SmartSourcing - The New Outsourcing Model

Information Technology continues to play a crucial role in business, compelling business leaders to consider developing their own in-house IT teams. They are increasingly looking for ways to maintain a team of their own IT professionals while reducing the in-house burden of supporting this talent. Reducing in-house support is often termed as “outsourcing”.  Over the time, outsourcing has changed and there have evolved many new models of outsourcing. SmartSourcing is one such form of outsourcing and is perhaps the best of all.

Why use this Business Model?

Finding and retaining IT workers has reached a crisis stage. Microsoft has already signalled their lack of suitable candidates for IT roles. IBM joined the queue and said they were experiencing “one of the largest skill gaps in history”. What’s the solution to this problem? The obvious answer is SmartSourcing. Companies can complete their IT projects in countries like India that has a high concentration of IT professionals. The term “outsourcing” can be scary for many businesses, but SmartSourcing is entirely different.

Anatomy of the New Business Model

In a typical outsourcing model, a business owner usually has no control over his outsourced project.  He cannot control the staff that works on his project, he cannot interact with them and in most cases, business owners do not even know the name, qualification and experience of the IT staff working on his project. It is likely that he will worry about the future of his project and will not be comfortable having unknown people working on his important project.

SmartSourcing is the Best Alternative. Here’s how it works: 

The primary difference between this process and outsourcing is that with Smart Sourcing business owners have total control over their project and their staff. Business owners can select and interview a candidate before hiring him to work on his project. He can have unrestricted and uninterrupted access to his staff and can manage all their assignments, projects, supervision and deadlines, though he does not need to bother about their payroll management and other HR tasks. A business owner pays a flat hourly rate that covers all the needs of his virtual staff including: IT infrastructure, hardware and software, in-house HR services, technical support and also a phone system with a US phone number.

 SmartSourcing resources work as an extension of a business’s regular workforce
 Business owners make the hiring and firing decisions
 Business owners assign the work and their resources are dedicated to one particular project (or to the business owner)
 Resources can work the same business hours as the business
 Business owners assigns, reviews, and sets deadlines for all projects
 The staff reports to the stakeholder – this may be the owner, manager, or even a SmartSourcing  project manager that acts as liaison between the local business and the remote staff in India
 Owners can collaborate with their staff via phone, IM, email, Skype or video conference whenever needed

Evolving Trends of Technology Staffing Companies

As the economy shows signs of recovery, businesses have once again started their hunt for the best talent. Though most of the US companies have their own internal HR professionals, they still contact an IT staffing firm for finding the right IT candidate for a vacant position or for a new position. This is mainly because of two reasons. First, recruiters of staffing firms can find candidates faster and second, they are assured of the technical acumen of the candidate.

Changes in the staffing process

Over the years, staffing has dramatically changed. Before the usage of PCs and the internet, newspaper and directories were the only source of finding vacancies and telephone the only way of contacting prospective candidates. Now recruiting includes finding a candidate online via job boards and most recently via social networking sites and email is the most preferred way of contacting a prospective candidate.

Traits of a successful recruiter

A successful recruiter needs to have a lot of intangible qualities. An experienced recruiter does not only depend on the resume of a candidate to gather information about him. He must be able to read the body language of a candidate and assess his psychological make-up.  Additionally, a recruiter must have good networking skills and the ability to establish a relationship with a potential candidate quickly.

A recruiter must have all the traits to suit the changing recruitment environment. The modern technology staffing trends need a recruiter to have good networking skills, great skills in building relationships and of course be a master in assessing the psychology of candidates.

Here’s a quick look at some of the dominant trends of technology staffing companies:

Using the internet:  

The rise of the internet has revolutionized the staffing industry. Staffing firms connect with candidates from different countries using cloud computing or other technologies. Recruiters have to be very conscious while screening candidates from a different country or staying in touch with them online and also with the clients.

Using social networking sites

A recruiter must have a good presence in social networking sites and he must also be able to network with prospective candidate. There may be a few passive candidates, who are not interested in a position right away, but a recruiter must have them as well in his network to build his profile bank.

Using other sources

A recruiter should also have knowledge in traditional advertising. He must have knowledge about print advertisement and internet advertisement, so that he can leverage these mediums as well in his search for the ideal candidate.

Other sources of getting candidates

Among the social networking sites, LinkedIn continues to be a dominant networking site for professional recruiters. It’s the favourite meeting site for both candidates and companies. A recruiter needs to have an active presence in LinkedIn.

A recruiter can also ask employees to refer their friends and families for a position. Referrals streamline the hiring process. Referred candidates are likely to know something about the business through the friend or family who has referred him/her.

The changing IT atmosphere has forced the staffing firms and their recruiters to evolve their roles. The trends of staffing industry are changing and so are the traits of a successful recruiter.

Do You Really Need IT Recruiting Firms ?

In today’s fast changing business climate, it is important to enhance the effectiveness and efficiency of a business in order to survive, which means you should have the right person for each job.  After the economic slowdown of 2008, IT companies became more cautious about hiring talent. They want to be sure that the candidate has the right skills and efficiency to contribute to the development of a business. This is why IT recruiting firms are the best choice for businesses when it comes to hiring qualified talent.

An employment firm can help you get access to specialized talent. For example, if you need an IT professional, and IT staffing company can help you get access to qualified and seasoned IT experts in no time. These firms not only allow you to hire resources on contract, but they maintain a huge pool of resources for permanent hires. In fact, most employers will agree that staffing companies provide an excellent way for finding the right candidate who can be hired permanently. Research has indicated that most businesses agree that the quality of employees they get from an employment firm is better than their own direct hires.

Suppose you need an immediate JAVA developer to help with an ongoing project. What do you do? You can try assigning the work to somebody else in your company and hope they have time to address it. But everybody has his own tasks and accommodating extra work can be difficult. But you need the help immediately. You are ready to hire a consultant or a candidate on contract for the purpose. This will obviously be an extra expenditure in addition to the resources already allocated for a project, but the question is how do you get a consultant or a contract hire quickly?

Ask for the service of IT recruiting firms. They usually have access to highly qualified IT talent and finding the right candidate for your requirement will not be a problem for them. You do not have to dedicate time for posting a job requirement, weeding through unqualified applications to find the right one, arranging an interview, etc. Engaging a staffing company allows you to save time and get the candidate of your choice without any worry.

Ok so now you are ready to engage a staffing company. You have to know which staffing company is the right choice for your needs. You are in need of an IT professional. You must approach an IT staffing agency to get access to the best talent. There are a few employment firms that specialize in IT staffing while there are others who specialize in some other areas of staffing like health care, law, finance, etc. Though there are some general staffing firms as well, it is better to approach a specialist for the best results.

Your relationship with a good staffing company can be an important tool for your business. It can help you get access to qualified talent within a short period of time. 

Role of Information Technology Staffing Agencies in Driving the US Economy

The US economy is recovering. The staffing industry has been one of the driving forces responsible for this recovery. There have been numerous surveys and research efforts to measure the growth of the staffing industry and assess some of the hiring trends. Based on the results of this research, it is possible to identify some prominent ways in which the staffing industry is contributing to the recovery of the economy:

Recruitment firms are ahead in the war of talent

Most of the surveys conclude that there is a skill gap with available candidates and this gap becomes most evident among IT workers. Companies’ HR professionals often find it difficult to find candidates with the desired IT skills or experience. There have been recurring cases where companies are forced to hire candidates with lesser experience and skills and then train them to match the needs of a position. Replacement staffing is also another challenging area for many businesses.

Recruitment companies provide better access to talent

Employment firms have better access to talent. Almost 80 per cent of survey respondents rated staffing firms as either an extremely useful or useful as a tool for finding candidates. Businesses understand that classified ads are just not enough to tap the right IT professionals. Recruiters need to be innovative in their search for the right candidate. They have to use a combined strategy including social media networking, online searching, job boards and referrals to create a pool of pre-screened talent. Employment firms also need to maintain a list of passive talent. This enables them to provide rapid access to a highly skilled and diverse pool of talent thereby making it easier for businesses to hire the right candidate faster.

The present economic condition provides a green pasture for the growth of Information Technology staffing agencies. But they need to capitalize on certain trends and ideas for their growth:

How can an employment company capitalize on the economic recovery for its growth?

Understand your customers’ needs: Although the economic condition is favorable for a staffing agency, not everyone can succeed in this industry. An employment firm needs to know its clients well. Recruiters must be able to look at client’s workforce and work culture and find a candidate that not only suits the technical need but is also compatible with other workers and their work environment. A staffing firm should take a close look at a client’s requirements and hiring scope to identify opportunities for strategic staffing options.

Be proactive with your search: Every recruitment agency tries to find the best candidate for a job order. How are you different? Try to provide extra service for your clients that will prove your competency and dedication in finding IT candidates. For example, you can do a free background verification of the candidate and share that result with the client.

Show your work: If you have been able to recruit a candidate for a client and have received positive feedback from them, do not hesitate to share that on your corporate website and marketing collateral. 

Technology Staffing Solutions - Strategies to Stay Ahead of Competitors

Over the last few decades, the staffing industry has been through several transformations. The responsibility of a staffing firm is no longer limited to finding a replacement for a position or recruiting for a vacant position. Today’s staffing companies operate in a dynamic business environment. In a modern business scenario, a staffing company has emerged as a strategic business partner to its clients.

In recent times, the recruitment industry has witnessed a huge surge in their business. There has been an increasing demand for finance, sales, health care, legal and information technology candidates among businesses of different sizes.  Among these, the demand for IT candidates stands out to be the most and this is because of the growth in Information Technology industry. Though in high demand, providing an effective technology staffing solution is quite a challenge for an ordinary staffing company.

This has given rise to recruitment firms that specialize in recruiting only for the IT industry. These firms usually follow certain strategies to stay flexible and adjust to the ever evolving IT needs. Following are some of the common strategies that staffing firms should follow to stay competitive:

Streamline the Process

An information technology staffing company should use information technology to streamline their internal processes. For example, instead of using spreadsheets and handwritten notes to manage processes like prospecting, matching skills of applicants to requests and recruiting, staffing firms should use a proper solution. Such a solution will help to streamline the recruiting process, increase its efficiency and will also help an IT staffing company to stay ahead of its competitors.

Automation

Manual processes are time consuming and are also prone to errors. The chance of errors only increases if the company is spread across multiple locations. This not only inhibits the ability of recruiters to fill the job orders but also hampers the growth of a company. Hence a staffing company should automate some of its processes to increase the ability of its recruiters and help the business grow.

Integration

Experts believe that integrating different processes helps in increasing the efficiency of a staffing firm. A recruitment firm must try to create a centralized data source for its recruiters and clients. This helps both the recruiters and clients get a consistent and clearer vision that helps a company’s growth. By allowing all its recruiters to use a single source of information, a staffing agency can dramatically increase the efficiency of its recruiters.

Building Relationships

Recruiters must focus on building relationships with their clients. The primary job of a recruiter is to understand the needs of his clients and understand the work culture of his client’s company. Then only he will be able to find the right match for the position. Hence a staffing agency must integrate and automate its processes to free up time for its recruiters to build relationships with clients.

Skilled recruiters

The most important task of a recruiter is to match the skills of an applicant with the job description. An enviable pool of top-notch resources and a covetous pipeline of job orders might not give a staffing company the right momentum if its recruiters are not skilled in this endeavor. 

Technology Staffing Solutions Bridge the Gulf between IT Candidates and Jobs

Businesses are always challenged to stay ahead. A business needs to use the latest trends to stay competitive and profitable. Great people and great IT processes are some of the prerequisites for the success of a business. The combination of skilled IT professionals and effective IT processes optimizes a business and prepares it to attain great heights. This partnership between the right people and the right IT position is really critical. A business needs to have the right technology staffing solutions. Developing an IT staffing solution might sound simple, but in reality it’s not. One needs to have special expertise in developing a staffing solution. It is also a matter of time and money.

Gets candidates faster

Companies usually prefer to work with IT staffing companies to find candidates for their vacant positions. This is because a staffing company helps in finding the right candidate for the right position faster. A recruitment firm usually maintains its own intensive database of shortlisted candidates for future use. A recruiter begins his search by searching these potentially qualified candidates from their existing talent pool.  In many cases, they also post advertisements online or in newspapers.

Who conducts the initial screening?

The goal of a staffing company is to match a candidate with the requirements of a vacant position.  The job of a staffing firm does not end until they find a candidate who is properly paired with a vacant position. In order to achieve this, a recruitment company screens resume, may conduct several interview sessions and finally sends the shortlisted candidates to the client for the final hiring decision. A recruiter also tries to ensure that the association between a candidate and a company is successful.

Significantly reduces mis-hiring

A recruiter generally asks candidates to take an aptitude test. The purpose of this test is to identify the mentality of a candidate, so the candidate does not become a misfit for the position. A wrong hire can prove to be disastrous for an employer. It not only means a waste of time and money but may also mean decelerating the speed of a project or losing reputation. Working with employment companies can help companies significantly reduce this chance. This is because a recruiter screens a candidate not only for his technical skills but also for his psychological acumen.

A recruiter begins his screening

Studying a resume is an integral part of an interview. It helps recruiters learn about the personal traits of a candidate including his hobbies and interests. This helps in understanding the mentality of a candidate. A typical interview process begins by asking simple questions. Complex questions are usually asked as an interview progresses. Candidates may also be asked to do a practical task, like giving a presentation or preparing a report. This is important to understand the skills of a candidate.  

A skilled recruiter can make the hunt for the ideal candidate easier. He bridges the gulf between the right candidate and an open position.

Best Practices of Technology Staffing Companies

Whether a staffing company is working with a large organization or a small business, it’s important for technology staffing companies to keep up with the best practices and trends of the staffing industry. This helps a technical recruiter to understand his market, its trends and formulate strategies to help him more easily reach his goals. This is one of the most important factors that determines the success of a staffing company. Though every staffing firm follows a different set of best practices for its employees, there are staffing industry best practices that should be followed by all recruitment firms. We will look at some of those best practices here:

Do not depend on job boards alone

Successful technology staffing companies do not just depend on job boards to recruit candidates. They need to go the extra mile and attract both online and offline resources to get access to the right candidate. Recruiters need to network, join groups to expand their search for the right candidate.  The general practice of an IT staffing agency is to create a pool of top-notch talent. 

When a recruiter gets a request for a candidate, he usually tries to match the job description with the skills of one of these candidates.  In other words, a staffing firm should have a database of pre-qualified active and passive candidates. This helps them find candidates faster. 

Provide excellent client communication

A recruiter must be able to maintain excellent client relationships. He needs to be a master of relationship management. At the same time, he must also be very prompt in his thoughts and actions. When a business approaches a recruitment firm, the firm assigns an account manager to the client. Account managers work with their internal recruiters to fill the requirements set forth by the client. It is the responsibility of a recruiter/account manager to fully understand the needs of its client, the responsibilities of the position and also the company’s culture. Only a person with excellent communication skills and acute promptness will be able to grab such vital information from a client within a short time. 

More than matching skills

An ideal staffing company not only matches the skills of a candidate with a job order, it does something more than that. They equally focus on a candidate’s style of work to make sure that it best fits their client’s work culture and environment. Additionally, a staffing firm also takes a look at some other aspects of a candidate, like a candidate’s expectation of salary, training, and benefits. This is to ensure that the client enjoys a long, fruitful relationship with the candidate.

Must be compliant with a company’s HR policy

A technical staffing firm usually works as an extension of a company’s HR department. A staffing company must comply 100% with the HR rules and policies of a company. A recruiter needs to be cautious about its client’s HR policies and also the best practices of the staffing company while he is looking for candidates to fill a vacant position.