Congratulations the company has just been awarded a government contract for services! “Yipee”, “yahoo”…you do the happy dance around the office for a few minutes and then realize “Oh my goodness, I have no idea how we are going to recruit for these openings and get them filled so quickly”. This is all too often the scenario for small – mid size emerging government contractors. Winning the contract is a great accomplishment, but staffing it is what is going to bring the company revenue.
Many small – mid size government contractors may have some form of human resources or recruiting already in place; however, a lot do not. Even those who have a recruiting infrastructure, may not have the resources, bandwidth or expertise to recruit the necessary talent in a highly competitive market. Margins are slim and the competition is fierce. It is important to partner with an affordable, ethical, successful recruiting company with government contracting expertise; a firm that is accustomed to finding candidates with very specific education, skills, and work experience. A recruiting partner can play a valuable role in the success of your contract, and they understand the specific candidate market because they work in the environment all day, every day. Recruiting for highly specialized talent is not a 9-5 job nor does it work with common “post and pray” tactics. It requires sourcing and screening expertise from skilled and seasoned recruiters who understand the market, the candidates, and how to get them to engage in conversation.
A strong recruiting partner becomes an extension of the company and can supplement your current recruiting team or become your fully outsourced solution. The traditional recruiting model of paying a percentage of a candidate’s salary for each hire can get very expensive for government contractors. Finding a recruiting company that offers a different approach may increase your bottom line. One example is a firm who charges an hourly recruiting rate instead of the percentage model. Clients only pay for actual work that is done; this allows for an on demand model as needed and can save you 40%- 60% of what traditional recruiting firms’ fees may be.
A valuable recruiting partner understands that unfilled positions means lost revenue. They will work with the company to build the best strategies for individual positions. Many factors affect recruiting success and these include the current market availability, desirability of position, work to be performed, flexibility in requirements, total compensation, company culture, process engagement, location, and level of screening. A knowledgeable firm can provide helpful insights as to how to position the company for maximum results. Additional benefits may include:
• Turn on / turn off solution
• Scalable – solution can scale up and down with the company as needed
• Grow your candidate database and referral network with qualified candidates
• Access to senior sourcing and recruiting consultants
• Team approach to recruiting rather than an individual contributor
• Short and long-term strategy consulting
• Extensive experience in the cleared community, if necessary
• Recruiting tools – subscription databases and recruiting tools
• Interactive consultative relationship to ensure creative strategies for difficult to fill or niche openings
• Database of qualified candidates
• Frequent reporting and/or phone calls to review recruiting progress and transparency
Another critical factor to successfully filling the company’s positions is that your recruiting partner must have access to your hiring managers and the hiring managers must be responsive.
Bill Gates of Microsoft shared this: “Our success has really been based on partnerships from the beginning”.
Wishing you much success as you find a great partner and grow the company!
For questions or comments, please contact Streamline at KLong@StreamlineGovCon.com or 240-644-5314. We welcome your feedback including other topics of interest.
This blog is for informational purposes only. None of the content is, or will be deemed to constitute legal opinions or legal advice.