The sourcing and screening of recruiting prospects topped a list of staffing provider’s tasks that could benefit most from automation or outsourcing, according to research recently released by Staffing Industry Analysts.

“The perspective of rank-and-file staff on what could be automated or outsourced is enlightening and encouraging – there are a lot of potential efficiency gains yet to be had by staffing firms,” said Jon Osborne, SIA’s VP of strategic research and the author of the report.

Staffing firms’ internal staff respondents were asked, “Of the tasks that you routinely perform as part of your job, which would you most like to see automated or outsourced in order to liberate your time for more productive purposes?” The question was open-ended, so staff could suggest anything.

The top 12 most-commonly suggested tasks:

• Sourcing/screening recruiting prospects
• Editing/reformatting résumés
• Credentialing/references/background checks
• Financial reporting/invoicing/expenses
• Marketing/social media
• Candidate care/job notifications/interview scheduling
• Job posting/writing job descriptions
• Onboarding
• Organizing target lists of sales prospects
• Payroll/timesheets
• System integration/data processing
• General administrative

The full report includes sample quotes from internal staff detailing their thoughts on these suggestions. It is available to SIA corporate members online.

SIA’s 2019 North America Internal Staff Survey was conducted in late 2018 and reflects the opinions of 16,867 internal staff respondents from 228 staffing firms; 10,000 internal staff recommend tasks for automation and outsourcing.