with the company from the outside looking in of course, but typically the more well known and highly reputable that the recruiter company and brand is, then the higher the likelihood the company has a strong relationship with them. But this is not always the case--just a good rule to go by.

b) the type of job you have and your industry, and if you are qualified for the job you are applying for. If you aren't that qualified or partially qualified, you'll be screened out, for sure.

Even if you are qualified and hit all the marks of the job, and you apply on the company site through HR, you still may never get an email or a call. This is because if HR is short staffed, or work normally with "light staff," the HR person may just not have time to review your resume, due to them being inundated and overwhelmed with candidates and resumes.
Human Resources professionals can be responsible for --

organizational departmental planning;
performance management and improvement systems;
organization development;
employment and compliance with regulatory concerns regarding employees;
employee onboarding, development, needs assessment, and training;
policy development and documentation;
employee relations;
company-wide committee facilitation;
company employee and community communication;
compensation and benefits administration;
employee safety, welfare, wellness, and health;
charitable giving; and
employee services and counseling.

Add on top of this recruitment and hiring, and there just are not enough hours in the day. That's a large reason why companies turn to using staffing firms and recruiting--it is a full time job to recruit, and there just is not time for many HR departments to effectively recruit candidates.

My advice is go through a trusted recruiter.

Especially now, when this COVID-19 issue is causing companies to lay off thousands of people, and many are applying to company sites and to HR directly, and the large majority of candidates just get lost, and unfortunately never contacted.

[BrianGC]

No contest, go with the recruiter. Applying through the company web site more frequently puts you into a black hole unless you nail the keywords perfectly in your resume so that a bot doesn't filter you out. In my experience with recruiters, a human is forwarding your resume to another human. Some recruiters are full of crap, but overall your chances are going to be better.

[ccm123]

In cases like this, I’ve been more successful going through the recruiter.