More and more mobile applications – which have sometimes aggressive sales arguments – are competing with temporary employment agencies. Are those staffing agencies outdated? Much more than a simple matchmaker, the staff of recruitment agencies act as specialists and still have serious assets to play.
“Increase your income”; “No commitment, no constraint”; “When you want and how you want”: the mobile staffing applications have been making a breakthrough in the world of temporary employment in recent months. Optimized to work on smartphones, these platforms offer to “connect” employers and employees in the manner of dating applications. Can we, however, reduce the temporary placement to a simple question of a perfect match?
Are recruiting apps a simple or simplistic solution?
Dynamic design, powerful messages, trendy visuals: from the outset, the websites of these applications set the tone and present the product as a modern and easy-to-use tool. “Innovation” and “simplicity” thus seem to be the guidelines for the communication of these new players in the temporary staffing market.
However, there are still many questions. Cost for the employer, management of job applications, even legal notices: the answers are not always explicit and the apparent desire to simplify the message sent to users as much as possible tends to make it too simplistic at times.
However, it is not about throwing the baby out with the bath water. Indeed, using a mobile staffing app for a business can have its share of advantages. Ultimately, the choice responds to a need – that of calling on a temporary workforce – as much as its context: is it an emergency? Is it a recurring replacement? What is the nature of the work to be done? It can therefore be useful for the customer to ask the right questions upstream.
5 questions to ask yourself before using a mobile staffing app:
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Let us not forget the human aspect in human resources management.
Historical players in temporary and permanent recruitment, staffing agencies are thus challenged by these new players, one of the main lines of communication being to present themselves as a direct and modern alternative to the physical agencies.
Yet the expertise of staff working in staffing agencies is an essential element of the surge observed since the end of the 20th century in activities related to the placement of temporary staff. In fact, a good agency knows its clients as much as its candidates, and takes data into account, when distributing, that will not always be calculated by artificial intelligence.
Moreover, while it may be tempting to reduce the definition of a replacement to a notion of urgency, as applications do, the related skills of the candidate should also be considered. It is therefore not the one who “clicks” the fastest on an assignment offer who will necessarily be the best able to succeed. In this sense, the training and expertise of candidates are more likely to be valued and validated within an agency, especially when the latter is specialized in a sector of activity.
Adopting Technology at the service of agencies.
In addition, employment agencies have the advantage of having a large pool of candidates. This one is mastered by the agency staff, who know its strengths and advantages. This makes the staffing agency an essential resource when the time comes to fill a replacement requiring special skills and qualifications. For example, using temporary staffing software like PrimLogix to find the perfect match between client demands and candidate skills is a definite plus. This makes the staffing agency an essential resource when the time comes to fill a replacement requiring special skills and qualifications.
Finally, the staffing agency is a full partner in the recruitment process. As an intermediary who has a vested interest in ensuring that both parties are satisfied, a good agency knows how to listen to feedback, whether positive or negative. This possibility of “customer service” must also be considered in the choice of the medium used to find a replacement.
Far from being old-fashioned or outdated, employment agencies therefore remain essential.
However, should these two solutions be put back to back when the time comes to find a replacement? Not necessarily. On the temporary staff placement market, cohabitation is certainly possible. It is therefore up to the customer to choose the platform used, by assessing the need and questioning the available resources.
In the same way that we will prefer to refer to a specialist for a particular purchase and browse the online classifieds for another type of research, the choice to use a staffing agency rather than a mobile application is not just an ideological posture. Thus, it is possible for everyone to shop for their winter tires from home, on a private sales site. But when the time comes to change cars, the person who wants advice, services and guarantees will go to the dealership to purchase their vehicle.
Staffing agencies, increasingly in competition with other players, retain strengths which make them essential when the replacement concerned requires specific qualifications, experience, or profile. Is cohabitation between agencies and recruitment platforms possible? Yes, I believe so. The future will show us how this will pay off for everyone.
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