How Creative Can Solve Top Staffing Agency Challenges

Katy Cesarotti | Gallery Design Studio Editor + Copywriter

The staffing industry is experiencing a surge of growth: 79% of industry professionals believe revenues will increase in 2019. To keep up with the demand for high-quality candidates, staffing agencies need to efficiently grow their own team and talent pool, without sacrificing the client experience.

How can staffing firms successfully land clients and employees in an increasingly competitive field?

Top challenges for staffing companies

1. Sky-high client expectations.

Customers want placements filled in a matter of days. Demanding timelines can put a strain on your team’s budget and schedule as you race to recruit, onboard, and pay workers in the span of a week. Hiring delays can cost your clients money and limit opportunities for your firm.

When working with high-profile clients, every interaction matters. According to PwC, even when customers love a company, 59% will switch brands after several bad experiences, 17% after just one. Staffing firms need to identify and resolve frustrations in the search process to keep customers from leaving for another agency.

2. Identifying the best candidates.

For staffing agencies, your reputation depends on your candidates. When applicants pump up their resumes and exaggerate their backgrounds, you have to sort through materials and determine who will best represent your company.

Clients trust you to screen applicants and select the most promising fits for their organization—and staffing firms need great radar to determine great fit. Highly specialized roles require a unique combination of skills, experience, and willingness to relocate that necessarily limits the size of the talent pool.

3. Recruiting staffing professionals.

Staffing firms need to prepare their own employees for success from the outset: While 93% of companies agree onboarding is crucial to retention, only 29% of employees believe their onboarding process was successful a preparation. If your recruiters leave, they might take their talent network with them, and the firm loses access to the relationships they’ve invested in.

4. Referral pipeline

New customer acquisition is costly and time-consuming. It can be five to twenty-five times more expensive for staffing firms to land a new customer than to retain an existing one. Beyond repeat executive search deals, long-term customers are a crucial source of qualified prospects. For a dependable stable of talent, it’s often more effective to use referrals from your current partners instead of relying on new business initiatives. It takes time and effort to build a referral framework, but can give your staffing firm an extra edge: clients are two times more likely to choose a staffing firm with a stronger reputation over a cheaper firm.

5. Creeping back-office costs.

Staffing professionals are experts at multitasking: your team reaches out to new prospects, checks in on existing clients, and manages ongoing candidate searches. For a growing business already at capacity, tasks like timesheet management, payroll processing, and employee onboarding take up your time—which costs money. As staffing firms expand, they have to navigate ballooning project management costs while quickly fulfilling new and larger contracts.

How Compelling Creative Work Can Help Your Staffing Firm

1. Explain your process.

Visuals make complicated concepts easy to understand for potential partners and strategically focus their attention. Communicate clearly and concisely to your audience with explainer videos, process diagrams, and infographics.

In-person events and conferences are effective opportunities to build relationships with new clients. Leave a lasting impression with strategic collateral and effective promotion. Dedicated creative partners will be invested in your brand and your success: they should be willing to do the research to understand what separates you from other staffing agencies.

2. Set the stage with a clean website.

Strategic design can clearly showcase job requirements to ensure you’re attracting the most informed and qualified candidates. Give applicants the digital tools for success with a resources section and supporting articles on employer and jobseeker FAQs. With relevant content, like salary guides by industry, you can capture emails from potential clients by offering them something valuable in return.

With a Wordpress job feed integration for example, you can create a user friendly searchable feed of open positions which your team can maintain and update, with no technical background necessary.

3. Attract top talent.

Build your staffing firm with a robust social media presence that draws in the most qualified applicants. Compelling LinkedIn posts engage professionals on the job hunt and cement you as a leader in the field. Highlight recent high-profile placements, events, and industry articles. LinkedIn can also help you amplify your clients’ online presence, enhancing their experience with your brand.

Great employees are made, not found. Support your team with onboarding videos and engaging playbooks that swiftly bring new employees up to speed. On LinkedIn, your firm can connect with potential candidates who are still early in their careers, and slowly build your relationship with relevant creative content as they grow into potential roles.

4. Build relationships.

The fastest way to find new business is by leveraging existing clients. One recruitment doesn’t seal the deal on ongoing partnerships: continue to support and provide value to customers with continuous streams of content. Exclusive access to whitepapers, eBooks, and cutting-edge thought leadership assures customers that you’re on top of industry changes. Keep clients updated about new service offerings and relevant packages.

5. Extra admin support.

With a creative partner, you can add capabilities without adding overhead. Month-to-month plans give you the additional capacity you need, even if you don’t have enough work to support a full-time marketing person. Experienced creative partners provide dependable quality without the lengthy onboarding process a new employee might require. Outsource responsibilities to trustworthy creative partners who can serve as the point of contact with vendors, printers, and PR companies.

Web design project for Second Line Advisors

With strategic design, staffing firms can add fuel to their sustained growth. Creative collateral can measurably improve the digital experience of both your clients and your employees for long-lasting relationships.

Gain dependable support and innovative creative solutions that will simplify and delight the search process.  Contact us today.  

About Gallery Design Studio

We’re passionate about supporting B2B businesses with marketing and communication design. As ongoing partners, we help clients transform complex information into clean, engaging visual content. Relentlessly curious, we're inspired by experimentation and always striving to better serve our clients. 

Our services:

• Communication and Marketing Design
• Video & Animation
• Web & App design (UX/UI)
• Digital Customer Experience Design (DCX)

Get the creative support you deserve. Contact us today.  

About the Writer

Katy Cesarotti is a copywriter at Gallery Design Studio. Katy believes that, with clear and concise copy, innovators can spark emotion and drive action in their readers. She’s written for magazines, blogs and cutting-edge startups.