5 Ways to Increase the Results of Using a Staffing Agency

When it's time to fill a position in your business, one of the best ways to find a new hire who is both a great fit and a right fit is using a staffing agency. After all, a staffing agency has the expertise needed to understand your industry, learn the needs of your business, and have access to a vast body of skilled professionals ready and willing to begin working. What's more, a staffing agency is well versed in the regional and federal laws that apply to the hiring process and the needs of new hires.

However, for as many benefits as a staffing agency offers off the cuff, there's always a way to improve the results of working with even the best of the best. Here are five significant ways to enhance the results of using a staffing agency and get the most out of your hiring process.

1: Enabling Quality Matches

It's important to understand the way the staffing agency you choose makes its hiring selections. This helps you ensure that you use an agency truly capable of matching the right people with the right company. What you don't want is someone who will fill the position with a body just because they offer the lowest price or fastest hire.

At Workbox Staffing, we use a variant of the Who Method of Hiring's Scorecard. We realize that the solution to your job vacancy isn't a "what," but a "who." Who you hire is the blood and bone of your business, and we look for candidates who fit a variety of traits to help your business thrive, and not merely a black and white skill set.

Developing scorecards help you (and by extension, us) outline the complete characteristics needed for the position along with the job's goals, management expectations, and other factors that give employees a reason to come in and work hard as well as increase their success rate. This process results in candidates who can align themselves with the vision for your business and the strategy for their role within it.

2: Building Relationships

As the market fluctuates and your business grows or takes on projects with temporary needs, you'll find that your business might need to take advantage of staffing agencies time and again. You shouldn't view your staffing agency as a temporary fix; that leads to a situation in which open positions become revolving doors filled by one ineffective choice after another. Instead, take the time to find the right agency or agencies and build a relationship with them as a trusted business partner.

That effort should go both ways, and when it does, it enhances every one of the benefits the agency offers you. Agents will have a much more intimate understanding of your business and its culture, and thus gain perspective on your short and long-term goals along with project needs. This, in turn, means agents have a much more intuitive process for finding you exceptional candidates who can cut down on the turn around time and meet your needs quickly.

3: Remember Third Party Professionalism

In politics, once a nominee has been selected to run for a major office, other politicians and professionals will represent them to the press; these are known as third party candidates. Similarly, a staffing agency is your third-party representative to potential candidates. The way the agency engages candidates will likely reflect on your brand directly.

That makes having a relationship with your staffing agency that much more of an imperative. It gives agents the kind of information that lets them share your business as more than just a set of job expectations and a list of amenities.

Agents won't just understand your company culture to find you the right candidate; they'll also be able to sell your business culture to the candidates more meaningfully and so make working for you sound that much more attractive. Understanding the projects you've handled and having some idea of the ones your business is operating toward will give agents a way to pitch the kind of experience and professional fulfillment your business offers candidates.

4: Emphasize Market Knowledge

The temptation can be to turn to large staffing agencies that work nationally or even internationally, and in some cases, they might undoubtedly meet your needs. However, you must select an agency that truly understands both the needs of your industry and the needs of the market you operate in. If they're not, the agency will be significantly less effective in finding you the right candidates.

What's more, being a small agency doesn't mean being an unsuccessful one. Workbox Staffing has been in business since 1997, and our agents are intimately familiar with the markets we serve in Indiana, Michigan, and Texas. Despite our size, we're also intimately familiar with the automotive, manufacturing, and warehouse/logistics industries. This knowledge has been the basis of the strong relationships we've built with our clients, which in turn has made us one of Inc. 500's fastest growing companies.

5: Tap into Multiple Agencies

You might be surprised to see this as one of our tips, however, by using more than one staffing agency, you increase your hiring pool. That's because great candidates won't automatically be listed with every agency, and when everyone is looking for new hires, that can make finding the right candidate that much more difficult. Finding the right candidate can take time and resources. We make your success our priority. If that means working with other agencies so you can see what you need, then we'll do it.

Staffing agencies have many benefits to bring to the table, and by taking advantage of these tips, you can make the most of those benefits. The results will grow your business with the best top talent.

If you're ready to take your hiring process to the next level, contact Workbox Staffing today. We work to connect you with hires who are the best fit for your business in a way that lets you do what you should be doing…run your business.

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