Recruitment and Staffing Services

Costs and Benefits of Outside Services

Recruitment and staffing services are another option. There are costs and there are benefits if the service partner is selected carefully. I emphasize the word carefully and put in the word partner because your best friend in the world when you need people fast is a recruiter or staffing service that you trust. The problem is there are way too many hacks.

So how do you find a good recruitment or staffing service?

Before you try to find a good service partner, you first need to know what you are trying to accomplish by using a service.

• Is this a one time search or an ongoing enterprise?
• Is this a specialized placement?
• Do I need seasonal or short term help?
• Do I have the resources in house to fill the position(s)?

The reason this is important to understand is that there are costs involved both in your time as well as financial. Many times it makes sense to call in a partner. Other times it is a waste of time and money.

Time

You need to train these recruitment and staffing service partners on such things as your business practices, hiring practices, company culture etc. If they don't have experience in your industry, it can take time. Obviously it will take time to help them understand elements of your culture such as working environment etc.

As an example, I once worked with a client who did not have a sick leave policy. When people were sick, they did not come in. If it got excessive, the employee would discuss it with the manager and they would agree on a course of action. This is a fairly loose job environment.

If you were to ask a recruiter to find you a supervisor who would have to deal with such situations such as having to discipline an employee about a policy that is not in writing, this would need to be explained to the recruiter. The reason is this is an unusual circumstance and it takes a special kind of to person deal with such a circumstance and it should be part of the screening process.

Money

Of course there are also costs involved. Staffing companies use something called a bill rate or a markup rate and Executive search firms have recruiting fees . It is not always cheap but there are a number of benefits.

Benefits of Using Outside Recruitment and Staffing Services

The benefits of using an outside service are numerous but need to be weighed against the costs of the service and compared to the internal costs of doing it in house.

Some benefits include;

• Outsource Benefits
• Specialization of Service
• Local knowledge
• No fees paid unless service completed
• Flexibility

The end result is that only you can make that decision whether hiring an outside service is going to work for you. Understand what your goals are, what the costs are and be sure to look for a good one.

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