Best Recruiting Practices for Staffing Agencies

recruiting practices

As a recruiting agency, you need to have a solid recruiting process in place to differentiate yourself in the competitive staffing market and win contracts. So how can you make sure your process is effective and efficient, especially as recruiting continues to be more distant? According to a survey, 51% of recruiters recently interviewed candidates remotely, with 42% making a job offer remotely. In addition, although there are now more candidates available in the job market, companies are still struggling to find people with the right skills. With remote recruiting and the looming skills shortage, technical staffing agencies need to rethink the way they hire.

The good news for staffing agencies is that by incorporating digital tools such as video interviews, pre-employment assessment, and using automation, changes can be made to meet the changing environment and constant evolution.

We share best practices development agencies can use for recruiting. Let us start by recruiting!

Asking simple questions early in the recruiting process can shed light on what your client is looking for. You can then use this information to determine the best recruiting strategy for each position. It is important to remember that some clients will have different needs for different roles, which you can help them understand. For example, some roles will require recruiting candidates with a certain level of specific skills and experience, while others will focus on general abilities such as conversational skills.

To prepare your recruiting agency for this, you need to create a flexible recruiting process that allows you to incorporate specific client needs, such as skill tests, and add extras like background checks if you need them.

Set a clear timeline

You do not have to have a daily plan for every step of the hiring process.

However, what you need to do is be realistic and set a clear timeline and deadline. This is important not only for organizing the operations of your recruiting agency, but also for your clients. Adding a calendar to your process means that your client will have a date in mind that you will have a candidate in place, which will give them confidence in your process.

In addition, if there are any delays in this process, be sure to communicate them to your client immediately. The easiest way to establish a schedule with your client is to determine when they need the start date for work. Once you have a start date, you can create a recruiting process from that day. For example, if a customer needs a role filled in 8 weeks, you can use that date to plot a timeline like:

• Sourcing and pre-employment tests must take place in 3 weeks

• First series of interviews in 4 weeks

• Second series of interviews in 5 weeks

• Onboarding and training in 6 weeks

Design a virtual recruitment process

As we have already pointed out, you will not always be able to meet the candidates in person.

Therefore, you also need to make sure that your recruiting process is working in a remote environment. Even if you have never used technology, now is the time to start exploring remote recruiting tools like video interviews and digital skills testing to streamline internet recruiting.

For example, with one-way video interviews, applicants can use technology to record responses to written or video questions in the initial application process, reducing the need for tedious phone screens. In short, digitizing your recruiting process will help you learn a lot about what a candidate is before you invite them for an interview. Virtual interviews also help broaden your talent pool. Since you can attract and interview candidates virtually, you will open up your employment opportunities to candidates who live abroad.

This same technology can also be used for a bunch of different recruiting techniques, like hosting a virtual job fair to attract even more talent to fill vacancies. Remember, the best part about adding new technology to your recruiting process is the flexibility it gives you. Depending on your client’s needs, you can combine tools like virtual interviews and job fairs to attract the ideal candidates.

Use online reviews

71% of companies listed in the Candidate Experience Research report say they use pre-employment assessments. There is a reason for this: they work. Online reviews are a secret weapon for recruiting IT staffing agencies to find the right talent for a position. Using job-specific assessments, you can see if candidates can do what a job requires and respond to situations that will make them a good candidate. For example, suppose you are hiring customer service employees. In that case, you can test them for spoken language, multitasking, and situational judgment to see if they have what it takes to work in the industry.

However, online reviews do not just help you find the best hires for your clients. They are also for the candidates. Online assessments give applicants a taste of what their position will require of them. A situational judgment or skills test will prepare them for situations they will face in a job, and they can decide whether they are suitable for the job.

Finally, these assessments will help you discover the transferable skills of your candidates. If a candidate has applied for a specific role, but passes a test that shows they might be a perfect fit for another opening, you can use that assessment to recommend them for the other position. This not only ensures that you do not let talent slip away from your fingertips, but it also means you can speed up the recruiting process.

Match candidates to the right roles

Matching technology in recruiting can help you automatically assess a candidate’s skills and match them to a position that best suits them. In your assessment process, you can add specific assessment tests based on the position you are recruiting for, and once a candidate has filled them out, the tool will automatically rank them based on their results and show you the position that suits them best. What Fuller says about removing the robot from the human highlights how to solve a problem in the recruiting process: bias. Humans, whether they try or not, can be prejudiced when recruiting candidates. Robots are not, which means applicants will be automatically selected and ranked based on their skills and assessment results before you see them for a one-on-one interview.