Virtual Recruiters vs Staffing Agencies -- What’s The Difference
When running a business, you need to focus on driving growth. Having your internal HR team handle recruiting along with other key activities such as training your employees and handling payrolls isn’t quite feasible. Outsourcing your hiring needs is a much viable option so that you can focus on building your business and engaging your employees.
Of the several options available for outsourcing the hiring process, working with a virtual recruiter or a staffing agency are two great options. Depending on your needs, available resources and budget, you can choose to work with either of these two options. Let’s compare virtual recruiters vs staffing agencies
Who is a virtual recruiter?
A virtual recruiter is someone who shortlists the candidates and provide you with a list of the best candidates available for your organisation. Virtual recruiters understand your business needs, post advertisements and reach out to their networks, screen through resumes, conduct virtual interviews with the shortlisted candidates and narrow down the list of prospective candidates before sending them to you.
Their job is to quickly find the best candidates for your business. They aren’t involved in other recruitment activities. Most virtual recruiters are specialist in a specific field. Working with virtual recruiters is a cost-effective option, especially if you’re a startup or a small business. They find the right talent to quickly fill your critical vacancies. Most virtual recruiters have worked with staffing agencies and as a result, understand the ins and outs of the recruitment process quite well.
What is a staffing agency?
A staffing agency has several recruiters working for it, both virtually and permanently, to find the right talent for your business. Unlike virtual recruiters, staffing agencies are responsible for the entire hiring process. In addition to shortlisting the right talent for your business, they also handle other HR activities such as onboarding and salaries. They also have a long list of applicants ready to take the job at your organisation and start working.
Virtual recruiter’s vs Staffing agencies
Since they handle a good part of the hiring process, staffing agencies are more expensive. They are perfect for larger organisations that have quite a few vacancies to fill and their internal HR teams have way too much workload to manage recruitment by themselves.
But when it comes to smaller organisations, it’s better to work with virtual recruiters as they take care of the most time-consuming part of recruitment -- finding the right prospects for your business. This saves your precious time and resources, need not to mention costs.
Depending on your business requirements and working model, you can choose either a virtual recruiter or a staffing agency to fulfill your recruitment needs. Each option has its own set of advantages and disadvantages, which is why it’s crucial to understand the difference between them as well as your current business requirements before making a decision. Internal Manpower Resources can help you with both of them.