What Clients Look for When Hiring a Staffing Agency
In the interest of understanding opportunities for improving the screening and hiring process for candidates, whilst keeping up with staffing industry trends, it is important to gain insight into different perspectives by asking: “What do clients look for when hiring a staffing agency?”
It is essential that staffing agencies do a periodic check on what clients look for from their staffing agency and third-party recruiting business in order to challenge pre-conceived notions and better serve clients’ needs.
Here are some straight answers from the mouths of clients who have turned away many pitches when evaluating staffing agencies for hire.
Show Prospects Your Depth
Anyone can search online for candidates. To win new business, agencies must show that they will go deeper than the competition or the client to field the right candidates, whether for a temp role, a direct hire or something in between, and that they truly understand the staffing industry.
When he is hiring a staffing agency, Matt Lowney, executive vice president for talent and operations at The Buntin Group, a Nashville-based advertising agency, considers the depth of their recruiting process. For instance, he wants to know how the agency is sourcing, who they are talking to, and how they are using contacts as a launch point for referrals.
Make Transparent How You Earn Every Penny of Your Fee
Talk to prospective clients about how you will surface candidates that the client could not have reached on their own. Tell a story about how you have done this for other customers as a professional employment agency.
Lowney said he often looks at how many of the agency’s reqs are just doing the tactical, “post and pray” approach and charging a big fee without implementing a comprehensive workforce planning strategy. If new hires had no relationship with the agency, then it may be worth a big commission for a recruiter who just did simple online searches.
Take Job Orders Meticulously
It is important for staffing agencies to look into all aspects of a client’s day-to-day operations, such as the physical requirements of the work, required computer skills and available career paths. Tim Whitney, Regional Director of Production and Quality at Coast Southwest, a chemicals distributor in Arlington, Texas, expressed the importance of knowing about a manual labourer’s potential to also work with computers and automated systems, for example.
Show the Difference You Can Make with Candidates
If you can bring it, show it. When hiring a staffing agency, clients want to know that they are getting their money’s worth from the relationship.
A good agency will have a proactive relationship with candidates that allows them to engage with a given opportunity. If the agency can do what the client on their own cannot, it’s well worth their money.
Supply Workers Ready to Do the Work
Clients that are hiring a professional employment agency expect work-ready temps, which requires intimate knowledge of the work to be done. To acquire that knowledge, there is no substitute for visiting the work site. For instance, Whitney said he expects temps to be ready to go with minimal on-boarding time. This means the agency has to do its homework by learning what the company does and visiting the worksite before placing employees.
Have a Deep Understanding of Every Industry You Serve
In an age when the reputation of a staffing firm can travel as quickly as a viral video, it is unwise to bid for business that you don’t understand, or to send in workers who are not fluent in the industry.
Hiring a staffing agency that has only supplied office staff does not make sense if your business is manufacturing and distribution. Clients need an agency with experience that aligns with their specific needs.
Look Out for the Client’s Long-Term Interests
That applies even when supplying short-term temps. There is a lot of value in hiring a temp agency that consistently fields temp workers with full-time potential.
Who would not want the temp to perm option and permanently hire qualified people who have already demonstrated that they can navigate the client’s workplace? While clients may differ, many of them are essentially looking to hire a full-time employee eventually.
Demonstrate the Durability of Your Agency and Its Internal Staff
No one wants to deal with a staffing firm whose own employees act like they were just sent over by a temp agency. Agencies with a continuous influx of low-paid new graduates cannot win the confidence of clients seeking a long-term staffing relationship.
Says Lowney: “I ask the vendor’s people, ‘How long have you been with the company, how do you show your commitment, what keeps you there?’”
Whether or Not You are Hiring a Staffing Agency, You Need the Best Recruiting Tools—and We Can Help
Following best practices for staffing also means keeping up with the latest job market insights. But, to keep competitive, you need to stay one step ahead of the curve. That is where we come in. With Monster as your recruiting resource, you can post your jobs for free to find the best candidates for your business.