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Streamlining Your Hiring Process for Success
With remote work looking to stay, the option of hiring virtual help is looking like a viable employment system where the pros outweigh the cons. Navigating through this relatively new recruiting process can lead you to two paths: hiring through an agency vs direct hiring.
Acquiring your fresh freelancers through a third-party entity generally makes injecting them into your organization a lot smoother and more stable, among its many other perks. They usually have added admin services that help you focus on the business side of things.
Scout for your new talent out on online job market listings like Upwork, Fiverr, or LinkedIn if you want to be more involved in the selection process. Direct hiring allows you to negotiate and communicate (as the word literally says) directly with the person you’re hiring.
Now comes the business of choosing the way to go. I’ll help out by outlining the benefits of both options so you can figure out how these puzzle pieces fit in the big picture of your business’ success.
Why hire through an agency?
There’s an ocean of stars that count the talent out in the internet-verse for freelancers. Which means there’s a pretty good mix of bright stars and the not-so-bright ones. Getting people to streamline the process and get you the top seeds can mean more efficient use of your time, energy, and resources.
Here are some of the ways hiring through an agency can benefit you:
A Pool of Top Talents
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A lot of divergent talents can be found tied to agencies that offer them better job security and employee benefits. If skill is high on your checklist of must-haves, then hiring through agencies that are in touch with masterful freelancers with niche abilities is a great way to ensure impactful results.
You’re also less likely to be left hanging if you’re partnered with agencies that have second-stringers ready to take on the mantle should there be a need for backup. No delays in production or targets even when your freelancer feels a little under the weather.
Access to Additional Resources
Whether you’re a startup business — running on inspiration and dreams — or a mid-scale business on the rise to the big leagues, having additional resources is always a plus.
Taking on too much on your plate? One of the benefits of outsourcing hiring to an agency is that they can take some of the burden off your shoulders by taking care of onboarding steps such as getting contracts written, signed, notarized, and filed.
Big projects might need more than one expert and in more than one field. Instead of hunting down each and every freelancer, agencies can marshal all the talent from their pool and get them to put out well-produced results. Since these people work in the same ecosystem, communication and work integration can be expected to help give them a leg up compared to a random mix.
Long-term Cost Saving
If you look at it at face value, hiring agencies will be comparatively a little pricier than hiring directly. However, if you dig deeper into the numbers, getting your new hires from VA or freelancing agencies cuts down on:
Recruiting Cost
Agencies, with their multiple functions, can consolidate it all in one expense. They can pick the gems in the rough, polish them before they get to you, conduct interviews, and do all the legwork. The icing on the cake is that you can also swerve the job board fees when you post listings.
Administrative Cost
They can also be your pseudo HR personnel, which is a valuable resource, especially for small businesses that just don't have the time and manpower to sort through employee disputes, payroll, or disciplinary actions for the occasional mavericks that break the rules.
Happy employees are productive employees! There’s a lot of study in different institutions that prove that if your people feel good about working for you, then they are more likely to generate impactful results.
Small things like monthly check-ins, providing a safe space to consult with their concerns, and offering support inspire the “team spirit” where happy employees flourish, which just about wraps up the pros of agency recruitment services.
Why hire direct freelancers?
If hands-on is more your thing, directly hiring your outsourced talent might be your best method of recruitment. This way, you have a better chance of sifting through and handpicking EXACTLY what you’re looking for. Whether it be a vibe that keeps to your branding or just managing your budget for a project, you are in control!
I listed down the pros of picking up direct freelancers:
Snappy Responses
The more people you have to pass the message on to, the more likely it is to get skewed. Speaking directly with a freelancer can cut down the possibility of misunderstanding or miscommunication.
Flex Options
There’s a lot more flexibility with freelancers in terms of schedules, deliverables, and other special requests you might have. Most outsourced talent can accommodate any time frames on any day. Since most freelance work is project-based, output parameters are also flexible. Would they be paid hourly? Per milestone in the project? All these details can be arranged.
Budget-friendly
Hiring solo is obviously going to be a lot cheaper than getting an agency because there’s less or no overhead cost. It’s cost-efficient for projects to be outsourced temporarily rather than hiring someone permanently and just have them hanging around.
Say you have a marketing campaign to promote your branding. It saves cost to get a graphic artist for this short-term project and cut the expense once it’s done or have the option to renew the contract for the next business need. Nevertheless, you have better control of the stream of expenses.
Niche Skillset
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Competition is fierce in the freelancing world, so it’s expected that independent talents have invested in specializing in a handful of skills that provide the highest quality of output. Niche talent plus years of experience under their belts are usually what separates exceptional talent from the run-of-the-mill freelancer.
How to choose between agencies and direct hires?
In the end, it all comes down to getting a virtual partnership that serves its purpose in upgrading productivity in your organization. Factoring in all the benefits of hiring through an agency vs the benefits of direct hiring, here’s how we can break it down as a checklist:
Partner up with a virtual assistant agency if:
Your project’s scale is on the bigger end.
You need multiple experts in the same or different fields.
You want to have more accountability for the end results.
You want to have backend services packaged with your new hires.
It’s a long-term project and would need stronger sustainability.
Get with a freelancer directly if:
Your deliverables are finite for short-term purposes.
You only require one field of expertise.
You want more hands-on involvement in the task.
You’re testing out an idea or a project.
You’re managing around a budget.
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As long as you’re on track to a better outcome in sales or just upscaling your day-to-day operations with an extra set of hands (and brains), there’s always a way to make it adapt to your enterprise.
Is your scale tipped more towards the advantages of using a staffing agency? SummerVA has an avenue of talents and resources at your service! Take the next step and click here to get you started!