Recruiters have been urged to show imagination in their methods of finding candidates.

Marina Aldridge, head of resourcing and recruitment at the Audit Commission, told Recruiter that the Commission regularly used agencies to provide temporary workers but rarely enlisted them for permanent placements.

Aldridge said: “A bad recruitment agency is where there is a lack of imagination. They just stick an advert in the same paper that you might have done and pass you on all the CVs they get indiscriminately.

“A good agency would be one that adds expertise. It would be one that steers you to the people you are looking for and have good networks that they can draw on and would be in tune with our values and know our cultural fit and understand our diversity strategies.”