How Agencies Can Help You Avoid IT Staffing Problems

The evolution of technology has opened up the need for highly educated employees. These new roles are becoming more and more specialized as new technologies are getting introduced into the workplace.

As a result, finding IT employees is a challenge in itself as you cannot rely on one employee to handle all IT tasks. Let us also remind you that highly specialized IT workers aren’t exactly easy to come by.

So what’s the solution? How can an average business find the best candidates to fill specific IT roles?

Simple - with IT staffing!

IT Staffing Explained

The process of tracking down and hiring highly specialized IT workers has aptly been named IT staffing. Regardless of whether you need an employee to complete a certain project, work full-time or just complete certain tasks, you can connect with the right people through this process.

Typically, you can accomplish this by working with an IT staffing service agency.

Why Use An Agency?

Why work with an outsider to connect you with employees instead of relying on your HR staff? 

It harkens back to what we said in the beginning - IT roles are becoming more complex and specialized. It’s only logical that recruiting should follow suit. At the moment, there are multiple specialized areas and tiny little subgroups such as cybersecurity, software development, and data management specialists, to name a few. 

It’s not enough to hire just an ‘’IT person” these days’. 

You can easily address these challenges by leveraging agency services. In fact, the entire IT recruitment process is there to help your business unlock the following benefits:

1. Gain Access To Industry Experience

We’re not criticizing your HR department - they’re most likely well-equipped to find the right people for your business. Information technology is a different beast though, and your average ‘’Toby’’ probably doesn’t possess the necessary knowledge to find the skills required to fill IT openings for different industries. 

IT staffing agencies, on the other hand, do.

Not only that, they already have access to a large pool of IT professionals around the nation so they can connect you with exactly the right skillset that you need. After all, they are also experts at hiring, so they know what it takes to reach others.

2. Save Time And Money

An agency allows you to avoid the painfully slow onboarding process that usually happens when hiring someone on your own. They’ll take over all the challenging and time-consuming parts of the employment process such as background checks, scheduling, and drug screening.

Because you’re also getting top IT talent introduced into your ranks, this new employee will probably be productive from the very beginning. That means less downtime and money saved. 

But what’s the most exciting part? 

Staffing agencies usually handle benefits and the payroll of the new employee, so you and your HR guy or gal won’t have to worry about it.

3. Improve Your Flexibility

When hiring through an agency, their talent pool is always at your disposal. What does it mean for you? 

You will be able to increase or decrease the number of projects whenever you see fit. For example, this helps you if an urgent IT project materializes or you’re severely understaffed during certain periods.

4. Find The Perfect Employee

An agency allows you to test-drive the employee before you settle for a full-time commitment. Look at it as a short-term relationship. By hiring temporary IT employees, you can appraise their performance without feeling pressured to offer them a permanent position. 

For instance, you may evaluate how they adapt to their new work environment, and more importantly, how they gel with the other members of your organization.

What Should You Do Before Hiring Someone?

While an IT staffing agency will find a perfect employee for your company, this doesn’t mean you can just kick back and relax. The success of your new IT recruitment process depends on your needs and how your company is organized. 

That means you’ll have to identify the objectives and needs of your company. List all potential projects you want to pursue and figure out the skills required to complete the project. 

Once you’ve got all that figured out, you need to determine the strong and weak areas of your current team. Simply ask your IT employees to assess their current skill level. This will provide valuable insight into what role your new employee might fill. 

That way, you’ll avoid the risk of wasting resources on someone new if it’s more viable to train an existing employee.

The right IT staffing process starts with finding skill gaps that a new IT employee will help you fill. Since you’ve now got a better understanding of the skill level of your current team, you can cross-reference the skills of your team with the list of your goals and needs.

For example, you might learn you need someone who has deep knowledge of cloud engineering. You can then evaluate if any of your employees can actually learn this skill, or if you’ll have to contact an IT staffing agency.

However, you may have to (if you haven’t already) change your stance on remote workers. Even with an IT staffing agency, you may learn that there is simply no one available in your geographical area who has the required skills to meet your needs. 

You shouldn’t be closed off to this possibility, as the right approach could be to supplement your existing IT team with a remote worker. By expanding your search to a wider area, you’ve got a bigger pool of talent to choose from. 

For instance, if you’re based in Fort Lauderdale and you find a perfect employee in Ontario, why miss out on the opportunity?

Limitless Possibilities

Most businesses today are under pressure to catch up to their competition and stay relevant at this time when job requirements are getting more and more complex. The problem is that there is currently a worker shortage, especially in the IT sector.

Without proper hiring practices, you may simply settle for someone who can’t bring value to the company and who may end up being a bad hire.

By taking the complicated recruitment process out of the equation, you can focus on your core business processes without having to worry about limited IT talent pools and such. You can rest easy knowing that your business will stay relevant and up-to-date, without making any compromises.