It doesn’t matter whether you’re a large company or a small one, at some point you’re going to need extra help and you’re going to have to decide the best route to find your new employees.

The traditional route is to advertise and see what candidates apply. You can then spend hours sifting through the applications in order to find the one that suits your business best. The final hurdle is after hiring them and hoping that they are as good as you think they will be.

It’s a complicated and costly process if you get it wrong you’ve got to start all over again which will cost you more financially and invaluable time.

That’s why many companies are now turning to specialist skilled labor hire firms. But, are they a better option?

The Benefits of Skilled Labor Hire

When you use one of these firms you’re skipping the process of advertising and dealing with all the applicants. Instead, you get the candidates that the hiring company feels fit your needs. If the company is good they should be able to identify your needs very accurately.

  • Cost & Time Saving

This is one of the biggest benefits, instead of spending hours reviewing applications and interviewing people, you’ll be sent just the ones that have the potential to do the job properly.

This will dramatically reduce the amount of time you spend looking for new employees, that time saved will translate into cost savings.

  • Access to A Wide Range Of People

A good labor hire company will be actively searching the market to attract the very best candidates currently available. They may even stay in touch with previous candidates to see if they could be interested in a different position.

In effect, you’re likely to find that the candidates you have access to are higher quality than you may get from a conventional advertisement.

  • Flexibility

Most labor hire firms will allow you to have a new employee on a trail run and, if it doesn’t work out, simply replace the employee for no extra charge. This is a much more flexible approach than hiring directly yourself.

You can even use the labor hire firm to provide you with short-term extra help, such as seasonal workers.

Because they are already trained they can start working straight away and be a real benefit to your firm.

Disadvantages of Skilled Labor Hire

There are always a few negatives to be aware of.

  • Scope of Candidates

If you’re using a skilled labor hire firm you’ll be tapping into the resources they have. While they may have some great candidates on their books, there is no guarantee that they’ll have all the available candidates. They can only have the ones that have chosen to sign up with them, anyone not actively looking for a job or not registered with the agency can be overlooked.

Using a labor hire company doesn’t mean you’ll get the perfect employee every time. But, the increased flexibility and time saving makes it a worthwhile option to try.

By Eddy

Eddy is the editorial columnist in Business Fundas, and oversees partner relationships. He posts articles of partners on various topics related to strategy, marketing, supply chain, technology management, social media, e-business, finance, economics and operations management. The articles posted are copyrighted under a Creative Commons unported license 4.0. To contact him, please direct your emails to [email protected].