There are a number of ways in which you can recruit for new staff members for your company. After all, reduced staff through open positions can contribute to increased stress on other employees and decreased efficiency in your company overall. Hiring new employees and recruiting your industry’s stars is essential in a company’s ability to move forward.

Another way in which you can find qualified personnel is through an outside staffing or recruiting firm. There are many benefits to working with this type of service, as its staffing managers often have contacts to qualified personnel looking for gainful employment in your industry. Moreover, they can offer assistance with initial interviews, call backs and other facets of the hiring process that prove to be time-consuming for busy executives and companies already working with the minimum amount of staff.

In order to reap the benefits of working with an outside staffing firm, you need to understand how to do so correctly. The more effectively you can work together from the outset, the better your chances are for successfully finding the right fit.

To start, you must clearly communicate your needs. Draft out, in writing, exactly what you are looking for in a potential employee. Be specific in terms of skills and experience. State your terms on salary, benefits, probationary periods and anything else relevant to finding the right person to fill a particular position.

Allow the staffing company to do its job – don’t try to micromanage the search for a new employee. If you are working with a reputable company, then you must be able to “let go” and  allow the staffing firm to find you a new employee without the need to be involved in the process until you need to be (usually only for final interviews with the top candidates).

When you need the expertise to find IT professionals for the jobs that need doing and you want the search done as easily and successfully as possible, contact The Wellspring Group. We’ll make the whole process flow efficiently and effectively. Contact us today!

The staffing industry tends to toss terms about like so much candy being tossed by Iron Man costume-clad kids to in a Halloween parade to those on the sidelines. If you’ve ever wondered what “temp-to-hire,” “direct recruiting,” “long-term temporary” mean — and how they can help you — here are some definitions.

Temp-to-Hire. Bringing a worker to your company on a temp-to-hire assignment means you have arranged with your staffing service to bring someone in who, if all goes well, you will hire on to your own payroll after an agreed-upon length of time, usually 90 days. Temp-to-hire allows both you and the temporary worker to see if the position is a good fit for both you and the employee — if the worker has the skills and attitude you seek and if the assignment fits the worker’s career goals. Temp-to-hire is wonderful when you want to see how an employee really works on the job without having to make a full-time commitment.

Long-term Temporary Assignment. These often are used by employers who need skilled professionals for long-term work but are leery of bringing someone on to their own payroll, often due to the fact that the employer is unsure of future needs. Will the work still be there for the person to do six months from now? Or will business droop, meaning the employer may have to let someone go. Hiring employees is costly, as you know, and most employers understandably are loathe to hire someone just to have to let him or her go a few months down the road. Bringing in someone for a long-term assignment (two months to a year), can help you get the work you need done before you make the huge commitment of hiring someone on to your payroll. If it turns out you find the temporary worker to be an excellent member of your team, you can hire the person from your staffing service at any time. Your service will charge you a fee for this.

Direct Recruiting. Sometimes, you really do need to get someone on to your company’s payroll quickly, without placing him or her on a temporary, long-term temporary or temp-to-hire assignment. Also known as executive recruitment or direct placement, companies tend to engage recruiting firms to source, vet and perform preliminary screening for harder-to-find positions. Staffing services and recruiting firms constantly recruit for positions within their staffing niche (such as IT, The Wellspring Group’s recruiting focus) and so can send two or three completely screened top candidates to a company within days or even hours for final interviews by the company’s principals or managers. Most recruiting firms, such as The Wellspring Group, receive no pay until and unless a company hires one of the staffing firm’s candidates. The fee then usually is about 30 percent of a candidate’s first-year salary, although this fee is negotiable. Some companies also prefer to hire recruiting firms on a retainer basis, paying the firm a set amount each month to conduct on-going recruitment.

If you need reliable and skilled IT professionals for temporary, temp-to-hire or direct placement positions, contact The Wellspring Group. We are the source for top IT talent and we look forward to learning more about we can help your company find exceptional employees.