On the outset, this trend is positive. But many of today’s enterprises still haven’t fully wrapped their heads around how to source and strategically engage our nation’s 51 million-plus independent workers.

Strategic is the operative word. Enterprises can neither holistically rely on third parties, like staffing agencies, nor can they expect managers to do double duty and find their own talent. HR is tapped with the primary focus in most organizations of leveraging FTEs.

Today’s best enterprises view access to contingent labor as a specialized sub-department and consider direct sourcing of this talent, particularly their most-in demand skill sets, to be a business imperative. Per MBO’s latest research, 88% of organizations are either actively direct sourcing or experimenting with this use, and those who aren’t doing so understand the need — they by and large just haven’t figured out the logistics.

Here are five ways direct sourcing can solve issues currently experienced by contingent labor professionals as a business case for starting or expanding use in your organization.

Greater Access to Specialized Talent

Today’s skills gaps in enterprises are greater than ever before. By building a pool of pre-vetted talent that has already been engaged with your organization, it becomes easy to find and deploy highly skilled workers when you need them. Fifty-seven percent of enterprise leaders say direct sourcing enables greater access to specialized skills. In today’s competitive market, talent have the distinct advantage of choosing the clients with whom they work. A direct sourcing program is a key way brands can firmly establish their foothold not just as an employer of choice but as a client of choice as well.

Improve Time to Onboard, Manage Turnovers and Transitions

Time to work has been a big obstacle when it comes to engaging independent workers. By creating a pool of talent that can be accessed at any time for upcoming projects, time to onboard is significantly decreased and talent is productive faster.

PREMIUM CONTENT: Fastest-Growing US Staffing Firms: 2022 Update

Manage Work Quality

It’s difficult to vet any type of talent — even FTE roles — prior to project start. But by creating a pool of directly accessible talent known, and perhaps previously engaged by your organization, the risk of trial in the unknown is greatly decreased. In fact, 56% of enterprise leaders say that direct sourcing leads to increased work quality, and 52% says it increases hiring manager satisfaction.

By shifting functions in-house — managed with your own team or a PMO led by your external  partner — managers curate, cultivate and engage networks, pools and even deployable benches of available talent, matching skill sets to current and future project opportunities. They, in turn, feel more in control of the hiring process, which leads to increased job satisfaction.

Reduce Misclassification Risk

By engaging talent via a codified program, organizations prevent rogue sourcing that both manages cost and risk. Misclassification penalties can run in the millions, and brand damage can take years to repair. This is not an insignificant reason to bring a program under thorough vetting.

Reduce Costs

Labor cost is, in today’s challenging economic climate, of course a primary concern. While 53% of enterprise leaders do say direct sourcing reduces costs, this is considered a supplemental, not primary, benefit to program creation and expansion.

temporary staffing agencies in phoenix, az

The post Five Reasons to Consider Direct Sourcing to Drive Business appeared first on Paragon Strategic Staffing.

At its most basic level, direct sourcing is about bypassing third-party recruiting firms to directly source and engage contingent workforce talent. For some organizations, the solution is a software tool that hiring managers use to access a pool of contractors. For others, the solution combines the software tool with additional services to populate, curate and maintain that pool of contract talent for the managers.

Companies are attracted to direct-sourcing solutions for two reasons. First, it’s faster: Sourcing from a pool of already-known and interested contractors enables companies to bypass third-party recruiters and shorten the hiring cycle. Second, it’s more cost effective: Bypassing staffing suppliers means bypassing staffing supplier markups.

However, direct sourcing will not replace recruiters; it automates the transactional aspects of recruiting, creating a shortlist of contractors so recruiters can focus on the relationship-based aspects of their profession. Automated workflows for communication improve time and consistency. And we should also note that with direct sourcing, contractor availability and interest are established before personal contact is made, which streamlines the process even further.

PREMIUM CONTENT: US Staffing Industry Pulse Survey Report: July 2022 Selected Highlights

The role of the MSP/VMS changes very little with a direct-sourcing specialist strategy added to the mix — just a slight difference in how requirements are distributed. For example, for open positions that can’t be sourced directly, the MSP still does a quality check of the hiring manager’s requirements, which are routed for approval before being sent out to staffing suppliers. For open positions that can be sourced directly, the requirement can be routed directly to contractors by integrating the VMS and online direct-sourcing technologies. Contractors can then be submitted to the VMS as candidates just as in the traditional process. The biggest difference? Directly sourced candidates have the same pay rate as supplier-sourced candidates but a 10% to 15% lower bill rate.

Setting up a direct-sourcing solution is not much different from adding a new staffing supplier to the company’s program. Leading direct-sourcing solutions technology providers can integrate their software with that of all leading VMS providers with no additional setup or cost. Once installed, the effort shifts to building and maintaining the company’s community of talent.

The direct-sourcing service provider creates, grows and manages the talent community on the company’s behalf. Activities include keeping contractor profiles up to date, validating contractor skill sets, monitoring community member activity and reaching out to contractors regularly to maintain their interest. The goal is to maintain the most relevant and engaged community possible. Collaboration between the service provider and the company’s talent acquisition team is key — they work together to customize and grow the community to meet the company’s needs. For example, some companies fill their communities with former and known contractors, and some look at engaging viable candidates from their applicant tracking systems. There is also a communication component — how best to publicize and encourage participation from contractors. The direct-sourcing service supplier walks companies through these and other decisions to determine what’s best for their organization.

Cost savings begin with the first placement that was sourced directly instead of supplier-provided. The typical staffing supplier markup ranges from 45% to 50%, but direct sourcing reduces the cost associated with traditional recruitment. The direct-sourcing markup is typically 10% to 15% lower than staffing supplier markup, which covers the cost of both the technology and service providers. Companies save approximately $14,000 per contractor per year even while paying the contractor more than in a traditional model. Higher pay helps companies attract and retain higher-quality talent.

When evaluating whether direct sourcing is right for your organization, consider the volume of contractors engaged, maturity of contract resource strategy, strength of your company’s brand to attract talent directly from the marketplace, and types of roles typically engaged on a contract basis. If you use staffing suppliers, there’s a good chance direct sourcing will bring value to your organization.

temporary staffing agencies in phoenix, az

The post Direct Sourcing Solutions Bring Value to Businesses appeared first on Paragon Strategic Staffing.

Once overlooked by the labor market, individuals convicted of felonies are now viable candidates as employers struggle to find workers. However, according to a Harvard University study, individuals with criminal records are frequently discriminated against in the hiring process: They are 50% less likely to be called back for an interview, and 75% of justice-involved individuals remain unemployed one year after release.

With no end in sight for the labor shortage, now is the time for employers to consider hiring applicants with a conviction by implementing fair-chance hiring. Not only can employers reap the rewards of a wider talent pool, they will be taking positive steps forward to eliminate the stigmas keeping these motivated individuals from reentering the workforce and making good on organizational commitments to increase diversity and inclusion.

The most common reason employers eliminate candidates with a criminal background from the hiring process is the fear that past behavior could be an indicator of future problems or that they will negatively impact overall employee performance. This is often far from the case, however, as 66% of managers at companies that have hired these individuals rated the quality of their work as comparable to those without criminal records, and 82% think that the value they bring to the organization is as high as or higher than that of workers without records.

PREMIUM CONTENT: The Talent Platform Workforce: 2021 Update

For employers who remain concerned about the liability to their current workforce, implementing fair-chance hiring practices alongside a continuous monitoring solution can bring these employers peace of mind. Unlike a pre-hire background check that screens justice-involved individuals out of the process from the beginning, continuous monitoring allows employers to keep track of any problems that arise among workers during their employment (for employees both with and without a record) and provides timely alerts of any incidents to allow for improved communication and more effective intervention.

There are significant benefits for companies that hire individuals with prior convictions, such as a higher employee retention rate and increased earnings. At the same time, employers that implement fair chance hiring practices are contributing to higher tax revenues as a result of employment and helping to reduce the rate of recidivism among justice-involved individuals.

Fair chance hiring is giving individuals with a record the opportunity to reenter the workforce with a clean slate, and employers in need of workers should consider the implementation of these practices to combat the labor shortage. This is the first and best step to help employers make the hiring process more inclusive. With the added protection of continuous monitoring, they can do so without fear of repercussions and enjoy the benefits of an expanded and motivated workforce.

temporary staffing agencies in phoenix, az

The post Hiring Formerly Incarcerated Individuals Can Help Solve Staffing Shortages appeared first on Paragon Strategic Staffing.

During the pandemic, the veteran unemployment rate soared to 11.7%, with more than a million veterans filing for unemployment in April 2020. Although the veteran unemployment rate rebounded in 2021 to 3.9%, there is still work to do to help veterans recover from financial losses and mental stresses sustained during the pandemic.

Unemployment and Veteran Suicide

There is a direct link between unemployment and suicidality. Suicide among veterans increased 30% between 2010 and 2018 and is now at the highest recorded rate in US history.

We know gainful employment for veterans is one deterrent to veteran suicide, but employers may still have misconceptions that make it more difficult for veterans to join their civilian ranks. Here are several actionable steps employers can take to improve veteran hiring and retention practices.

Improve Your Job Description

Bradley Aune, Disabled Veterans’ Outreach Program Specialist at Job Service North Dakota, says many service members have a military resume, and civilian employers don’t understand how that translates to the workplace. She helps veterans re-write their resumes and coaches employers on how to advocate for hiring veterans.

“One of the biggest changes employers can make in job descriptions is to use the word or and not just and,” says Aune. “Say you’re open to a degree or experience. That still gives veterans the chance to apply.”

PREMIUM CONTENT: North America Staffing Company Survey 2021: Virtual Interviewing Preferences and Best Practices

Provide Training to HR Teams

Since a veteran’s resume may read differently than a civilian’s, an Applicant Tracking System with a rigid keyword search may overlook some highly qualified veteran candidates.

“Organizations need to coach their HR teams on how to recruit, approach, and interview veterans,” says Aune. “Employers may need to take that extra step.” He suggests employers complete the SHRM Foundation Veterans at Work Certificate Program. This free program equips employers with knowledge and tools to provide better work opportunities for veterans.

Understand Veterans’ Unique Skills

It’s widely known that most veterans possess a variety of technical skills. This attribute is predicated on the military’s training and upskilling process and the fact that only 14% of veterans are combat specialists, while the rest take on thousands of other engineering, support, administrative and operational roles.

What’s less explored is how veterans excel at executive functioning skills and why these skills are desired in the civilian workplace.

Executive functioning skills are the mental attributes needed to succeed in a job, whether managed autonomously or through teamwork. Skills like working memory, flexible thinking, project planning, emotion regulation and self-management might be referred to as “soft skills” in corporate circles. Leaders would be best served if they addressed these abilities as educators and referred to them as “executive functioning skills.”

Succeed with Social Support

Simply hiring a veteran is not enough, and to be fair, the same holds for civilian employees. Millions of American workers, including veterans, are struggling with pandemic-related stress. These challenges severely impact people’s mental health, both on and off the job. Providing a solid Employee Assistance Program is a critical step toward keeping veteran employees healthy and safe.

An Employee Assistance Program (EAP) is a work-based intervention program that assists employees in dealing with personal challenges that may adversely affect the employee’s performance. A recent Yale study found that social support programs are a key factor in reducing veterans’ suicide risks.

Emerging Fields for Veterans

The green and clean energy industries provide prime examples of creating a talent funnel that continually replenishes itself to meet increased demand. The Solar Ready Vets Network offers a 12-week, on-the-job training fellowship for military members, which leads directly to certification and job placement in high-demand areas. The program provides the Solar Opportunities And Readiness (SOAR) Initiative for veterans, which offers credentials at the end of the training.

The combination of on-the-job training, job placement and credentialing provide veterans the opportunity to try a new field and gives them the career security they need as they step into the civilian world. Considering veterans’ sacrifices for our country, adjusting hiring and retention practices to boost veteran employment and social support seems like a small ask for corporate leaders.

temporary staffing agencies in phoenix, az

The post Giving Thanks to Our Veterans by Improving Hiring and Retention Practices appeared first on Paragon Strategic Staffing.

The two major stumbling blocks: a lack of diversity demographic data and the exclusion of various talent communities.

Employees overwhelmingly support workplace diversity. According to a CNBC/SurveyMonkey Workforce survey, nearly 80% of US employees said that they value an organization that prioritizes diversity and inclusion, with 53% calling it “very important.” Yet, on the flip side, a report by the Josh Bersin Academy found that a staggering 76% of companies have “no diversity or inclusion goals at all,” with 75% of companies failing to include DEI in their “leadership development or overall learning and development curricula.” The same report found that only one of nine companies hold managers or recruiters responsible for workforce diversification.

In the marketing industry, this problem is particularly acute, as a 2020 Marketing Week Career and Salary Survey found that close to 90% of respondents identified as white, with just 4% identifying as mixed race, 5% as Asian, and 2% as Black.

Why and where is the disconnect?  We’re not making progress.

It all starts with the data — or lack thereof. According to a Wall Street Journal analysis of 160 annual reports filed by S&P 500 companies in 2020, just one-third of these companies disclosed diversity data on their employees. This speaks to a larger problem.

Elena Philipova of the market data and infrastructure firm Refinitiv put it bluntly. “There’s a lack of information — not because companies are hiding it. Companies themselves do not have the data.”

PREMIUM CONTENT: Global Staffing Front Office Software Landscape

Because many organizations lack any formalized process to capture self-disclosed diversity demographic information on candidates and employees, it is nearly impossible for HR managers to measure the current progress toward meeting their diversity hiring objectives.

For example, adding a diversity questionnaire to our application process resulted in a 98% response rate amongst new talent applicants in our recruiting technology.

Businesses would be well served to put in place a transparent process to not only encourage voluntary self-identification of this information for qualified job candidates but to communicate the anonymized, aggregated data with key stakeholders. With that data, you can identify and develop strategies to address gaps in your talent pipeline, career pathing for current employees or succession planning for executive positions.

The second major hurdle is that companies tend to take a one-dimensional approach to diversity by only considering race and gender.

Arthur Woods, an LGBTQ+ leader and author of the book Hiring for Diversity, noted that one of the great myths when it comes to diversity in hiring is focusing too narrowly on aspects of diversity that are usually (though not always) more visible, such as race and gender. His research showed that fewer than half of organizations include people with disabilities in their tracking and goal-setting, and just 11% accounted for members of the LBGTQIA+ community.

Companies that disregard other dimensions of diversity, such as veteran, LGBTQIA+ status, age, ability and neurodiversity, do so at their peril.

While an estimated 85% of adults with autism are either unemployed or underemployed,  research has found that neurodiverse individuals, for example, can bring tremendous value to a company because many are highly creative, detail-oriented and good at solving complex technical problems.

We know diversity in the workplace is a win-win for employers and employees. Workers want it, and companies that do it well succeed both in terms of profitability and performance, among other metrics. Not only is our country becoming more diverse, but a transformational, pandemic-induced shift to permanent remote work has now given companies the ability to recruit anywhere in the world.

But companies cannot increase the diversity of their workforce without fully understanding their shortcomings and blind spots. Perhaps this is harsh, but we’re not calling you out. We’re calling you in. We’ve built tools and infrastructure to help clients see the full picture of diversity in their workforces. In doing so, they’ll create a workplace that truly embraces and celebrates diversity and inclusion. Let’s get started.

temporary staffing agencies in phoenix, az

The post Without Data and Transparency, Companies Will Fail to Achieve Workplace Diversity appeared first on Paragon Strategic Staffing.

Improving Interview Accuracy Leads to Quality Hires

 It’s very common for hires to pass their interviews with flying colors but end up not performing very well on the job. There’s always a possibility of great candidates being overlooked when applicant interviews aren’t streamlined or designed to gauge competency accurately. Underqualified applicants may even get hired if a company’s interview screening protocol isn’t properly developed. Reviewing and improving the interview structure to effectively determine if a candidate is the right fit for the job is crucial to effective hiring.

Job interviews can be very subjective depending on who is conducting them. Many interviewers use an unstructured approach, with the conversation flowing organically. Unstructured interviews tend to be more subjective and may even lead to unconscious bias. Because of this, companies must have a dependable interview structure in place that qualifies candidates based on data. This structure helps avoid human error and increases interview accuracy. Structured interviews typically have a set of prepared questions to assess if the candidate is qualified. These questions should be designed to assess if an applicant’s skills, experience and personality fit the open position and the company’s culture.

Though structured interviews leave less room for error, there is still a possibility for unconscious bias and misunderstanding. To avoid this, all screening protocols must be the same for every applicant, from background checks to any post-interview processes. Panel interviews also help mitigate biases and help gauge how a candidate handles group dynamics. Apart from this, providing written skills tests or job-simulation activities further aid employers in making the right hiring decisions.

PREMIUM CONTENT: November 2021 US Jobs Report

Make Use of an RPO Hiring Model with Speed-to-Interview Efficiency

Today’s job market is so congested that the US staffing industry is expected to reach $157.4 billion this year. This is a 16% increase from 2020, according to Staffing Industry Analysts. Many businesses have turned to staffing agencies to meet their hiring needs, yet even the largest firms still can’t keep up with the demand for top-tier talent. To compensate for this, a significant quantity of companies and even staffing agencies resort to Recruitment Process Outsourcing in an effort to efficiently and quickly fill open positions.

Many benefits come with working with an RPO provider. Outsourcing recruitment processes considerably lowers the cost of hiring, and service requirements can be scaled up or down depending on current recruiting needs. Hiring an RPO provider dramatically reduces the amount of resources and time spent by HR to source candidates. It also streamlines the recruitment process, and with most RPO companies already having a large pool of candidates, the chance of finding quality hires rises dramatically.

For staffing and recruiting firms, utilizing an RPO provider helps manage large quantities of job orders. Many staffing agencies turn to RPO when the demand for talent is too high for the company to fill on its own. An RPO provider sources, credentials, interviews and hires candidates on behalf of the firm. This reduces the cost-to-hire and time-to-hire while improving the quality of hires. It also reduces the need for direct advertising and promotion. When selecting an RPO provider, it’s important to choose one that can handle high-volume recruiting with speed and precision. 

The Bottom Line: Hire Faster and Smarter

With businesses bouncing back after Covid-19, we can expect the market to be more congested and the competition to be fiercer than ever before. It’s a race to the finish, and business executives and staffing agencies that don’t adapt will definitely get left behind. With the right tools and processes in place as well as a committed RPO provider, you can outshine the competition and reach the finish line with the most outstanding talent every single time.

temporary staffing agencies in phoenix, az

The post Leading the Race to Hire Exceptional Talent – Part 2 appeared first on Paragon Strategic Staffing.

The nature of your business. The first thing to think about is what job seekers are looking for. If someone is passionate about working in sales, they will look up various companies online and look at their content. What you put on your website is vital because that’s the image you are selling, not only to your clients but to your future employees as well.

The vital role of staffing companies in today’s complex market and economy is to find people that feel passionate about work.

Search Engine Optimization. Your SEO is another crucial element of the process. It needs to target the right group of people. When creating content that will attract job seekers, think about what they are searching for online. We always look at SEO from a perspective of a client. Now, the “client” you wish to find is the employee. It is best to consult an expert in SEO and optimize your content to target new candidates.

Use job posting sites. Many public directories act like job posting sites. They help people all around the world find career opportunities. If you decide to post your job ad, remember that you will not be alone in this. Many competitors are looking for employees as well. Before you write your ad, do a little research and see what their offer is. See if you can match it or make it better. If you cannot offer the same to your employees, you will have to expect employees with lower standards to be interested in you and excellent candidates to go somewhere else.

PREMIUM CONTENT: North America Staffing Company Survey 2021: Highest-Return Sales, Marketing, and Recruiting Tactics

Start a digital marketing campaign. The same way you can create a digital marketing campaign to advertise a new product or a service, you can do the same to attract job seekers. Imagine what would happen if Google announced they were looking for 500 new employees. Everyone would rush to apply for the job.

Even though your campaign will not have the same impact, it will still benefit you. The best way to approach this is to reach out to a digital marketing expert company and hire them to do the campaign for you. If you have never worked with one, digitaldot.us has a lot of information about what to expect.

Social media marketing plan. If everyone uses social media to sell their products, why not do the same to find new employees? It is a vast public network with millions of people. Now that everyone is working from home, you can actually reach out to people from the whole world and find a quality candidate. Social media has the power to connect, so use it to your advantage! This may very well be a beneficial strategy for the staffing industry in 2022.

Digital marketing strategies to attract job seekers made simple. These digital marketing strategies to attract job seekers should give you enough ideas about the best approach. Keep in mind that other companies are doing the same. If you are not sure about how to do this, research your competitors to get some ideas. Remember, you don’t want to copy what they do, but be better! Best of luck in finding a new workforce that will help to rapidly grow your business!

temporary staffing agencies in phoenix, az

The post Digital Marketing Strategies to Attract Job Seekers appeared first on Paragon Strategic Staffing.

However, with more than 10 million open roles in the US, many firms are struggling to keep up; they simply can’t hire recruiters fast enough — nor do they have enough hours in the day — to work on the volume of new job orders coming in.

The greatest challenge facing recruiters is fillability. SIA’s Staffing Industry Pulse Survey Report has found difficulty recruiting has increased steadily over the past six months. In terms of productivity, 40% of staffing firms are reporting an increase in unfilled orders and “ghosting” by candidates, creating more work.

Direct Sourcing: Opportunity or Threat?

Meanwhile, pressure is mounting on the client side, as contingent workforce program managers are tasked with the urgent challenge of filling roles in a timely manner to take advantage of the economic bounce-back. In response, the most progressive program leaders are looking into direct sourcing as an option to solve their talent challenges.

In fact, direct sourcing is the No. 1 trend in contingent workforce management today. According to Staffing Industry Analysts’ latest research, a staggering 60% of contingent leaders say that direct sourcing will be implemented in their programs in the next 2 years, more than any other workforce strategy.

This begs the question: Does direct sourcing represent a threat, or an opportunity for the staffing industry? And how can staffing firms leverage direct sourcing to drive rapid revenue growth and gain a competitive edge?

PREMIUM CONTENT: US Staffing Industry Forecast: September 2021 Update

Role of the Curation Partner

Early indications suggest that direct sourcing represents a genuine opportunity for leading staffing suppliers. The opportunity is this; 58% of contingent workforce programs outsource their direct sourcing programs to dedicated staffing suppliers that act as “curation partners,” along with a direct sourcing technology provider.

From a definition perspective, direct sourcing is the process whereby companies leverage their own brand and network to attract and engage contingent workers. As such, they create a private talent cloud of candidates for temporary employment roles at their company. This is where preferred staffing suppliers become critical. The candidates in a company’s talent cloud still need to be curated into talent pools and the benefit for innovative staffing suppliers is that enterprise organizations only need one curation partner.

When a staffing supplier becomes a direct sourcing curation partner, they typically gain access to a much larger number of jobs and are able to operate at scale, leading to increased revenue and profitability for the staffing supplier, while also offering reduced fees to the end client. Further still, the curation partner develops deeper relationships with enterprise customers for cross-sell opportunities and has a new innovative service to take to existing customers.

Curious if direct sourcing will get the results your customers are after? According to SIA’s “Achieving Excellence in Direct Sourcing for the Contingent Workforce” report, contingent workforce program leaders in this space are outperforming laggards by an average of 4:1 across all measured outcomes. Thus, you can take the direct sourcing solution to your customers, armed with data demonstrating it drives performance, with the kicker that you are best positioned to enable their success.

By offering the direct sourcing solution on an exclusive basis, you have a golden ticket to capturing a large piece of the contingent pie and outgrowing your competitors.

temporary staffing agencies in phoenix, az

The post Will Direct Sourcing Disrupt the Staffing Industry? appeared first on Paragon Strategic Staffing.

Coined for the movement of workers ready to leave both pandemic restrictions and their current jobs behind, ‘The Great Resignation” has caused many employers to take a deeper look at what they’re specifically offering candidates and if a high paycheck is enough anymore.

According to The Microsoft Work Trend Index, at least 40% of workers polled were looking to switch positions this year. For myriad reasons – hybrid working, paid leave, better benefits or just simply not being the “right fit” – employees are demanding more value from both inside and outside of work. So how can employers find and retain talent during and beyond a global pandemic that has ultimately altered how many people view their professional and personal lives?

The fact of the matter is employees stay at a job because they want to. This could be for any of the reasons listed above, but it ultimately highlights that recruiting and hiring processes need to be more in-depth and comprehensive than they currently stand. Taking a broader view of a candidate will help recruiters get to the core of who that person is and what they’re looking for in their career.

Many workers were recruited or found by a talent professional through a software solution that listed pay as the top factor for a good match between employer and employee. The algorithm sifted through thousands of resumes, searching for buzzwords and years on the job. Then, the technology made a suggestion based on incomplete assumptions and past learnings that, frankly, don’t apply to today’s job market.

PREMIUM CONTENT: US Staffing Industry Forecast: September 2021 Update

The crux of the problem is that outdated tools and technology weed out nontraditional candidates as “bad fits” before they’re even given a chance. These people have skillsets and experience that might not be specific to the job title or industry but are still applicable to success and growth in that position. The only way to discover these diamonds in the rough is via the following:

• Hiring managers must look beyond the resume and technology and put in quality, hands-on time to get to know the candidate before filling the position.
• Incorporate the concept of “transferable velocity” into the hiring efforts to determine not where a candidate has been, but where their potential trajectory could lead them in their career path.
• Invest in reskilling and upskilling by offering training and opportunities to “unqualified” candidates to retain talent and gain a loyal workforce.
• Leverage sophisticated technology solutions used in the recruitment process to ensure that regression-based models are removed from the hiring scheme.

Through automation and job boards, businesses are inundated with candidates claiming they’re the right fit for the open position. As recruiting managers wade through the applicants, hoping to gain a loyal and determined employee, they must be willing to move away from plug-and-chug application processes and candidates that look good on paper, getting to know the person behind the resume. By updating hiring strategies, technology and mindsets, businesses can gain access to quality talent that will not only be the perfect match, but can usher in a new generation of workers not constrained by their past experiences and ready to bring in the future of work.

temporary staffing agencies in phoenix, az

The post Finding Your Perfect Match at Work appeared first on Paragon Strategic Staffing.

For a few months now, our data has shown that demand for talent has risen sharply, essentially creating a ‘famine to feast’ scenario for recruiters on the ground. This exponential growth was underlined earlier this month by figures from the Office for National Statistics, which show that the number of open job vacancies across the UK topped one million for the first time ever in July.

The professional recruitment market, in particular, has continued to perform exceptionally well with huge increases in year-on-year vacancy and placement figures. APSCo’s latest data, provided by growth analytics experts, cube19, reveals that permanent and contract vacancies in the UK both once again show marked increases, rising by 43% and 53% respectively during the month of July.

The Holiday Effect. Traditionally, hiring slows during the summer months before rebounding after September as decision makers and candidates alike enjoy well deserved summer breaks. We see a similar pattern over the Christmas period. However, this year, hiring has remained steady despite the usual summer dip associated with holiday season.

While vacancies for permanent roles dipped slightly by 3% month-on-month and contract vacancies stayed the same, the daily tracking data following the 19th of July (the day when final Covid-19 restrictions were lifted), compared with the first two weeks of the month, show that all metrics either held steady or actually increased.

PREMIUM CONTENT: Developments in Data Privacy: 2021 Global Update

Investing in Talent. I wrote last month how business are scrambling to secure candidates amid ongoing talent shortages, and this is still the case today. Unsurprisingly, it seems the current market is encouraging organisations to invest heavily in talent acquisition, with our members reporting that revenue for permanent placements rose by 20% month-on-month. Revenue also held steady on the contract side. Elsewhere, ONS data shows average pay growth jumped 8.8% across the UK for the three months between April and June 2021, representing the highest rise since records began 20 years ago. This further highlights the fact that employers are willing to pay for the right people – and the professional recruitment sector is perfectly placed to assist.

As Joe McGuire, Chief Revenue Officer at cube19, highlighted in our latest report: “It’s great to see the industry continuing to perform in such a strong way, and candidate short markets are always the best place for good recruiters to earn their crust.”

Accessing Skills from Overseas. While the skills shortages we are contending with today have no doubt been caused by a perfect storm of external influences, an exodus of talent returning to the EU post-Brexit is certainly a significant factor. The Confederation of British Industry (CBI) and the British Chambers of Commerce (BCC) have both publicly called for visa reform and for more skills to be added to the government’s Shortage Occupation List to help rectify the current situation, and we at APSCo are engaging with government behind the scenes to ensure that the voice of our sector is heard at the highest levels.

We are lobbying government to provide a new entry route in the points-based immigration system to allow high-value independent professionals to work in the UK on a project-by-project basis. We are, however, pleased that the return to in-person Right to Work checks has been delayed until next year following calls from industry representatives including APSCo. We hope that the success of the digital processes over the last 18 months leads to a more appropriate and modern method of managing Right to Work checks in the future, and we will continue to lobby for appropriate changes to RTW checks while the Home Office is considering more permanent amendments.

As the UK economy continues to bounce back in 2021, the professional recruitment sector clearly has a major part to play in our continued road to recovery. However, as the summer holidays come to a close, the coming months will paint a much clearer picture of the future for recruitment as we learn to live with the impact of the pandemic.

temporary staffing agencies in phoenix, az

The post Recruitment Market Remains Resilient Despite Summer Holiday Season appeared first on Paragon Strategic Staffing.