Staffing agency | Find right staff for your company

What is a staffing agency?

Finding highly qualified individuals remains a challenging experience especially for small companies. Reviewing applications, interviewing candidates, and negotiating salaries take away all precious time from the business owners. Hence, why few companies hire staffing agencies who would do the hard work by themselves and provide them the top shortlisted candidates. 

A staffing agency acts as a buffer or a middleman between employers and workers, helping candidates & companies to match with the best profiles & job openings, respectively. 

They basically fulfill the hiring requirements of any company in accordance with the skills they need. 

The process goes like this – 

1. The employer reaches out to the staffing agency regarding the hiring need. 
2. The agency creates a job description for the required profile/current opening. 
3. The staffing agency vets the candidates and sends the shortlisted resumes to the employer. 
4. The final decision lies with the employer regarding the candidates.
5. All the paperwork including payroll tasks is managed by the staffing agency. 

When should you opt for a staffing agency? 

Staffing agencies happen to be very useful in the following situations – 

1. There is an urgent requirement for a large number of skilled workers without any short notice for a short-term project. 
2. You want a highly qualified candidate with a specialised skill set.
3. You wish to reduce recruitment costs. 
4. You do not have the resources or the time to recruit a team.

What are the responsibilities of a staffing agency?

A staffing agency provides end-to-end services, which includes –

• determine the workforce required to meet the company’s hiring needs.
• conduct interviews and shortlist candidates in accordance with the company’s requirements.
• do a background check and verify the prospective candidates’ resumes and employment history.
• Taking care of onboarding, payroll, etc.
• In case the worker is not the right fit, then the staffing agency takes the responsibility to terminate, compensate and hire, respectively as needed. 

How To Choose A Staffing Agency

Choosing the right staffing agency is crucial for your business, as it will help you get the appropriate candidates and save you the time-consuming process of going through the wrong ones. 

But how does a staffing agency help save time, energy, and effort of the businesses employment cycle? 

From going through resumes, shortlisting & screening the candidates, and then forwarding the top selected ones to the client. They will provide an exclusive talented pool of professionals for you to choose from. 

Irrespective of the size of the company, the quality of your staff is directly proportional to the success of your company. 

So, take out time to evaluate what’s important to your company before interviewing staffing agencies. You can start with these questions in accordance with your needs – 

1. How much experience does the staffing agency have in the industry? 

This will help you to understand if the staffing agency would fulfill your requirement or not. Try to get a brief history about the staffing agency, their process of hiring candidates, if they specialise or have expertise in a particular field, among others. 

2. How much time does it take for them to hire candidates? 

The best part about staffing solutions provider is that they can get you qualified candidates according to your needs and requirements, quickly and efficiently. But of course, the time spent can differ as per the industry. So it’s better to ask for an average time the agency might take. 

3. How do they screen the candidates? 

Staffing agencies usually make a lot of placements. This is why it’s best to know if they hire the top 2-3 out of 10 candidates, or 9 out of 10. Do they simply take anyone or candidates with appropriate skills? Their average acceptance will help you understand their usual process and whether you can expect highly qualified candidates from them or not. 

4. Who is their clientele and what’s their track record?

The best way to know if the staffing agency is really good is to find out about their previous or existing clients. This will give you an overview – both positive and negative – via either testimonials or reviews. 

5. Do they have any certification? 

There are many recruiting certifications that recruiters can get which further adds to their credibility. This will help you to be more confident in hiring them and it is possible that those with the right certifications will have the desired outcome.  

6. Do they provide end-to-end employment services? 

Many staffing agencies usually hire workers and leave it at that, forcing the employer to deal with other issues pertaining to the employment process.  But few staffing agencies provide other services like onboarding, salary negotiation, etc. Also, ensure to check if they are giving you competitive pricing and not a very low price as that would indicate poor quality staff.  

7. Do they have a dedicated point of contact for the client? 

A staffing agency that appoints a single point of contact for its client will be able to cater to the company’s needs and culture and help make the best recruiting decisions. 

8. Do they have niche industry experience?

 It is vital that you look for a staffing agency who has experience in staffing in your market segment. This will eliminate the need to update the agency on market conditions and challenges as well as your unique business needs.

By going through the above parameters, you will know if hiring a staffing agency would help your business to grow or not. So, assess and evaluate accordingly before partnering with a staffing agency. 

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