6 Misconceptions About Direct Hire Staffing

Here are some common misconceptions about direct hire staffing services  

Millions of businesses rely on direct hire staffing agencies to help them with their permanent employment needs every day and growing. This service has gained popularity over the past few decades for its benefits helping employers with the fast-paced nature of hiring employees. 

Even though direct hire recruiters have become more prominent, many businesses are new to using a third party staffing agency for their hiring needs. Here are some common myths and misconceptions employers have when exploring this new service for their business. 

Direct hire staffing is expensive  

Direct hire recruiting is commonly associated with its cost. While this is a legitimate concern for employers looking to hire a third party staffing agency, there are factors to consider that contribute to the costs and how this service pays itself off in the long run making it a safe investment. 

Staffing costs

Finding highly qualified candidates is a complex problem to solve in a fast-paced environment, and depends on expertise, technology and manpower to find the right candidate to make a placement. 

Recruiting companies absorb significant costs including applicant tracking systems, recruiting software, partnerships with third party talent sources, marketing (including paid ads and building/maintaining candidate network), legal and compliance costs, employee overhead for recruiters and other administrative staff, and other common business operating expenses. 

These expenses can contribute to a higher short-term cost to fill roles than internal staffing, but much higher long-term benefits that offset these costs. 

Benefits 

All of these costs are to tailor a team of professionals to find highly-qualified candidates for employers and service other needs, which come with benefits that provide an ROI to employers including:

• Solid pipeline of high-quality candidates.  
• Access pre-screened talent instantly, and find niche candidates faster. 
• Limit internal training and administrative costs for recruiting. 
• Reduces time to hire which can reduce productivity gaps and overtime paid to understaffed workforce. 
• Avoiding bad hires which can be costly which impact productivity and company culture. 
• Strengthening retention and reducing training or turnover costs. 
• Builds a strategic partnership for even more effective future hires.

Costs of bad hires 

This is a major contributing factor to the ROI of third party staffing. As much as a great hire brings long-term productivity and growth, bad hires have an inverse effect. This swing in productivity and costs is typically much more expensive than hiring a staffing agency. 

Here are the average costs of bad hires or ineffective recruitment strategies:

• -$14,900 for bad entry-level hires. 
• -$39,000 for bad mid-level hires. 
• -$240,000 for bad senior-level and executive hires.
• 40-50% increase in hiring cost when the position remains vacant for a prolonged period.
• Internal recruiting, on average, takes 1-2 more weeks per placement than staffing agencies, and longer for hard to fill positions. 

Recruiting is an investment

While there is a cost to recruiting services, it should be seen as an investment for the right person. Staffing is only expensive when a bad hire is made, whether you hire internally or use a third party agency. 

A great way to protect your investment is to hire an agency with a guarantee on their placement, whether it be money back or refilling the position at no extra cost if the employee does not work out. 

Direct hire is also typically contingent, meaning you do not pay for staffing services unless a placement is made. This enables you to get all the benefits of staffing instantly without any upfront costs. 

It is only for temporary roles 

Some assume direct hire recruiting is the same as temporary staffing, and that the terms are interchangeable. While there are many interchangeable terms for both services, they are different. 

Direct hire staffing is the recruitment for a permanent, long-term role for a company. It can also be referred to as permanent recruitment, permanent placement​, full-time staffing, direct sourcing, and commonly associated with executive search. 

Temporary staffing is recruitment for a short-term role with a defined end of contract date in the employment agreement. It is also known as contract staffing, temp recruitment, short term staffing, or interim staffing. Temporary roles can also be temp-to-hire, where the employer can evaluate the candidate during a trial period and make an offer at the end of the contract. 

Only for large companies utilize staffing firms

While large companies do take advantage of direct hire staffing services for executive roles, specialty roles, or hiring in large volumes, many small or mid-sized businesses also work with recruitment agencies. 

Small businesses can benefit from staffing services for their specific needs which can stem from a lack of internal administrative support and resources to strengthen their workforce. Hiring a talent agency helps them not only find high-quality candidates and streamlining their hiring process, but also other staffing services like payroll, onboarding, managing temp workers, and more. 

There is not additional access to talent 

While this can be true for some staffing agencies, many do have a pool of pre-screened candidates they can reach out to see if they are interested in your role. 

When you are looking for a provider you want to ask them about their talent database and their track record filling roles. You will also want to see what industries they specialize in to ensure they have a pool of candidates that match your hiring needs. 

This is one of the biggest benefits of working with a recruitment firm. About 70% of job seekers are passively looking for jobs and not engaging job boards, so having a pool of qualified candidates to reach out to make a big difference in finding the best person for the job. 

Staffing only works for executive or high-level positions 

While staffing agencies who specialize in executive staffing are effective in filling those positions, recruitment services are also highly effective for direct hire, temporary, and other forms of staffing services depending on your needs. 

Staffing services help with finding talent, screening candidates, assisting with interviews, making an offer, post-hire support, and more. This reduces time-to-hire, recruitment costs, and improves retention and company culture. 

Direct hire staffing agencies do not provide post-hire support

This depends on the staffing firm you work with. While some fill a position and services end, others follow up and provide post-hire support. This can be in the form of administrative support like onboarding or payroll management, or making sure the placement is working out. 

Some staffing agencies offer guarantees for scenarios where the employee was not the right fit or they quit and will check in and make sure the new hire is doing great. 

Work with Hunter Recruiting

Hunter Recruiting has been providing direct hire staffing services for 20 years and has filled over 15,000 positions. We have achieved this with our talent pool of 1.2 million skilled candidates, latest recruitment technologies, short time to fill, and staffing teams that work directly with candidates and employers in STEM, healthcare, manufacturing, and other industries! 

If you want to learn more about how we can help you with recruiting and other staffing solutions, you can request talent or schedule a free consultation!