January/February 2015

The difference between outsourcing and outplacement.  Often, when trying to explain "outplacement" to someone outside the human resources profession, the first question I am asked is, "Do you mean outsourcing?"

There are many subjective sales techniques professionals use to make themselves successful. The two types I hear about the most regarding staffing are relationship versus transactional selling.

In the face of talent short-ages, there's been talk of how to leverage the many connections between job seeking, careers and education to increase supply of skilled workers and attract and engage qualified candidates. Now, a company in Rhode Island is making that happen with the introduction of careersteads mobile apps.

The staffing industry left 2014 with a strong tailwind. An improving economy bolstered growth, and temporary help services jobs set record highs as a percent of total US employment. But what trends will affect staffing in 2015?

Your firm and its services are a commodity, like it or not. The wide availability of numerous staffing and recruitment vendors, the fact that no single entity owns the product, and the fixation on price by both customers and staffing companies that choose to compete on markup all drive the reality our industry remains a commoditized business.

Although 36% of employers plan to add full-time staff and 46% plan to hire temps and contractors this year, staffing industry recruiters will need superior skills and substantial experience to ring the register.

Given our role in the midst of the staffing ecosystem, we at Staffing Industry Analysts have a pretty good idea of both the wisdom of the crowd and the persistent misconceptions about staffing for that same crowd.

Staffing firms help grads get work experience, but need to improve service