Involvement in pre-employment activity can be a critical first step for an employer in engaging with your clients. Remember that some SME employers may have concerns that recruiting from priority groups will be difficult and time consuming and feel that there are too many risks involved.

Pre-employment activities can provide employers with opportunities to ‘test the water’, through initiatives that introduce them to priority clients without having to make an immediate long term commitment.

This type of involvement can be a very useful way of getting ‘a foot in the door’ with employers. It can really help you to build ongoing positive relationships with individual employers and can be an important part of an incremental journey towards recruiting your clients.

However, it is important that you don’t automatically assume that an employer’s involvement in pre-employment activity will automatically lead to direct recruitment opportunities for your clients.