1. Leveraging your professional staffing agency
A professional staffing agency is usually engaged in the acquisition of professionals on
behalf of their clients either on permanent basis or on temporary or on flexible basis. The
professional staffing agencies concentrate their attention primarily on placing the best
available candidate with appropriate employers. In addition to supplementing the direct hire
processes to their clients, these professional staffing agencies offer important benefits. A
good professional staffing agency can prove to be a valuable resource and adhere to a
long term business relationship. The other advantages include providing insights into the
labor trends, local market activities and industry specific information that the client
organization may not have at their disposal.
There are hundreds of professional staffing agencies in the United States and it is estimated
that over 95 percent of them have annual revenue of more than $5 million. Therefore, it is
crucial for the organizations to evaluate who it wants to be partnered with to bring in
professional employees into their organization. There are some areas that need to be
evaluated before tying up with a professional staffing agency thereby deriving maximum
leverage from the concerned agency. The main evaluation criteria that need to be
considered while going in for these agencies to increase the cost to value (delivering the
most qualified talent at the most reasonable rates) are:
1. Focus of the agency: The organization must first examine the approach or way the
concerned professional staffing agency is taking. This includes discovering whether the
agency is specializing in any one particular area or is it more broadly structured to address
the contingent labor need.
2. How the agency is investing its resources in the client organization: The other
factor that needs to be considered is how the agency is interacting and collaborating with
the client company, whether it is giving any confidence to the company in understanding
about the business needs of the organization to fit in right people as employees to work in
the respective company.
3. Long lasting association: Another criterion that needs to be considered while hiring a
professional staffing agency is whether it is just content with the recent placement or is it
client focused in educating their client on other matters. These matters may relate to
talented candidates’ demand and supply in Client Company’s geographical area and about
the impact on economy due to labor pay rates.
These are some of the factors that need to be considered in leveraging the benefits of a
professional staffing agency.