How to Reduce Your Reliance on IT Staffing Agencies

Hiring TipsDeveloper Recruiting

A reactive recruitment strategy is expensive and ineffective in the long term.

Proactive recruitment strategies are necessary in order to constantly attract candidates and build a strong talent pipeline. By doing this, you will always have potential candidates who are interested and qualified for open positions in your network.

Your team can adopt a number of recruitment strategies to reduce your reliance on staffing agencies. In order to save time, money and attract higher-quality candidates, your team should implement the following strategies:

Use Existing Resources for Qualified Candidates

Staffing agencies may have a large pool of candidates, but they may not always have the specific candidate you are looking for.

You are lucky to have a network of ideal candidates at your disposal within your applicant tracking system (ATS). ATS mining can help you quickly and effectively identify potential candidates who have already expressed interest in your company by applying for a job previously. You may have interviewed some of the candidates and you can bypass the early stages of recruitment for these select individuals.

If you are having difficulty finding qualified candidates in your ATS, consider using your talent community. If you do not have a talent community, put in the effort to create one.

A talent community is a group of people who would be ideal candidates for your company, but were unable to join your team due to prior circumstances. Over time, circumstances may change, making these prospective candidates a potential fit for a future open role. By being proactive and always having a group of candidates at the ready, you can fill a role as soon as it opens up.

Implementing these strategies will help your company take the lead in filling the open position and reduces the likelihood of needing to pay a staffing agency fee to fill it.

Invest in Recruitment Marketing to Drive More Inbound Candidates

According to a recent study, 95% of job candidates consider a company's reputation when making job decisions. If a company has a poor employer brand, 69% of candidates will refuse an offer from the company even if the candidate is unemployed. Candidates sourced from any platform will research your company online.

When candidates gain insight into the day-to-day workings at your company, they will be more likely to see themselves employed there. A well-crafted recruitment marketing strategy will communicate these stories and provide candidates with the information they need to desire working for your company.

A large percentage of millennials found their last job through social media platforms. Eighty percent of both active and passive job seekers use social media to look for jobs.

By eliminating the cost of staffing agency fees, you can invest these funds into a recruitment marketing strategy that not only attracts the candidates an agency would have provided, but also creates a pipeline of new candidates.

Network, Network, Network

It is always going to be competitive to hire elite talent, no matter what the job market looks like. Top candidates regularly receive interest from staffing agencies, recruiters and hiring managers — each of which have slightly different hiring goals and information to share.

Staffing agencies can create friction in the hiring process, but you can circumvent this by speaking with candidates directly from the beginning.

Even if you reach out to candidates directly, your messages may get lost in the noise. To get ahead of this challenge, network with potential candidates frequently. Set up quick career conversations or compliment recent milestones or projects in their current role in order to catch the interest of more candidates and stand out from the competition.

Consider Internal Promotions

The most important resource you have is your current employees. Having employees who are knowledgeable about the company culture, products, and goals is vital, and promoting from within is the best way to achieve this.

Properly identifying which of your employees would be a good fit for open positions within the company is an effective way to remove the need for a staffing agency, and save time and money. Promoting employees from within the company will also build further trust and loyalty among current employees, which in turn will boost employee retention.

Try an Employee Referral Program

Employees who are knowledgeable about your company culture, products and goals are able to refer candidates who would be a good fit for the organization. Use your employee referral program to incentivize employees for making hiring recommendations. This tactic not only helps you to fill positions more quickly, but research shows that it is a better long-term investment. Employees referred by a colleague are 33% more likely to stay after one year in comparison to employees hired from career sites and 22% more likely than those hired from job boards.

If you are finding it difficult to fill a role, try increasing the referral bonus for those positions. This will incentivize employees to look for candidates for the roles you need to fill the most, rather than the ones you have no difficulty filling. In addition, it is important to remind employees about the referral program often and promote any increases in bonuses, in order to maintain a consistent stream of new candidates.

It is well worth pulling back on staffing agencies and investing that budget in more enticing employee referral bonuses.

There are times when staffing agencies are necessary, for example when you urgently need to fill a role or are having difficulty finding candidates for a position. However, it is usually more beneficial to develop a long-term and proactive recruitment strategy that will be advantageous for your team into the future. In the case of recruiting and maintaining excellent talent, slow and steady usually wins the race.