You staffing partner plays a huge role in your company’s success. In an optimal situation, they find you the best possible talent, a perfect fit for your company, and they find them quickly enough, so your business isn’t affected by a long-term position that goes unfilled. If your team is integral to your success, your staffing agency is integral to putting that team in place, and filling any positions as they come up.
Just as a prospective candidate should be answer questions about how they would fit in your company, your staffing agency should be able to do the same when it comes to supporting your business. Choosing the right staffing partner means interviewing them for the job of filling your openings, and gauging what they do and how they do it.
There are three important questions an excellent staffing agency needs to be able to answer:
What’s the Agency’s Recruiting Process?
Every candidate wants to present themselves as a fantastic choice and the right fit for any job for which they apply. So how does the staffing agency sift through the options and find the ones who truly shine? How does a great recruiter go about recruiting?
An effective staffing partner has to be more than a resume aggregator. The number of candidates in a database doesn’t provide value to your organization by itself, because only a small percentage would be qualified for the position you want to fill. The quality of the pool of candidates means everything, and a good staffing partner needs to have a proven process of maintaining that quality.
The right agency will talk about background checks, skills verification, a challenging screening process and experience in filling staff related to your field. To find a superior candidate, they need to be able to choose from a superior pool of talent. Recruiting that pool of talent is what separates them from other agencies, and they should be able to explain what makes them different.
What’s the Hiring Timeline?
Finding the right candidate doesn’t happen overnight, but it isn’t an open-ended project, either. Every day you don’t have a full team will hurt your business. Deadlines are jeopardized, growth is impeded and workflow doesn’t operate at the proper speed or efficiency. In the case of hiring important talent, time is not only money. It’s a threat to your business.
An excellent staffing agency should be able to give you a realistic timeline for finding the right candidate, and be able to stick to that timeline. And their timeline needs to include goals for each step, not just a final hire. How long will it take to vet the first candidates? How soon can you expect to bring someone in for an interview? If they had to find someone today, how large a pool do they have from which to draw? How quickly will you receive prospects who fit all of your needs?
Timelines aren’t an exact science, but they need to be more than a wish list. An experienced staffing agency knows how long the recruiting process takes, and can give you a realistic idea of what to expect. You can also ask for specifics on how long it took to find similar candidates for other companies. And if the staffing agency provides references, another business can give you insight as to their experience. Who they find is critical in the staffing process, but how quickly they find them can be just as important.
What Happens After the Hire?
Does their role end after the new employee comes on board? Is it merely a transactional relationship with no follow up? Or is there a continuing commitment to ensure you have the right fit for your organization?
A good staffing partner will continue to provide valuable support, with guidance regarding employee retention and taking feedback on the new hire. Were they as qualified as advertised? Was it the best choice for your business? The agency might even ask similar questions of the new hire to ensure both sides have confidence in the process and results.
This continuing dialogue not only gauges the success of the current hire, but helps evaluate and improve the agency’s process for the future. Like an algorithm that learns to be more valuable over time, an agency’s best practices can get even better, learning what works and what can be improved. If they follow these procedures with every client, they can optimize their ability to provide excellent candidates that meet the unique needs of each organization. And by inviting and processing feedback, they demonstrate a commitment to a continuing relationship that evaluates performance and increases value over time. If you don’t hear from the staffing partner after the hire, it’s not much of a partnership.
Imperium Data: A Staffing Partnership
Imperium Data provides all the necessary tools for a strong partnership and meets your staffing needs with the best available talent in the industry. You’ll know exactly what to expect, have a clear understanding of each step of the process and know that we’re here for you before, during and after the hire. A true partnership is a collaboration and includes the ability to move forward toward the same goal, which is to find you the best candidates for your unique staffing needs. To find out more about the Imperium difference, use our contact page to get started.
