Planning your tech hiring strategy for 2024? Consider the benefits of hiring temporary IT consultants to build and/or supplement your tech workforce.
Although the threat of a full recession may be waning, it is still discussed considerably. With that economic uncertainty overhead, IT leaders are increasingly having to deliver digital transformation initiatives with fewer resources. In terms of resources, temporary labor can help bridge the gap and allow hiring managers to complete critical projects without taking on the burden of full-time employees.
Technology Is Your Business Game-Changer, but You Need the Players
Your business outcomes are more dependent on technology than at any other point in time. From internal programs and platforms that optimize business operations to the external products and services that are the bread and butter to your bottom line, tech advancements and emerging technologies across most industries, not just tech-based, are the driving factors for business initiatives.
However, it would help if you had the tech labor to deliver, and as most experts agree, the demand for talent with the necessary specialized tech skill sets continues to grow while the supply does not. We continue to operate in a tight tech talent market; there are only so many resources available in your internal organization that fit your demand, or, further, within your hiring department that have a broad enough network to find the talent you need.
Hiring Temporary IT Consultants Through a Tech Staffing Agency Is the Answer. And Here’s Why:
Faster Hiring With Access to Specialized Talent When You Need It
Over the course of the last several years, many organizations have been hard-pressed to manage technology projects to completion before the next-best technology trend emerges to change the scope of the project. It’s difficult to account for a full-time employee who may no longer match the skill set needed for a project that is unpredictable in time.
An IT staffing agency like Prosum offers immediate access to temporary IT consultants via tech talent networks cultivated over years of relationship building through long-tenured recruiters. This is a huge advantage to any company trying to find talent in any economy.
- Case study: when a government SLED client requested a slate of senior developers to assist with a special project, Prosum experts were able to deliver qualified and vetted talent in a compressed timeline.
With a larger network of experienced tech professionals that spans multiple regions, time to fill is reduced and onboarding time is accelerated as temporary IT consultants start producing day one with little learning curve. Simply put, these professionals are specialized in what you need, when you need it.
And Prosum finds the talent. In fact, our experts note the average contingent staffing firm in the US is filling about 20-24% of the openings they receive while Prosum is tracking at filling 46% of the openings we receive. By partnering with Prosum, you will receive sound advice, quality service, and you will also increase your chances of filling a position by 92-130% higher than the average contingency firm.
Tap Into a Contingent Labor Market That Continues To Expand
Interestingly, overall contingent labor in 2001 accounted for approximately 4.0% of the workforce. Nearly twenty years later, Staffing Industry Analysts note the labor market consists of nearly 51.5 million contingent workers, which translates to 35% of the nation’s workforce. A recent Bullhorn survey on the temporary and contract staffing industry “showed that the largest segment of survey respondents listed IT as their primary industry served.”
As we keep our eye on the tech employment market, while it has leveled off, tech needs will continue to grow, just as contingent labor is poised to grow to 50 percent by 2050. Working in a flexible hiring model that augments permanent placements with temporary placements can keep organizations ahead of the game.
Optimized Cost Management
Hiring temporary IT consultants can be a cost-effective solution for businesses looking to reduce overhead. By outsourcing to tech staffing firms like Prosum, companies can enjoy benefits similar to those offered to full-time employees without the added expenses of bonuses, holiday pay, benefits, PTO, sick leave, and retirement plans. This approach allows for greater flexibility and lower costs, as IT staff augmentation is considered an operating expense rather than a capital cost. By working with a tech staffing firm, hiring managers gain increased flexibility in budget allocation, ensuring that every dollar is utilized effectively.
Costs that are harder to quantify but can also pose savings by hiring temp IT consultants in many instances include:
- Reduction in turnover costs. Research shows that the cost to replace an employee could reach 33% of their annual salary. With the rapidly changing needs for specialized tech skills, that could become a costly endeavor if a new employee is unable to deliver and a replacement is warranted. Further, Forbes notes that nearly 30% of new employees leave in the first 90 days for various reasons, which can create a turbulent – and expensive – recruiting and hiring process.
- The costs associated with the recruiting process itself. Studies over the last two years figure it could cost an average of $4,700 per employee.
- Loss in productivity if internal recruiting and hiring time is lengthy versus working with a tech recruiting team to deliver a pre-screened, qualified slate of potential IT candidates.
Improve Business Operations
An IT staffing agency firm like Prosum manages the staffing cycle with proven processes to source, recruit, vet and place talent, offerings savings in money but also time, while increasing efficiencies and productivity.
Many small-to-mid-sized organizations operate with lean internal administrative departments. The costs in time (and money) to manage the recruitment process continues to grow, including the investment in the necessary technology that has become so commonplace to be successful in tech recruitment and staffing.
By working with a tech staffing firm, you can remove these tasks from your overtaxed administrators as well as leverage the technology stacks they have in place to source and contract the tech talent you need without having to invest in implementation and maintenance of new tech programs.
Hiring Agility with Less Risk
Working with a tech staffing firm in today’s market also offers the benefit of risk mitigation when it comes to compliance and employment laws.
- Do you know the rules for advertising pay rates through new pay transparency laws? New states and districts enact laws with different guidelines regularly and job posts and all communications must remain in compliance lest incur hefty fines. Aside from penalties, however, properly following pay transparency guidelines is proving to increase candidate engagement, particularly to uncover and course-correct pay inequities, that lead to more qualified IT candidates interested in your open roles.
- What about complying with classification rules, tax and benefit laws when hiring a multi-state workforce? A staffing firm’s job is to understand and manage the risks associated with hiring in what is now a more digitized, global labor market.
This is particularly important as our work policies evolve to account for remote and hybrid work. The onset of remote hiring, especially as hiring temporary IT consultants continues, changed the landscape. The ability to hire-from-anywhere, work-from-anywhere significantly expanded access to top talent, sometimes at lower price points depending on geography. However, it does come with increased scrutiny on labor practices and compliance issues that recruiters in the tech space are well-versed in and that is an important benefit to hiring managers.
As your company navigates budget planning for 2024, it’s important to know there are flexible staffing options that can help optimize your labor spend. Hiring temporary IT consultants to augment your tech workforce can deliver tech development and innovation, faster and with greater reliability, helping you to realize sales (and profit) goals that can meet or exceed return-on-investment. To discuss hiring options with a proven leader in IT staffing, contact Prosum experts today.
