Hire Calling
Hire Calling
Why More Companies Are Turning to Staffing Firms
Hiring the right people has never been more critical, or more challenging. If your team is stretched thin, facing aggressive hiring deadlines, or searching for niche talent in a competitive market, a staffing agency could be your best-kept secret.
In this episode, we break down how the right partner can act as an extension of your team, handling everything from sourcing to screening to onboarding. You'll learn when it makes sense to bring in outside help, the difference between contract, direct hire, and contract-to-hire models, and how a great staffing partner can speed up hiring while raising the bar on candidate quality.
Whether you're building a team from scratch or just trying to keep up with demand, this episode will help you rethink what's possible when you stop hiring alone.
Additional Resources:
- The Benefits of Working With a Staffing Agency
- Staffing Services
- Is Your Business Ready for Professional Staffing Services?
- Advantages of Hiring a Third-Party Small Business Recruiter
🧠WANT TO LEARN MORE? Be sure to subscribe and check out 4 Corner Resources at https://www.4cornerresources.com/
👋 FOLLOW PETE NEWSOME ONLINE:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/petenewsome/
Blog Articles: https://www.4cornerresources.com/blog/
Should you use a staffing agency? Maybe On today's episode of the Hire Calling Podcast, we're going to cover the benefits of working with a staffing agency, including the services they provide and when and why you should consider using one. So, peter, you ready to do?
Peter Porebski:this Absolutely, so why don't we start at the top? What does a staffing agency do?
Pete Newsome:That's a great question and we don't want to assume anyone knows so very quickly. A staffing agency it's also known as a recruiting agency or recruiting firm we tend to use all those phrases interchangeably Essentially recruits for open positions on behalf of their client, who is the end user employer responsible for finding candidates who meet a specific job description and criteria. We source them from various means, we vet them, we screen them, we interview them, we check their references, we fully qualify them for job openings, again on behalf of our clients, where they will ultimately work.
Peter Porebski:I feel like that's something that we get asked a lot, particularly by people who are new to using recruiting agencies, and we're like it's everything from sourcing candidates to screening them, interviewing them, even helping set up interviews with you, the client, all the way through offers and even onboarding, for some clients as well. So it's a lot. So that kind of leads into the next question then. So what types of services do staffing agencies actually offer to their clients?
Pete Newsome:There's a lot of different ways you can slice up the services that staffing companies offer, but they generally fall into one of three categories.
Pete Newsome:One is contract work, also often referred to as temporary, and that is where the individual who's hired will be on the payroll of the staffing company, and it's usually for a set period of time, maybe for seasonal work a spike in demand that won't last very long.
Pete Newsome:A lot of times people will think of traditional temporary services as covering someone who's on vacation or maternity leave, but it's really much more than that. There's many, many reasons why someone would need to be hired just on a contract basis, but the best way to think of it is work that isn't going to last indefinitely. The second main category of services is what we call direct hire. It's often referred to as permanent placement as well, and that is where the individual who has been recruited and sourced by the staffing company goes directly onto the payroll of the employer, so they'll never be an employee of the staffing company. And then the third is what we call contract to hire, and that's a blend of the two. The individual who's selected begins as a contract employee on the payroll of the staffing company, with an option or expectation even of being hired as a direct employee of the end user employer at some point.
Peter Porebski:Yeah. So I've talked to a lot of people who have maybe a misunderstanding and they'll say well, we have an internal recruiter and so why do we need to work with a staffing agency? Or why would we pay a fee to have someone help us recruit? I've got one person internal and they can handle everything. So, Pete, can you explain a little bit? Why would companies use a staffing agency in the first place?
Pete Newsome:There's a lot of reasons why a company will turn to a third party for recruiting help. One is if they have limited bandwidth. Let's say they don't have a dedicated talent acquisition team or even anyone who's able to handle recruiting on a day-to-day basis. So if they don't have those internal resources, that's a great use of a third-party staffing agency.
Peter Porebski:Even teams that have one or two recruiters. They have spikes in need and all of a sudden they need a lot of help. So people underestimating their internal bandwidth, that's a really big one.
Pete Newsome:Urgent hiring needs that weren't anticipated. That's another reason why you'd need outside help for recruiting. If suddenly the volume is such that you can't handle it internally, even if you normally can under just regular course of business, that would be a great reason to turn to a staffing agency.
Peter Porebski:Yep, we see it all the time Companies that are coming up on a huge seasonal need. It was spring so we had tax clients that were ramping up for tax season. That's a perfect example of a huge hiring need. That's not something that's going to be going on all year. Great reason to reach out to a staffing agency.
Pete Newsome:And another is hard to fill, or niche positions. If you have what we like to sometimes refer to as a need to hire a unicorn, a really rare skillset in a candidate where there's just not much of a candidate pool, then you can turn to a staffing agency who has expertise in that specific area. Uh, maybe it's industry specific, maybe it's a technical skill that's just not very common. So, whatever uh it is, it makes that position hard to fill. There's a staffing agency who has expertise that can help you in that area.
Peter Porebski:And that kind of goes also for project-based roles, right, A lot of clients that we personally work with. They have large projects that come on. They need to bring on staff and it's not something that's going to be going on forever. They just need to get a task done and then move on. So that's another great reason.
Pete Newsome:Peter. Let's turn to really focusing on the benefits. That's what we promised to share today. One that I talk about a lot is the speed. Speed that a recruiting agency can fill positions in is almost always going to be significantly faster than what the end user employer can do on their own, and the reason for that is a recruiting agency, a staffing agency, has blinders on. That is all they do all day, every day. We as an industry exist just to do one thing find candidates, match them with employers, and we don't get distracted by anything else, like a lot of internal talent acquisition teams will do. Or, if the end user employer needs to hire, doesn't have anyone dedicated full-time to recruiting. It is a full-time job when it's done right. So when speed is a factor, using a third-party staffing agency is an absolute must.
Peter Porebski:That's a really good point, because a lot of internal recruiters that I've talked to they're getting requisitions and jobs from all across the company. They might be working on 10 different roles at one time, whereas external parties they're usually those recruiters are working on one, maybe two roles. They fill it, they move on. So it's. They have, like you said, blinders and they're really good at it because that's all they're doing all day long is recruiting.
Pete Newsome:That's a perfect segue into another benefit, which is recruiting expertise.
Pete Newsome:Not only is a staffing agency going to be good at recruiting they better be anyway but they can be good in specific areas.
Pete Newsome:So an example that's probably easy to follow is a technical role.
Pete Newsome:If you are a generalist as a recruiter and you don't have specific technical recruiting experience where you understand the different software applications that may be required or database tools, whatever it might be, if you're seeing a technical job description for the first time and it has a lot of acronyms that you're just not familiar with, you're going to have a very difficult time just anyone would matching up the right candidate for that job opening.
Pete Newsome:If you turn to an outside recruiter who has technical recruiting expertise, well now they're going to be able to handle that position much more effectively and it's going to ultimately save time again. I mean, that's a recurring theme with pretty much everything we're going to talk about today, but also it'll just increase efficiency to a significant degree, because the candidate quality will be much higher when it goes from the recruiter whether internal or external to the hiring manager, and so if you want a higher degree of success matching candidates' openings, then turn to a staffing agency who has that specific expertise. So that's another example, peter, that I think is a very common reason why employers will use a staffing agency roles or it's going to be a temporary project.
Peter Porebski:that's a perfect reason to reach out to a third-party agency, somebody who can really ramp up fast and start working on your roles and get those roles filled, while your team handles everything else that they're kind of burdened with internally.
Pete Newsome:Yeah, that's a great example. I mean the ability to scale up and down without knowing in advance what your needs are going to be. I mean, it's really hard. No one has a crystal ball. The economy right now is a little shaky right. A lot of changes going on with the government that are affecting business. We all know that, and you can't necessarily predict what your hiring needs are going to be. So you don't have to. If you use a third-party staffing agency, when you need them, they're there, when you don't, you don't have to keep them on your payroll. It's not going to result in any recurring costs, so that's a great benefit as well.
Peter Porebski:Yeah, and they have a really great. They have great access to really a wider pool of candidates than your average internal recruiter is probably going to have, just because they're going to have huge applicant tracking system databases. They're going to have access to all these different job boards.
Pete Newsome:They're going to have personal networks that they've built over time In many cases, even though it might be a new position for you as an employer, the contract staffing agency or the staffing agency will have a database of candidates who are already ready to go. They've already been qualified, they've already been vetted. Sometimes the references have already been checked so that candidate pool already exists for them, even though it doesn't exist for you. So when you use that staffing agency, you get the benefit of that broad candidate pool without having to build it yourself.
Peter Porebski:A lot of managers, particularly people who are newer to staffing. Maybe they don't have to hire all that often. They don't know even where to begin. So you get really great strategic help from a good staffing partner. They can help you decide, all right. Well, do we want to do this as contract? Do we want to do this as contract? Do we want to do this as direct? What area should we look at? What are some things on the job description? This is reasonable. This isn't. What pay range should we be in? So a good staffing partner is going to be able to walk you through all of that and actually do what we call maybe even a skill market, where they'll say, hey, here's some great candidates that I'm currently working with. Maybe you haven't even thought about opening up this area for the project, but here's a really great person, so take them on. So all of those extra things that might not even be in the forefront of your mind, those are other areas that a staffing agency can help you out.
Pete Newsome:Yeah, to that point, the right staffing agency will play a consultative role for you and be able to share market data and insight that you wouldn't otherwise be aware of. Because, again, this is all we do as an industry we just recruit and we get to know the market really, really well. Complimentary positions and having the ability to anticipate hiring needs is all part of it. So, peter, that's a great point as well. One that I think is undervalued but shouldn't be as a benefit to working with a staffing agency is the removal of administrative tasks from the end user employer. It is a labor intensive job to recruit. When it's done right, there's a lot of keys to cross, a lot of eyes to be dotted, and you can't take that stuff for granted. You can't circumvent it or shortcut it right. Someone has to do it Well. Let the staffing agency do all that heavy lifting.
Peter Porebski:So that's a lot. Is there any other benefits that you can think of?
Pete Newsome:I can talk all day about the benefits. I won't do that. I promise We'll keep it concise. But I'd be remiss if I didn't mention confidentiality because, depending on the position, that could be a huge benefit to using a staffing agency If the person internally who's being replaced or going to be terminated isn't aware of it. There's many instances where you wouldn't want someone internally also recruiting on that position. So this could be executive roles, it could be any kind of senior leadership role. That is a really common reason and benefit to letting someone on the outside maintain that confidentiality and handle the recruiting process where no one internally other than those who absolutely need to know or even aware of it. And then a final one I'll say is just the various payrolling options that a staffing agency can offer Letting a staffing agency handle the insurance, the compliance, the taxes, all that stuff.
Peter Porebski:that makes your life a lot easier. You can just focus on bringing people on and training them for your team. So, all right, we've talked through some of the benefits here. A new hiring manager comes to you, Pete, and they want to know when should they consider reaching out to a third-party agency?
Pete Newsome:So it depends right, it depends on what's going on with your unique and very specific situation, but this will sound kind of redundant to some of the things we've already talked about. But speed Do you have an urgent need that needs to be filled right away? And if so, I mean that's probably if you're not used to, if you don't have a habit of using a staffing agency, if it's not part of your company culture already, this is one that gets a lot of people's feet wet, so to speak. Where you just don't have an option to fill the position quickly enough internally, let a staffing agency do it. They will jump when you call at least the good ones will and you'll get results a whole lot faster than anything you could do internally.
Peter Porebski:Yeah, that's actually one that we've dealt with a lot. I know where we've had teams that are like, all right, well, let me try and handle it. First, I'm going to go ahead and do my own recruiting and I'll reach back out if you need help. And then 30 days later they come back. They're like, hey, we've been recruiting on this, we haven't gotten anywhere. So, yeah, definitely if you need them filled fast and you don't want to underestimate your workload.
Pete Newsome:Look, I use this analogy a lot. I could change my own oil. I've done it before in my car, I know how, but I don't do it because there's someone else who's going to do it a whole lot more efficiently than I could. Same premise, just shifted into business versus personal, and along those lines, the staffing company has expertise that you may not have internally. If it's a niche position, that is something you've never filled before, as we touched on earlier. That's a great reason to use a staffing company, who will come with an existing candidate pool and knowledge on how to match the candidates to the job opening, and it'll ultimately lead to a much better recruiting experience, not only for you internally, but also for your candidates.
Peter Porebski:Yeah, and a lot of teams don't have consistent time to be spending on recruiting or they might not even have dedicated recruiting teams. So if you've got a smaller HR team say maybe your HR manager is also your recruiter They've got to deal with internal stuff, onboarding for new clients or new candidates, they've got to do training, they've got to do benefits, but then they also got to find time to recruit. So that's a really easy one where you're like I might need to reach out and get some help here if I don't have time enough to do it myself.
Pete Newsome:If you don't have time, if you don't have a dedicated recruiter in-house, if that function doesn't exist for you full-time, it's going to be difficult, as needs arise, to stop what you're doing and turn to hiring. So that's another reason. If that dedicated resource doesn't exist internally, let a professional staffing company do it.
Peter Porebski:Yeah, and if you're having a lot of turnover, maybe your new hires aren't sticking out. This is an area where I would kind of take a step back and that's where the recruiting agency should play kind of a consultant role and they should take a look at your onboarding process, your recruiting process. Is it too long? What's going on here that there are people coming on but then they're not sticking or they're backing out of interviews or what have you?
Pete Newsome:We can share best practices that we know exist in the industry, and we can also share our personal experiences and offer all of that as ways to improve, and that can have a big impact on turnover. There's no question about it.
Peter Porebski:Yeah, it's easy to get caught up and think of all right, well, our team needs to do X, y and Z, and that's why this process is long. But think about it from a candidate's point of view. If they're not getting communication along the way or things are getting drawn out, that leads a poor taste in their mouth and they might back out and go work at a competitor. So all of these things are great reasons that you should reach out, because a staffing agency can help you pinpoint exactly what's going on.
Pete Newsome:Yeah, a few more that we've kind of talked around. I think we mentioned payrolling options in different States, and so if you are moving into a new market or region where you don't have any knowledge of that specific area, you're not going to have a candidate pool, but a staffing agency will right that's. All of this is about efficiency and speed, and that's a huge advantage um to you as an employer and a perfect reason to use a staffing company. If you're growing into a new area, whatever that area is, let someone who already has knowledge of that area handle the recruiting for you.
Peter Porebski:Yep, and I know we touched on this earlier but the confidentiality aspect of it. If you've got a role that you can't, for whatever reason, work on internally maybe it's a merger, acquisition, new department somebody doesn't know what's going on, but you need to get this role hired and you don't need a lot of people to know about it. That's a great reason to reach out to a staffing agency.
Pete Newsome:Absolutely All right. So, peter, we've shared the benefits. We've shared the reasons to use the staffing agency. Let's get into what you look for in a staffing agency.
Peter Porebski:Probably the biggest one for me is industry experience. Experience hiring the kinds of roles that you need. So, whether that's IT, marketing, hr, healthcare, whatever, just make sure that your agency, whatever agency you reach out to, has not only experience but a lot of experience, and that they know what they're doing, that they know the kinds of skills, the ins and outs of whatever you're doing on a day-to-day basis.
Pete Newsome:Yeah, I mean we've sold that as a benefit, that expertise and knowledge and candidate pool, all of that. Well, they actually have to have it right, and this is an important point that you're making, because not all staffing companies are created equally and they don't all have the same depth and breadth of expertise, and so you really want to find someone who meets your specific hiring criteria.
Peter Porebski:So make sure that they can walk the walk as much as they talk the talk. So that kind of feeds into another area that I think is really important, which is responsiveness and accessibility.
Pete Newsome:Accessibility is huge, there is no question about it. Things move rapidly in recruiting and you need to be able to reach your contact at the staffing agency whenever you need to reach them early, late. Make sure they're willing and able to respond on your timeframe, not theirs, and along those lines they need to. It needs to be a good culture fit. You need to like who you work with and that's an understated thing that we don't talk about a lot early on in relationships. But if you look at a relationship that's going to last, that likability has to be there.
Peter Porebski:You should decide upfront do you want to have a true consultant who's going to kind of give you actual answers on your hiring process, or do you just want a vendor who's going to sling over resumes to you?
Peter Porebski:Because you can get both. But if you want a true consultant, you want that consultative support, somebody who's going to not just be a yes man and just do whatever you want, but is going to actually push you, challenge you, maybe actually give you some good advice. Then that's a really important thing to look for in a staffing agency, because I've seen lots of managers who say our pay rate is here, which is really low, and we have really high expectations for a tight turnaround time. There are staffing agencies who will say, yes, sure, I'll go ahead and do that, but a good consultant is going to maybe push back on some unrealistic expectations. They're going to let you know that here's where the market is, here's where your expectations are Kind of level set. Those, all of those things are really valuable and you need to decide if you really want that up front.
Pete Newsome:And the last thing I'll recommend here is to look and see what the outside world is saying about the staffing agency that you're considering working with. Look at online reviews. It's really easy to find on Google. There's a website, clearlyratedcom, that specifically rates staffing agencies based on what their candidates and clients have said. And then, of course, there's Forbes magazine, and most people are familiar with that brand. They put out a list of the best companies in America in the staffing space, so you can always look at companies who are on that list too.
Peter Porebski:So that's everything right. Have we covered everything I?
Pete Newsome:think we've touched on all the best points. There's always more right. We could go on for days about all the different ways staffing companies work, how they're different from each other, and we'd love to have that conversation live with anyone who's interested, who's thinking about using a staffing company. So reach out to us directly or you can email us at highercallingatfourcornerresourcescom and you can schedule an appointment right from our website and speak with someone on our team live. We look forward to hearing from you. Thanks for listening today. Talk soon.
Peter Porebski:Thanks.