Why do companies hire through staffing agencies?

March 04, 2022

Looking to hire people for your company? A staffing company will always come to your rescue. It is difficult and taxing to hire and it may or may not fulfill your requirements of finding an ideal candidate for all the jobs in your company. This is when staffing agencies help you find the ideal candidate and even the candidate to showcase their talents and put efforts into the right company. 

What a staffing agency essentially does is contribute to the industry by conducting recruitment drives and staffing potential candidates for organizations, which do not have time, money, and the related resources for getting the job done. By only stating the aims and needs of the company, the companies help you find people who will fulfill all your requirements. Staffing agencies will recruit the staff based on the criteria you give them and work according to your requirements.

Some staffing agencies even provide temporary workers and some would provide permanent employees based on the quota and the demand of the organization. Employers use staffing agencies to recruit candidates on behalf of their company to fill job openings on their teams and help candidates find career opportunities in their chosen field. Staffing agencies basically do their job of hiring candidates for specific requirements.

The positions you are looking for can be full-time or part-time, temporary, contract-to-hire, or on a direct-hire full-time basis, and these staff agencies will help you find the right candidate according to your terms in a jiffy. 

What exactly are staffing agencies? 

Staffing agencies also called Recruitment agencies are private agencies that are set up to provide for many large companies looking for candidates and also provide job offers and chances for potential employees and candidates. It is the connecting line between a company and a candidate. 

According to the company’s requirements and approach, these recruiting agencies look for candidates based on the job description and criteria set by the company, they select various candidates through different media such as advertisements, job sites, through their websites, job fairs, and now also through social media platforms.

Essentially when a recruiter stumbles upon a candidate and finds the candidate profile, the candidate profile is gone through various processes such as screening tests, verifications, etc to find out if the candidate is viable for the job. If he/she is suitable for the job and meets the company requirement and description, the recruiter sets up an interview with the candidate to discuss his/her skills and career choices. 

This information is then passed on to the final company where they will decide if the selected candidate has enough skills and ability for the job. It is then the company’s decision to hire or not hire the candidate. The staffing agency's job essentially is only to screen and theme connect potential candidates to the company. 

After the interview with the recruiter is successful, the recruiter approves the candidate and the candidate is then set up for an interview with the client. The client then goes through the information and points which were sent by the recruiter along with the performance comments. Based on which the profile is studied and the interview is set.

The client conducts the interview with the candidate and if the potential candidate has done the interview very well, he/she would secure the job position, and they might get the job. Staffing agencies cannot promise a job because it is essentially the company’s decision but can promise to connect you to the best company and vice versa. 

The use of staffing agencies is steadily increasing. You may be wondering why this trend is occurring and if it is something you should look into. This is because staffing agencies do half of your job of filtering and screening out candidates for you to find the ideal candidate for your company. 

Staffing agencies check references, screen resumes, shortlist candidates, schedule interviews, and place candidates who work on-site on the employer’s behalf. The candidate is an employee of the staffing agency working under the direction of the employer. Regardless of how well a company schedules its employees, staffing shortages are bound to occur.

Employees need time off, overtime pay costs become too high, a short-term project requires extra staff,  an employer has no time to look for candidates, internal company resources have trouble filling a difficult position, and an employer wishes to try out a candidate before a full-time commitment. 

Using a staffing agency to hire employees allows an employer to focus on the growth of their business, take on additional short-term projects without adding to long-term headcount while having the ability to downsize staff and overhead when the projects are finished.

Reasons you should use staffing agencies to hire candidates:

• Saves Time: Staffing agencies check references, screen resumes, shortlist candidates, schedule interviews, and place candidates who work on-site on the employer’s behalf. The candidate is an employee of the staffing agency working under the direction of the employer. 

Sometimes when employees need time off, overtime pay costs become too high, a short term project requires extra staff,  an employer has no time to look for candidates, internal company resources have trouble filling a difficult position, and an employer wishes to try out a candidate before a full-time commitment. 

Using a staffing agency to hire employees allows an employer to focus on the growth of their business, take on additional short-term projects without adding to long-term headcount while having the ability to downsize staff and overhead when the projects are finished.

 

• Cost: Using staffing agencies is usually very advantageous for most companies since they do not have to spend extra money on employee recruitment and also for funding various processes like pre-employment testing, background testing, and also drug screening. They tend to provide extra cost savings through creating payroll databases and also added administration benefits.

Small to medium employers can fully depend on staffing agencies so as to provide them with employees who are very skilled and efficient at a remarkable rate. This is necessary for balancing the cost and also handling the training expenditure of the selected candidates.

Since staffing agencies have workers who are specifically trained for such recruitment, they get the job done faster than HR, hence saving a lot of time and money. They are essentially trained for this job and will promise to find you an ideal candidate. 

 

• Expertise: Recruiting agencies always have a level of expertise that is way more than the human resource department of most companies. Because they deal with candidates and companies all the time and it is essentially their job to find an ideal candidate for your job. 

Unlike the human resource department where they are in contact with one type of group of people, the recruiting agency tends to meet with people of various industries and they get a chance to learn about the leading technology, how the technology is shifting, and how the trends are in the market. They also provide expert recruiters and employment specialists at a lower cost than most the third-party companies. 

Not only are they experts at the subject in hand but are also quicker, more efficient, and cost-efficient.

 

• Network: Staffing agencies have a large network of available workers than the HR department for most companies. Normally, when a company wants workers to work for them, the first thing that they do is advertise, followed by their interview and screening processes, and also process the required documentation so as to hire them.

Recruiting agencies on the other hand have a well-spread network, where they already are in contact with workers whom they identify as dependent, versatile, and fit for the job.

So, when employing a recruitment agency, the required amount of manpower that is required for a company can be easily filled within a matter of hours or days, unlike the direct recruitment process, where the company has to wait for months just to get the required number of employees.

 

• Retention: In companies, temporary staff hired through recruitment agencies are given the chance to learn the process, the methods, and the work of the employees before they are given a permanent position.

This is necessary so that the company turnover can be reduced up to a large extent and also, it gives time for the employees to get used to the company culture and the environment.

Staffing agencies working for large companies can have a large amount of savings in the area of company turnover, training costs, and also mandatory costs like transportation and also miscellaneous costs. 

 

• Providing skill and guidance: Recruitment agencies have well-known and experienced recruiters. They know the recent trends and changes of the market and they also know how to select the required employee from a whole group of different people, based on the criteria set by the company. They are viable and will provide you with the right and ideal candidate.

Recruitment also provides guidelines and tips on how to prepare the CV and prepares candidates how to do well in the interview and they also give training in how to attend the interview with confidence and related training and guidance. 

 

• No need to advertise the company: The main purpose of the staffing agency is to take over the processes that the company would normally do in hiring a workforce. 

There are certain procedures that cannot be skipped while hiring a new employee, these include verifying the educational achievements, verifying the background, and also making sure that the employee has criminal clearance. But takes a large amount of time and money to verify and make the necessary reports for these processes. 

If you are recruiting a staffing agency they would do this work for the company and hence save a lot of time and capital. Some agencies may also provide a money-back guarantee if the information they had verified came out untrue. So there’s essentially no need to advertise the company. 

 

• Less footwork: Another reason why candidates prefer to seek help from recruiting agencies is the less footwork that they can apply for various organizations with the help of a single application form. 

So, there are a large number of job offers that are accessible to the candidate and hence he/she can get a wide range of options to explore.

The main reason for this is that many staffing agencies have a large client list. So it is easy to choose from a variety of companies.