IT staffing firms SUCK! Yes, I mean SUCK! I think most people hate IT staffing firms like they hate used car salesmen and lawyers.
I started Craftlogic in 2003 because I hated dealing with IT staffing firms. Anybody can match acronyms on a resume and forward it to a hiring manager. Why do you need an IT staffing firm for that? Just post the ads yourself and save the fee. Geez! After all, aren’t you doing all the work for them anyway by sifting through unqualified resumes hoping to find a gem of a candidate?
IT staffing firms are resume factories. If you need an IT professional with very specific requirements, you can pretty much expect to get 25 resumes in your inbox in 24 hours. Did they even have time to talk to these people? Are these people even any good? Most of the time the answer is NO and NO!
IT staffing firms have quotas for their recruiters and account managers. They must submit a certain number of candidate resumes per day or per week. They are all about quantity over quality. If you throw a handful of darts at a dartboard, chances are one of them will stick, right? This is the exact method of operation for IT staffing companies.
What makes this worse? The way IT staffing firms operate has been engrained into our psyche to such a degree that we can’t imagine any other way of doing it. The assumption is they’re all the same and if you want to find a candidate you’ll have to pick through dozens of resumes trying to find him. If you're not getting a lot of resume flow, you then assume that the staffing firm is not making you a priority.
Shameless plug: Is there a better way? I’m not typing all this just to complain. I do have a solution. Go here: The Craftlogic Difference.
Resume flow should not be an indication of an IT staffing firm’s value! ANYBODY can send you resumes. What you need are much fewer resumes and more qualified candidates, right? And yet, for some reason, you still want a lot of resumes dumped on you to feel like we’re working hard for you.
Let’s face it. IT staffing firms generally find the same people. They all have large databases. They all post their jobs on a multitude of boards. A few invest in passive searching. But, what’s more important is what they do with the people once they find them. For the typical IT staffing firm, it’s not much.
Here's the typical staffing firm process:
A recruiter that is non-technical matches keywords on a resume as stated in the job description. If the acronym match is say, 80%, the non-technical recruiter gives the resume to the non-technical account manager for review. The non-technical account manager confirms the requisite number of matching keywords exist on the resume and then submits the resume to the client. The client then sifts through dozens of candidate resumes deciding which ones might be a match. If the hiring manager is lucky enough to find a resume that looks good, he schedules an interview with the candidate. But, as we know, a lot of candidates are great at writing resumes but not great at their job. After reviewing dozens and dozens of resumes and after many technical interviews that take time away from the manager and his staff to perform their job, they're doing the IT staffing firm's job. Yes, eventually your hire somebody. But, is this what you’re paying a 20% fee for?
Now, let's suppose you have several IT staffing firms on your vendor list. You would think maybe the competition between them would allow you to see more and better qualified candidates, right? Not necessarily. Once a firm realizes they're competing against another firm, they simply turn up the faucet. They start pumping more resumes your way to get the candidates in front of you before the other firms so they can claim credit and collect a fee if hired. More is not better!
Your best option is to find a firm that has the ability to validate talent before submitting to you. In order to do that, the firm must have talent in order to validate talent. You won't get this level of service from non-technical recruiters, non-technical account managers and even online testing. If you're hiring a senior software developer, then you need a senior software developer to spend time interviewing candidates. It takes talent to find talent.
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From LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/article/20141031160847-7506493-it-staffing-firms-suck
Craftlogic Blog: http://www.craftlogic.com/blog