4 Reasons Your Preferred Staffing Vendor List Is Hurting Your Company

Most recruiting & staffing vendor list is set up around costs. Most organizations are looking for a vendor list that will be cost-efficient.

The truth is – what matters is quality and speed.

Having a low-cost vendor that takes months to fill your role, it’s going to end up costing you even more. Because the average cost of an unfilled role in the United States is $500 a day.

So why is the vendor list hurting your company?

Your hiring managers don’t have enough control

In most cases for companies that still do in-house recruitment, managers have to figure out what the jobs require. And once the budget is approved and the job is live, the process moves to the wild wild west. Nothing happens, especially for tech roles. Roles practically stay open for months, and no qualified talent comes through the door. This is when the position becomes open to the “staffing vendors” the organization has existing terms with.

What is going wrong?

How do you deal with that?

This comes back to a very interesting issue that we talked about last time. Hiring managers need to have control. They need to have more wiggle room and flexibility with working with their outside vendor’s list or bringing new ones on.

If a manager wants to work with a vendor and then passes them off to someone in HR, and that person’s canned response is –  “Oh, we’re not adding anyone to the list right now”. It doesn’t serve the manager who spent the time trying to fill the role and find the right person.

But the thing is – that it’s not the same department where the role is open and productivity is hurt and money being lost.

So what ends up happening is – one department is only concerned about how they can get a vendor list at the lowest cost. While the department that has an open role is suffering the consequences, and the opposite is happening. The role is open too long, costing too much money.

But here’s the deal.

Three things that people look for when hiring top tech talent.

They’re looking for quality. They’re looking for cost. And they’re looking for speed.

Most vendor lists are set up because of costs.

They’re looking for vendors that are going to provide them the best cost.

When in actuality, what matters is quality and speed.

Because if you have a vendor that’s a really low cost, and they take months to fill your role, it’s going to end up costing you more. 

Your staffing vendor list is closed

Of course, you need a vendor list. You need somewhere to track the vendors that you’re working with.

Making sure that you’re compliant. There’s a lot of admin work that goes into that. 

Your staffing vendor list starts hurting the organization when you get “married” to it. It starts hurting you when you don’t adapt. 

Having a vendor list that is gated and stays the same for decades, and having a list that can adapt to your needs are two very different things.

It takes too long to adapt to new staffing vendors

So what if your list is closed and one of your vendors is not performing well enough, you’re not taking them off?

Of course, you will have to adjust. 

So why can’t you bring someone else on? When was the last time somebody actually went and checked the vendor list?

I don’t even know if anybody knows where the list is.

Where is this list that they’re talking about?

Can I see the list?

Does it look like a shopping list?

All jokes aside, your staffing vendor list should not be something that you can’t change. And it should not take months to bring in new vendors in case you need a quick switch up.

You Rely On ‘Brand” To Attract Talent – So You Never Update The Vendor List

To companies that have big brands out there and big names that say, “You know- the brand will take care of the quality, we just need recruiters to take out their speed”.

I think that’s a cop-out.

The brand isn’t going to take care of the quality.

People don’t just want to work for your company because of the brand.

They want to work at the company because of what they will get to do there. They look for challenge and growth. 

People that are valuable, know what they’re worth.

So your brand isn’t going to get people to take less than they’re worth.

When you get “married” to your staffing vendor

So this is what I would say. If you have a vendor list, fine. But be fluid.

If you see something that can add you more value, get it.

I feel like a lot of companies look at it as a “marriage” to their vendors.

They’re like, “Oh, I don’t want to cheat on my vendor”.

But it’s not like that. There needs to be a mindset shift.

And what we need to start doing is we need to stop thinking about this as a closed vendor list.

And start being like, “How can we be super agile that when we see a new vendor that can provide us tremendous value, we can very quickly integrate them into our ecosystem?”.

That needs to be the new mindset shift.

What about all the opportunities companies miss out on?

Or the talent they miss out on because they’re so married to their vendor lists?

You Miss Out On Potential Talent

Companies are missing out on a lot of good talent. We see this happen all the time. The hiring manager loves the tech candidate but is not “allowed” to work with outside vendors. Thus missing out on top talent that could bring tremendous revenue. 

And a lot of them think, “Oh, any recruiter can find me this type of talent. Why do I have to choose you?”

I like to think of it as getting hungry. You can look at it two ways, one is sure – anything can satisfy my hunger.

Of course, you can go eat at McDonald’s if you want to.

But is that going to nourish you?

That’s the question.

Align yourself with an expert!