Why Do So Many Staffing Firms Go Out Of Their Way To Avoid Becoming A Supplier to MSP & VMS Programs?
The recruitment function and operations of a staffing firm is affected and governed largely by the ability of the sales team to obtain all the information needed for the recruiting team to intelligently recruit top professionals.
For the recruiting team to effectively accomplish their goals, they need to be able to intelligently convey to candidates they recruit what the ideal candidate total experiences and qualifications are coupled with what skills are required for each position. This is often a mystery.
Below are three common reasons why staffing firms are avoiding becoming a MSP or VMS provider:
INEFFECTIVE MANAGING
When the account manager is unable to develop a professional relationship with their client’s corporate hiring manager, who is ultimately the client’s decision maker, the staffing suppliers:
- Waste recruiting cycles
- Increase the cost-of-doing-business
- Loosely manage interviewing processes
- Create poorly written job descriptions
- Create internal issues
Many of the recruiting factors the staffing suppliers servicing an MSP / VMS program can control when provided with an accurate job description the first time are the quality of candidates recruited, reduced cost-per-hire that flows to the MSP, and increased speed-to-market. This is accomplished through the adoption of a streamlined recruiting and delivery organization that has been tailored to service MSP / VMS solutions.
Through implementation of standardized workflow processes designed to streamline and create efficiencies to expedite the time it takes to identify and recruit the first candidate(s) being submitted for consideration by the customer from when the job order was issued and decreasing time wasters that typically are caused by the lack of consideration by the VMO usually results in increased recruiting cycles that are distractions and costly in terms of people designated to support these programs at the staffing firm.
The ROI and aggravation caused by poorly managed and administered MSP / VMS programs take a toll on the staffing suppliers and their teams. It is one thing to say this is business and how the programs are ran, but in any other industry where time-sensitive and real-time manufacturing is required (much like recruiting for each customers unique open job requirements) these poorly managed processes would not be tolerated. For some reason programs that are not in the best interest of the hiring managers and the business solutions they need to solve through technologists with the right skills has become the norm vice the exception.
Understanding the reasons for the open job and what the ideal candidate(s) that the hiring managers would potentially be interested in is directly impacted by the quality of information contained in the job description released to the staffing firm suppliers. Often this reflects or seems as though the MSP / VMS are not interested in whether the staffing suppliers succeed or not and better yet are their partners whose primary goal is to satisfy the corporate hiring managers workforce pains.
FEEDBACK
When the recruiter and sales person are unable to obtain any feedback in todays MSP / VMS talent solutions through the Chinese wall that they have erected between themselves, the hiring managers, and the suppliers drives down supplier satisfaction and interest amongst top tier staffing firms in servicing these programs. Feedback on candidate submittals and interviews are a luxury that rarely occurs. Leaving the staffing firm and candidates they have recruited in a state of limbo or better referred to, as the black hole is the standard modusoperandi.
Staffing firms and hiring managers have become the pawns in the era of contingent workforce solution MSP / VMS procurement. These programs are an attempt and have achieved the goals initially set out by corporation Human Resources and Procurement professionals reduce expense associated with human capital and place contingent workforce labor into the same category as purchasing paper, pens, and water for its employees. This MSP / VMS business model on paper addresses the largest component of any large corporations spend associated with services. However, it does not, ensure for candidate quality or their experience as an applicant through the programmatic and systematic approach now applied to purchasing highly trained and skilled professional human beings!
I get that the MSP / VMS solutions are about compliance, mitigating risk, reigning in renegade hiring manager spend, maximizing supplier lists, consolidating invoicing, etc., but, these systems should not replace the need for an intelligent process and the people administering how these programs should be managed.
COST
The need to streamline the recruitment process and the automation of how corporations managed their internal FTE and contingent workforce requires that the human factor not be lost at the expense of cutting costs. When theMSP /VMS solution works well and both, suppliers and hiring managers are engaged and happy with the results they are a pleasure. What staffing firm wouldnt want to recruit on open job orders that are 100% authorized and financially approved versus working with a hiring manager who supposedly has an open job they are allowed to hire?
All too often when the MSP / VMS programs are not working in the best interest of the hiring managers and staffing suppliers the quickest and easiest way around the program is for the hiring managers to create a statement-of-work (SOWs) project deliverable instead of what was really or should be a time and materials contract assignment. The path of least resistance will always be the easiest and least painful way to accomplish the work they must accomplish.
Focusing on these components for better MSP / VMS programs will make all the difference in how your staffing firm delivers!
