How to Stand Out in the Staffing Industry

In a world where everyone is trying to fit in, it’s important to stand out. This is easier said than done when it comes to differentiating your staffing company, with 25,000 companies in the US alone and the industry continuing to grow at a rapid pace, you might be lost in the crowd. 

While competition is fierce and the labor market is complex, your strategy can be clear. If you employ the right mindset, tools, and data, you will be on track to secure a competitive advantage. Actively engage in these five strategies and you’ll stay ahead of the pack:

1. Know the landscape 

2. Leverage technology

3. Value your people

4. Guard your time

5. Be all in

Know the landscape

If you aren’t aware of what’s happening, you won’t be able to plan accordingly. In every industry, but especially the staffing industry, you thrive only if you fully understand what’s going on in the world around you. Trends we’re seeing today include record but constantly shifting demand with an extreme talent shortage, virtual work acceleration, wage inflation, the list goes on. Subscribing to resources like the American Staffing Association (ASA), Staffing Industry Analysts (SIA), and the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) will enable you to stay on top of the news and adjust your strategies accordingly. Staffing Analyst provides the most complete labor market data available, allowing you to identify talent pools, find the next place to open a new office or add a new vertical, anticipate labor market trends, and help customers offer competitive wages. By having access to the whole picture, you can advise your clients with confidence and become the trusted authority on the labor market. 

Leverage technology

Why does a tech stack matter? If you don’t have the right tools to streamline your processes, communicate with internal and external stakeholders, and ultimately increase your ROI, you’ll just be trying to stay afloat while the competition passes you by. Utilizing software like Bullhorn, a solution leader in the staffing industry, will enable you to connect your recruitment process from start to finish. Your team needs to spend their time with clients, candidates, and customers, not completing busywork and manual tasks. Through investing in the right technology to automate and accelerate your processes, your team will be equipped to reach its full potential.  

Value your people

People are your most valuable resource: without them, you don’t have a business. In today’s tight labor market with millions more job openings than available workers, employers must actively seek to recruit and retain the talent they do have. By acknowledging that people are assets to be invested in and acting on this reality, staffing organizations can be better equipped to ride the tide of the current labor shortage. Aligning values, career progression, and skill development within your organization is a great way of accomplishing this, and so is encouraging these actions externally with clients and candidates. When you build trust through expertise and take an advisory role with clients, they will feel valued and you’ll earn even more of their business.  

Guard your time

Time is precious: yours, your clients’, and your candidates’. In order to make the most of your resources and people, don’t say yes to a job unless you really mean it. Using SmartReq, you can evaluate whether or not a req is fillable and if not, you’ll be equipped with the answers for your clients as to why and be able to advise on the conditions that will make it successful. To keep pace in staffing, you need to get people to work quickly, using as few of your people as possible, and have those placements succeed. By understanding market complexities through actionable and concise data, you can reduce time to fill and increase your profit per placement.

Be all in

Finally, differentiating yourself as a staffing company calls for an all-in attitude. Investing in these strategies—understanding the landscape, leveraging technology, valuing people, and using your time selectively—represent your commitment to becoming experts in this profession. Owning it requires you to have a broad knowledge of staffing strategies but a focused knowledge of your chosen industries and functions. 

The more you can dial in as the expert for your clients, the greater your returns will be. As a consultative partner, it’s not about having the most intelligence, it’s about having the right intelligence.