The Benefits of IT Staffing for Employers and Jobseekers

The IT industry in India stood at a whopping USD 177 billion in 2019, witnessing a 6.1% growth year-on-year. It is estimated that by the year 2025, the valuation of the market will touch USD 350 billion. 

These astounding figures don’t come as a surprise — India has been at the heart of the global digital capabilities hub for many years now. In fact, in 2017-18 alone, India accounted for about 55% of the USD 185-190 billion global services sourcing business. Moreover, India’s IT and ITes companies have over 1000 global delivery centres across 80 countries.

India’s IT companies and conglomerates rely on quality talent, of the highest order, to run such an industry that witnesses exponential growth every year. As of 2019, the Indian IT industry workforce was 4.1 million strong and according to experts, India accounts for 75% of the global digital talent.

Naturally, you’d think that it’s a match made in heaven — a (digitally) capable workforce satiating and driving a soaring industry. And you’d be right. Unless needed, the Indian IT industry doesn’t need to look elsewhere for talent; a majority of India’s IT workforce is homegrown. 

But hiring from this breed, for this industry, is easier said than done. Indian companies and employers are all too familiar with the repercussions of a bad hire. Given the IT industries’ capability to flourish both in the international and domestic markets even during slowdowns, its massive contribution to the economy and the nation’s GDP, there is no room for error. This is precisely why they turn to IT staffing companies in India to meet their workforce demands.

For those of you who don’t know what IT staffing is, it’s a host of IT staffing services provided by an IT staffing company that lessens the burden on internal HR departments. IT staffing companies in India provide ideal solutions that meet the long or short term objectives of an employer or a company. An IT staffing agency can fill a permanent position within a company, build a team of contract IT professionals for projects, or place a single contract consultant. 

Any company or employer can essentially partner with an agency that provides IT staffing solutions to hire and place candidates who are not only technically sound but also the right cultural fit.

Let’s see some of the benefits that employers can reap by hiring an IT recruitment firm :

1. You save the most-critical resource — TIME

This is a fact — partnering with IT staffing companies in India can save you a whole lot of time. You can find the right employee without overshooting the deadline allotted for hiring.

Think about it; your in-house HR department can transfer the meticulous, time-consuming process of vetting and interviewing candidates to the IT staffing provider. A reputable IT staffing company can go the distance and perform background checks and also conduct interviews to filter out unqualified candidates before the right one is introduced to you.

And that’s not all. Assuming you’re from the IT industry, you might be quite familiar with the amount of paperwork that has to be handled and processed for each hire. While this laborious stage is a given for any hiring process for any industry, for the IT sector it’s much more complicated.

The reason?

The industry thrives on long or short-term projects, for which they require personnel on, you guessed it, a short or long-term basis — in other words, contractual employees. Now imagine plugging away at paperwork all over again when the need for new employees arises for a new project on the block. You can either go at it again or just focus on getting the right employees while your IT staffing partner works their fingers to the bone with paperwork. 

The growth, existence and the profitability of the IT industry revolves around keeping up with the latest trends and technological developments. This particular nature influences the hiring scenario as well. You see, if IT hiring is to be handled in-house, you need dedicated personnel who are up to speed with the ever-changing nature of the industry. 

They need to know about the exact skill set required for contract-based work or project. This, for a company, is time-consuming and a waste of resources. However, with an IT staffing partner as your aide, you can communicate the contract and they’ll do their job of finding individuals with specific skill sets who fit right in. 

The IT staffing agency’s ability to pick the right candidates in a short span of time is ever more helpful in a scenario where the project or contract needs to start immediately.

2. You access richer talent pools

One of the shortcomings of internal HR departments is that they do not possess a ready reserve of candidates. They start fishing for talent only when the need arises without any strategy in place. Even if they do possess a talent pool, its inhabitants are either AWOL or employed. The pool isn’t filtered, neither is it supplemented with new talent.

The setting of an IT staffing agency is different altogether — they’re always on the lookout for industry-ready, skilled talent who are searching for employment opportunities. Such candidates are further evaluated and eventually added to their talent pools, enriching it in the process. An internal HR team will have to spend a lot of time and effort if the same is to be done. In other words, tying up with a staffing company saves you a lot of time. 

So, a database of candidates who are always looking for jobs — doesn’t that mean candidates who have been rejected by other companies?

No. You see, IT staffing agencies’ talent pools house freelancers and professionals who see themselves working on a variety of projects and assignments in order to upskill themselves.   It’s a service offered by the IT staffing provider that offers work flexibility. 

Such candidates are sourced through multiple channels. For instance, BetterPlace’s multi-channel sourcing model uses AI-enabled internal databases, job boards, social & professional networking platforms, referrals, sourcing partners, college networks, training institutes, job fairs amongst others.

Such contract workers are exactly what IT companies need today. 

But what if the company wants to hire a contract worker on a permanent basis upon completion of the contract?

Well, in that case, you need only tell the IT staffing agency about your intention at the time of placing your requirement. They will have conducted multiple interviews with candidates who would be open to temp-to-perm job opportunities. The complete lists of selected candidates who want to work on a temporary basis and those who can work full-time will be made available to you.

3. You optimize your overall spend

Precisely. Having saved time, there is no doubt about the possibility of saving money by tying up with an IT staffing firm. Here’s how IT staffing services in India can help you reduce costs.

• • You don’t need an on-site HR team

Anything and everything related to HR activities can be handled by a staffing agency. Simply put, you do not need to pay salaries for HR personnel, the floor space they occupy, their employee benefits, retirement plans and so on. You will be saving money from the get-go as the staffing provider you tie up with can handle hiring activities which includes searching, interviewing and selecting candidates. They even handle all the paperwork, the employee grievances, and terminations.

• • You reallocate your resources

Candidates that are chosen by the staffing agency are handpicked. Since they know the IT firm’s requirements, they only select candidates who match it. As such, your internal team that provides training at the time of induction have it easy. Some IT staffing companies in India also provide the training that is required before the employee joins so that no time is wasted and work on the project can be started immediately. With your resources being freed up, they can be diverted to other business processes that require immediate attention.

• • You reduce human errors

When you have people who cannot work to the best of their abilities, the ones who actually do their jobs well are under immense pressure to complete projects and tasks on time. They might even have to put in a shift beyond their normal working hours. The overtime culminates in additional stress that the employees have to bear. They can make errors and end up being disgruntled which can affect overall productivity and performance in the long run.

But with a staffing firm, what you get is employees who are good at what they do. This eases the burden on the rest of the employees and reduces errors.

• • You scale up or down as required

IT companies have to be adaptable. There might be a sudden spike in the number of projects that need to be executed for which there will be a need for manpower at the earliest. Or, the markets might slow down for which the staff needs to be reduced. Staffing agencies allow just that to the partner IT firm. You can increase or decrease manpower at will, depending on the seasonal demands.

4. You call the shots

The repute and recognition of any staffing provider rests on the performance of your company. Employees have a huge part to play in the success of any business. If your company does well, the credit that goes to the employees for the effort put in eventually trickles down to the staffing provider who had a part to play in providing manpower.

At the end of the day, you decide who you want at your IT company. Staffing agencies understand this more than anything which is why they are accountable for all the services they provide. If you feel that your staffing partner isn’t doing enough to provide able candidates, or if they’re taking forever to complete a request, you can walk away and approach another at no extra cost.

5. You tap into quintessential resources as and when you want

Imagine a scenario where a project demands a system integration or update that can only be written in a programming language that none of your full-time employees know. Perhaps this is the stage that’s stopping your project from being completed or advancing to further phases of development.

You could hire someone on a full-time basis for this task. But on such short notice, how are you ever going to find someone? And even if you do, how will you know that this individual who has been hired for the specialised task is the right cultural fit? Also, will the company, after project completion, ever need the ‘’special skills’’ that instigated this hire in the first place?

What this problem needs is a solution that can only be provided by an IT staffing partner. As mentioned up top, IT staffing companies have the personnel at all times. The company can reach out to the IT staffing provider and request personnel who can be hired temporarily to bypass the minor speed bump. Here, the advantages for the company are:

• • No need to hire someone on a full-time basis
  • Resources spent on finding the candidate can be salvaged
  • Settling for a full-time employee who can ruin the work environment can be bypassed
  • Time gained to know if the “specialized” work done can be sustained in the long run

6. You can end disagreements

Disagreements between hiring managers and department heads over the selection of one candidate over the other can turn ugly. Not only that, there’s much back and forth which ultimately slows down the hiring process. 

You see, the IT department is an internal cog for any organization. The talent and skill at their disposal is a shared resource for other teams and departments. For an HR, finding someone who checks all the boxes — in terms of skills — whilst taking everyone’s opinions into consideration can be an uphill task.

A sticky situation like this can be effortlessly handled by an IT staffing partner. Without much input from the hiring managers, their industry expertise helps them get a brief idea of the requirements. What’s more, their inputs about the date of joining, compensation, contract length, designation can diffuse a situation among the squabbling managers and department heads.

7. You wash your hands off advertisement costs

Whenever there’s an opening in your company, you want the message to reach as far as possible. It ensures that you don’t miss out on any talent. Nowadays, there are many online tools and social media that can help you do that. But marketing and advertising require much critical thinking and creativity. Moreover, it’s a costly affair if done repeatedly. Even if your team, for the sake of advertising, happens to do it there’s no way you can guarantee that the message has reached the intended target audience. That’s money down the drain.

By partnering with IT staffing agencies in India you transfer the marketing and advertising efforts and cost to them. They know the target audience better than anyone. What type of message to advertise, the marketing channels, Ad formats, the design, the content, the copy, the location, user behaviour…these are the responsibilities they shoulder to find candidates when you place a request for employees.

Employees Too Benefit from IT Staffing Agencies

Remember the thing about job flexibility for job seekers that was mentioned up top? It’s not the only benefit that job seekers can reap by finding a job through an IT staffing provider. There are more. Let’s take a look at the top 3 benefits below.

• You access more employers

An IT recruitment agency is the only channel through which you can attract more eyeballs to your resume. You’d be surprised to know that the networking capabilities offered by IT recruiting companies transcends other media, or your own for that matter. When taking matters into your own hands, you wouldn’t even know if a particular recruiter is hiring. But the same recruiter might be in the IT recruitment firm’s books and they might even be hiring.

You see, agencies that provide IT staffing solutions are always in touch with the employers. They keep sending people over as new employees, and in return get to know about other unfulfilled or upcoming openings. Now just imagine the number of employers they network with — they have a selection of employers who have multiple openings. 

When the time is right and you sign up with an IT staffing firm, they send your resume to all employers at once. This saves you time and effort as you don’t have to find out who’s hiring and send your resume to each and every one.

• You get a personal career coach

That’s right. You find a career coach in an IT staffing firm you’re affiliated with. Best of all, they do not lump you in with others and provide career coaching. Instead, they personalize their approach.

They start by working with you directly, going over everything you want in your next job. They take your likes and dislikes into consideration and study your employment history. This Is especially helpful in cleaning up your resume. Any errors or shortcomings can be rectified before the final version is sent out to all recruiters.

And speaking of resumes. Did you know that they also provide tips to improve your resume? What’s more, they forward yours directly to the hiring managers — in a way, they vouch for you so that you get a job that suits you the most. A staffing agency also provides any feedback about your profile. Keep in mind that in order for them to find you a job, you have to be completely transparent about your needs, profile, education, work experience and so on. 

• You get the services for free

Perhaps this is the best benefit of them all — IT staffing and recruiting firms provide services to job seekers at no cost. That means access to more employers, resume improvisation, career coaching, job flexibility and more for free.

Sounds tempting, doesn’t it? You should contact a firm that provides IT recruitment solutions at the earliest if you haven’t already. But just a word of advice before you start searching for your preferred IT staffing agencies — conduct thorough research and consider several aspects before selecting a staffing provider that befits your profile. 

Conclusion –

The services and the level of success provided by IT staffing companies overshadow the efforts and expertise of on-site HR departments. Since this is IT we’re talking about, the skill and expertise required to thoroughly understand the job role and the candidate persona might not be found in the practices of the in-house human resources team who have more knowledge about measuring employee engagement, employee grievances, workplace culture and so on. 

Moreover, human resources are often in contact with a smaller audience, typically a smaller group from one industry. An IT staffing provider, on the other hand, touches base with individuals from several industries. Come to think of it, since it’s IT we’re talking about, the IT staffing provider always leads the pack since they’re more tuned into technology than others. And that means they know the candidates better than anyone.