The Benefits of Working with Staffing Agencies

Do you have experience working with a staffing agency? Chances are, you do. It’s a booming industry, with a market size of more than $150 billion, and SIA predicts it will grow 12% in 2021.

Hiring usually happens in ebbs and flows—when business is growing, the demand for talent increases. The process of finding and hiring the skillsets you need can be slow and impede a business’ advancement and opportunity.

A staffing agency can help bridge the capacity gap in an HR organization. In times of growth, they can step in to provide relief, either with temporary or permanent employees.

These vendor relationships can deliver a great deal of value. The key is finding the best partner for your organization. Here are some benefits of staffing agencies…with hints on how to choose the right one.

Agencies and Temporary Staffing

Project work and short-term campaigns are well-suited for temporary staffing. By its nature, the costs and commitment are short-term—either until the work is complete or until a permanent team is identified. Companies find temporary staffing to be an excellent tool for managing cost and ramping resources up (or down).

Why do companies use staffing agencies for these temporary employees? For starters, staffing agencies can help to quickly increase the volume of candidates across a variety of skills and geographies.

But a big stack of resumes isn’t necessarily progress. The true benefit of a staffing agency is achieved when candidates result in fills. Make sure you choose an agency that can follow and meet the needs of your requisition—don’t sit in wasted interviews with the wrong candidates.

For larger-scale contingent staffing, consider a Managed Service Provider (MSP) program to help streamline your high-volume hiring, establish quality criteria, and manage staffing vendor costs.

Quick Growth in Permanent Placement

While many HR organizations feel equipped to handle the normal pace of permanent hiring, a back log can accumulate quickly, especially for scarce skillsets, geographies outside “talent hubs,” or times of high company growth (opening a new office, adding a new product, etc.). Using the resources and expertise of an outsourced recruiter can help you find candidates and fill those key roles faster as well.

Again, work with a team that listens to your needs and brings you high-quality candidates at market rate. Don’t waste your time interviewing candidates that don’t fit your organization.

Virtual Hiring Expertise

In 2020, in-house hiring managers learned the difficulty of remote candidate screening and interviewing. Yet many agencies had mastered virtual sourcing techniques long before 2020. Working with a staffing agency may help to streamline your remote hiring efforts. The best ones have dedicated teams and processes to manage online postings, scheduling tools like Calendly for high-volume online screening calls and structured procedures and assessments to filter the best people.

Of course, screeners work best when they are on-target with the objectives of the hiring manager. Look for a staffing company that listens to your needs and is willing to customize how they hire to align with direction of your organization.

Expanding the Talent Pool

The main reason why companies hire through staffing agencies is to access their talent pool. Agencies build vast networks, maintain databases and monitor the market supply and demand of talent. Their interactions are national in scope, and at the same time, their local offices are experts in local talent. Some also specialize by industry or skill type. Very few companies can efficiently achieve this range of expertise in-house…and why should they?  Working with staffing agencies to source qualified candidates allows HR teams and hiring managers to focus on choosing the best fit, filling the role, and getting on with business.

The broader the search, the better opportunity to find the talent you seek. But it’s also important for the staffing agency to understand your company’s unique needs. To get the best fit, the skillset and the culture-match have to be there. Choose a partner firm that takes the time to understand what you seek and is invested in your long-term success.

Staffing Cost Management

Another specialty area of staffing agencies is pay rates. These professionals spend their days speaking to hiring managers and candidates. A strong agency will know the market rate, by job type and location, and can advise if you are hitting (or missing) the mark. The good news? They can save you money if you are overpaying for your human resources. And if you are underpaying? Their advice can help you attract better talent and reduce turnover. Either way, you win.

More good news: if you choose to engage an MSP for staffing, you can standardize rates across all of your agency vendors and achieve even more consistency, and predictability, in staffing cost.

Finding the Right Staffing Partner

Your staffing vendor should be a partner, one that treats your business like a relationship, not a transaction. They will provide better quality candidates, at the right value, if they spend the time understanding your business—its objectives and its culture.

At Marchon Partners, our staffing professionals are invested in our clients’ success for the long term. We spend the time, up front, to learn about each client’s unique needs. We customize our screening processes to ensure candidates are the best fit, focusing on fill rates and efficiency, not just volume. We also advise our clients on market rates and help them attract candidates that are in high demand.

Are you ready for a staffing partner? We’d love to help you! Contact us today!