Steps in the Recruitment Process - What to expect from your staffing provider.  

By D. Wade Solberg, President/CEO, STS Staffing 

Engaging a reputable staffing firm to deliver the additional personnel your company needs to grow and prosper requires a systematic recruitment process with clearly defined expectations from both parties.  Let’s take a look at what you should expect. 

1. Defining the need.  Does your company require temporary staff for a special project or production overload?  Or is the need for someone on an on-going basis, or even a long-term direct hire?  Whatever the situation, the methods and strategy applied will depend upon your circumstances.  A candid and thorough conversation is the first step in meeting the need.  The better your staffing firm understands your overall objective, the better they will be able to quickly and efficiently complete the task. 

1. Agreeing on a process.  Once the need is defined, agreeing on the best way to reach the goal is necessary.  If your company requires temporary staff for 2-3 weeks for a special project, it may be just a matter of defining the role(s), work hours, general pay rate, and required skills for the staffing firm to send in the people needed to fulfill the requirement.  If, on the other hand, this is a search for a direct hire in a key role, a deeper vetting process will need to be involved to include multiple interviews, specific skills or behavioral testing, etc… In either case, however, it is important that once a candidate is submitted for review, you take the time to provide timely feedback within 24 hours.  Good candidates won’t stay around long, so time is of the essense. 

1. The Offer and Acceptance.  With temporary employees, a pay rate is established for the work and a recruiter contacts the available employees who have the requisite skill set to meet the needs of the job.  In a direct hire situation, once a viable candidate has been identified, making an appropriate offer and gaining an acceptance can be more involved.  Your staffing firm will be able to assist in this by providing you with ‘market rates’ for the position based upon the work they’ve done with other clients for this type of job, as well as vetting the candidate with regard to salary expectations, benefits, PTO, or even some type of sign-on bonus.  Ultimately, everyone should strive for a ‘win-win’ scenario with regard to the overall compensation package. 

1. Follow up.  It’s the ‘service after the sale’ that sets the premier staffing firms apart from those at the back of the pack, and they do so by going the extra mile and following up.  In the case of temporary placements, an ‘arrival call’ on day one insures that everyone showed up on time and is doing the work as expected, this also includes a call to the supervising manager with your company to see that they are satisfied.  In the case of a direct hire placement, the same sort of ‘arrival call’ holds true, but it may take the form of a follow up a couple weeks after the start of the job.  Since this is meant to be a ‘long term relationship’ there is more involved than just a skill set to perform the job.  True job satisfaction includes many things – challenging work, cultural fit, monetary compensation, room for advancement, comprehensive benefits, and the list goes on, so our follow up will be more detailed and is done after some time on the job has elapsed. 

Your staffing provider should be there to work with you in full disclosure to help guide you and your company to successful hires, regardless of the need for temporary staff or a direct hire.     

Some people make a career out of temporary contract work, preferring the variety and freedom of short-term commitments. Others accept gig work while they are between full-time jobs to build skills and avoid career gaps.

Flexibility and variety are among the benefits for the temp worker, but what are the advantages for the companies who hire them?

When it comes time to add or replace a top leader, many companies initiate a candidate search. However, outsourced leaders may not fully buy into the company’s mission or understand its culture. Increasingly, businesses are investing in the creation of an internal leadership pipeline.