The Computer Merchant, Ltd. (Frank Anigbo)
Most companies, especially those with 30 or more critical talent, run into a hiring crises whenever they try to ramp up their workforce or replace key personnel. Yet very few have an effective strategic plan (or any plan) for hiring the right people when the need arises. This is especially true in Information Technology.
It isn’t just technology firms or IT departments that have difficult finding the right candidates when and where they are needed. All but the largest companies rely on relatively small HR departments with limited industry knowledge and expertise at talent acquisition for all their hiring.
For the not-so-huge firms with a professional in-house staffing department, a very attractive staffing avenue is to work with a specialized staffing company on an ongoing basis to formulate and manage a strategic hiring plan.
When selecting a staffing firm to help you define and execute on a strategic staffing plan, here are the key points to clearly define with your staffing partner.
Near and Long-Term Hiring Intent
The first item in your strategic hiring plan is determining your need to hire more employees. What roles do you need to hire for and why? When do you need these roles filled and for how long?
Determining near and long term hiring needs will help you and your staffing partner develop accurate job titles and descriptions for prospective hires, as well as define the timeline for completing any hires.
Isolate Common and Business-Critical Roles
Not all roles you hire for are of equal strategic importance to your organization. It is vitally important that you and your staffing partner identify those roles for which you regularly hire; perhaps because of high turnover, and those that are critical to the functioning of your core business – such as high-level positions and position that require hard-to-find skills.
Clearly defining common and business-critical roles provides your strategic hiring partner with information to design a candidate sourcing strategy that will significantly improve your chances of finding and hiring the best available talent at or very near the time you need them.
Create a Budget
Your strategic staffing partner will know what the going rate is for the different roles you want to hire, based on worksite location and experience level.
It is not a bad idea to create a rate card that your staffing partner must adhere to, with approved exceptions made when warranted – like hiring an IT superstar that demands a higher than normal rate.
Candidate Pipeline
Finding the right candidates at the right time requires maintaining an ongoing pipeline of pre-qualified available talent. The best staffing firms maintain several targeted pipelines of candidates to meet predictable client staffing requirements. The parameters that govern a given pipeline of candidates will be determined by the type of talent needed, be they common, or within a specific geographic zone, or possessing of hard-to-find skills.
A good strategic staffing partner will maintain pipelines of candidates to fit your near and long-term hiring goals, with particular attention paid to common and business-critical talent acquisition.
Make Quick Decisions on Passive Candidates
The best IT talent are often found from a pool of passive candidates – that is, those that are currently employed and are not actively looking for work but are open to new opportunities. The best IT staffing firms have strong relationships with proven passive IT professional and regularly woo the best talents to new opportunities that fit their strengths and temperament.
When a strong passive candidate is presented, you must be in a position to make a decision quickly or risk losing out to another company.
Benefits of Partnering with a Staffing Firm
Among the benefits of a strategic IT staffing partnership are:
- Plan for the personnel you will need before you need them.
- Focus on your business while your staffing partner looks after your staffing needs.
- Strategically target and hire the right talent when and where they are needed.
- Budget realistically because you know the costs up front.
- Limit your liability and overhead by shifting employee liabilities onto the staffing company.
The Computer Merchant, Ltd.
At the Computer Merchant, Ltd., our team of expert IT recruiters utilize a state-of-the-art candidate sourcing engine to search our database of over 13 million IT talent for active job seekers, and our deep networks of passive, pre-qualified and proven technology professionals with the experience and skills demanded by our clients.
Our proprietary consultant onboarding, assignment management and compliance monitoring and enforcement systems has been praised by both clients and contractors for its efficiency and accuracy in getting new hires to work and keeping both clients and their employees informed throughout the life of an assignment.
We provide our clients an 80-hour guarantee on all hires. We can do this because we provide the best available candidates anywhere in the U.S.
