When it comes to contract staffing, the mechanics of getting a job order and finding a candidate are the same as making direct placements. What is different about contract staffing is that you must have a back-office to handle the legal, financial, and administrative issues. You have two options for a back-office: Outsourcing it or doing it in-house. Let’s examine the differences between the two methods.
Outsourcing: The Express Method
You can outsource the back-office tasks to a contract staffing back-office, which will become the legal W-2 employer of record for your contractors. A quality back-office should already be set up to employ all of your contractors, so you should be able to get started rather quickly.
If you select Top Echelon Contracting, there is no enrollment process for recruiters. As a result, you can literally go from a 100% direct hire recruiter to one that can also place contractors in a matter of hours, not months.
If you are interested in adding contract staffing to your business model and outsourcing your back-office, we recommend that you check out our Quick Start to Contract Staffing Video, which will show you just how quick and easy it is to get started.
In-House Back-Office: The Slow Boat
If you plan to run your own back-office, you should expect the ramp up process to take at least one to three months due to all the tasks you must complete to get set up to become the employer of record for your contractors, including:
- Getting a line of credit to fund your payrolls.
- Getting sufficient liability insurance as you will be required by most clients to show a valid certificate of insurance.
- Deciding how you are going to process payroll (in-house or outsource) and getting that set up.
- Registering to withhold state, city, and local income taxes in all the required jurisdictions and getting set up to do the required withholdings, deposits, and filings.
- Registering for unemployment, Workers’ Compensation, and disability insurance, if applicable, in each of the states in which you will have contractors.
- Setting up a method to provide contractors with paid leave/sick time if required in the states where you will have contractors.
- If you plan to offer insurance (which you may be required to do soon under Obamacare), you will need to find an insurance company that can provide coverage in each state where you will have contractors.
That is just a small sampling of all the tasks that must be completed before you can place contractors. You can get a more complete list by downloading our Free Checklist for Making Contract Placements Outside Your Home State. While this was tailored to recruiters who are already doing contracting and want to expand outside their home state, most of the steps also apply to direct-hire recruiters just adding contract staffing to their business models.
You can see even just from our small sampling above how time-consuming and complicated running your own back-office can be. So it’s up to you: do you want to take the express method or the slow boat to contract staffing?
I do not think that video resumes are the next geentroian of recruitment. Actually, if they do anything, they relinquish even more control from the candidate in successfully placing themselves in a position to get a job. You might ask why, let’s think about it:1. Video resumes release even more information that may or may not represent you correctly. This gives the screener (normally not the hiring manager) just more reasons to screen you from the process without ever being seen by the hiring authority.2. How well do you really present on camera. Not very many people are good actors, and even the best actors look and act nothing like when they are on screen. Why would you want a representation of yourself floating around that might not be flattering?3. What to say? Resumes are direct, simple, easy to read and should move the hiring manager to want to call you and schedule an in person meeting. Why meet you when they have seen your video. Maybe they do not like what you have on in the video, maybe they think the content you covered does not address your needs, maybe your communication style on video is much different than in person. All reasons to screen you out of the process.Bottom line nothing will ever be able to replace human interface and contact. Communication is more than 60% non-verbal and the best communicators act and re-act to their audience in a manner that makes everyone feel comfortable. Taping yourself in a general video and sending it out is as effective as sending your demo out and expecting a casting agent to call you. And we all know how many people want to be actors and never make it. Do you want to bet your career on those kind of odds?
Thank you for your opinion.