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Anyone who has anything to do with the job market, job placement, staffing, or recruiting likely understands that the volatility of today’s staffing and recruiting marketplace often presents as being no less than utterly terrifying.
In fact, the business landscape in general is in a state of pretty significant flux.
To put it quite bluntly, there are some wild things going on in the job market right now.
Tech and human convergence and A.I. driven technologies, for example, are playing a larger role in business than ever before.
And with the great resignation (and the factors leading up to it) forever looming closely in the rearview mirror (or perhaps even still nipping at our heels), freelancing and gig economies have continued their gradual ascending ‘boom.’
With inflation on the rise, and with the economic landscape in a state of uncertainty due to speculation surrounding that always dreaded word ‘recession’—there’s no secret about the fact that a lot of people are wondering what to do about some of the larger employment problems facing businesses and companies.
Companies need employees to grow and thrive—and people need employment (or some other form of income) to pay their bills and live a sustainable life.
However, in our current economic climate, the symbiosis of these two things has been knocked out of balance.
And for many businesses within many different industries, staffing and recruiting agencies hold an alluring key to success and potential solutions to the problem.
So with that being said, why is it that so many staffing and recruiting agencies are also feeling the squeeze?
If you own or manage a staffing or recruiting firm—and if lately, you’ve found yourself wondering:
“Why does this market feel so difficult, especially right now?”
Then rest assured that you’re not the only one.
Staffing and recruiting agencies are going to face their own set of difficulties in this challenging market.
The good news is that there’s a massive potential for scaling and revenue growth within your industry right now.
The bad news is that the vast majority of agencies that are struggling are going to continue struggling due to an inability to understand how to solve the problems while staying ahead of the game in terms of scaling growth and revenue.
And this is where bringing on a staffing agency consultant could mean the difference between scaling your business to a higher level of revenue during this challenging time—or continuing to struggle against what feels like an unstoppable current of economic change.
As a scaling business coach with very specific and thorough experience in the staffing and recruiting industry, who’s also often hired by firms as a staffing agency consultant, I’ve learned what does and doesn’t work for agencies in the modern business landscape.
If you’re considering hiring a staffing agency consultant to help your firm grow, it’s important to know exactly what to look for.
And in this guide, that’s what I’m going to help you understand.
What Is A Staffing Agency Consultant?
A staffing agency consultant is a professional business consultant or coach who knows the staffing and recruiting industry inside and out—who also knows how to build and scale sustainable, successful staffing and recruiting firms.
The main difference between a consultant and a coach is that consultants tend to only work with companies on the strategy side of things—while coaches cover strategy and the hands-on deployment of solutions.
Coaches are basically consultants who also get into the trenches to help you figure out what’s going wrong with your business—and they can assist in solving a range of more complex and unique issues.
To learn more about how to grow a staffing agency, read this guide: How To Start And Grow A Staffing Agency The Right Way In 12 Steps.
What’s The Difference Between A Staffing Agency And A Recruiting Agency?
A staffing agency tends to place people on a temporary or contract basis, while a recruiting agency tends to place permanent direct-hire staff at a client location.
Some people get these terms mixed up. But for the purposes of this guide, the most important thing to understand is that a staffing agency consultant will be able to help both types of businesses.
Generally speaking—someone who has successfully grown and scaled one of these types of businesses will likely be able to offer valuable coaching and insight into both of them—even though they differ from one another a little bit.
Why Would You Need To Look For A Staffing Agency Consultant?
Basically, if your staffing agency or recruiting agency isn’t scaling and/or succeeding at a sustainable rate of growth, you may need to bring an experienced staffing agency consultant/business coach into the picture to help you figure out what’s going wrong, and how to fix it.
There’s a part of this that standard business coaching could help to solve.
But there’s also an element here where looking for someone with specific experience in this industry could make a crucial difference.
As a general rule, you want to find a staffing agency consultant who not only knows how to scale businesses successfully (with a proven track record of success), but who also specifically knows how to troubleshoot, scale, and grow a staffing agency or recruiting agency.
5 Things To Look For In A Staffing Agency Consultant
1. Staffing And Recruiting Industry Experience
It’s crucial to find a staffing agency consultant with actual experience in the staffing and recruiting industry.
Some business coaches will try to pass themselves off as ‘catch all’ experts without having any real verified experience in the industry—and that’s probably not the route you’ll want to take.
It’s always better to find someone who actually knows the industry.
For example—I know, from my own experience as a staffing agency consultant, that my years spent in this industry at the leadership level gave me a specific ‘edge’ that I wouldn’t have had otherwise.
And honestly—when you’re paying for a consultant, that ‘edge’ is important.
2. Business Coach/Consulting Experience
It’s also important that you only hire a business coach and/or consultant if they have actual, real, verified experience as a coach.
Sometimes, the business coaching world can be a little bit ‘sketchy.’
But you can avoid this by properly vetting your options before making your choice and paying for the services.
For example—the fact that I’m a certified business coach and CPA, coupled with the credibility that comes from my podcast, helps my clients to understand that they can trust me before they ever hire me—and that’s important.
As a business owner or founder, you really can’t afford to dole out money for coaching that isn’t going to help you move the needle. Or worse—for coaching that’ll actually lead you even further off track.
Coaching can be a fundamental ingredient to successi. You just want to make sure to hire the right person.
3. A Proven Track Record Of Success
Whenever you’re thinking about hiring a staffing agency consultant, you should double-check their track record of success—not just in their own business endeavors, but also in their coaching results.
This is something that’s really important to my clients.
I know that my proven track record with growing, scaling, and selling businesses makes people a lot more comfortable—and gives them real faith that I’ll be able to help them.
Plus, a long list of positive client testimonials helps me to communicate to potential new clients:
“Hey, I get it. Hiring a coach can be a scary process. Here are some testimonials and referrals that you can use to vet me and check out work I’ve done in the past. The fact of the matter is that I want you to believe in this process—so I’m going to do everything I can to show you exactly what I can do for you.”
Business coaches who won’t offer you this kind of transparency could be trying to gain experience and new testimonials on your bankroll–and honestly, that’s the kind of thing you want to be careful about.
4. An Efficient, Systematic Process That Fixes Problems
One alarming trend that keeps popping up in the business coach space is the ‘business coach with no real plan or system to explain or show you.’
Generally speaking, the most experienced business coaches have spent enough time helping businesses that they’ve developed a cohesive and proven system/process for scaling and growth.
And these types of coaches (the experienced and successful ones) are also usually pretty good at helping you to understand their system coming right out of the gate.
For example, my Scale In 5 Method is literally the same process that I used to scale and grow a business to $25 million in annual revenue before selling it for multiple 8 figures.
After that exit, I really honed and refined the process to help other business owners and founders—and thus, that’s how my own efficient, systematic process for scaling businesses was born.
If you’d like to download my Roadmap to the Scale In 5 Method, to use as an example of what to look for when vetting potential staffing agency consultants for your own firm, you can visit my home page and grab it.
5. Undeniable Credibility Within The Industry
Credibility is important.
It empowers you to know that you’re not throwing away your hard-earned money on coaching or consulting that’s going to lead you astray.
So looking for signs of credibility is crucial.
Here are some things to look for if you want to find a staffing agency consultant you can actually trust:
- They’ve successfully helped other businesses in the industry
- They can provide you with real-life references
- They can show you legitimate positive customer reviews
- They have a respected presence in the industry and are at least somewhat well known
- You hear and see positive things being said about their services via word of mouth and the online community
In my own coaching practice, I constantly network with other industry professionals via my podcast.
This helps me to build credibility that’ll give potential future clients more peace of mind before they decide to work with me.
A legitimate thought leader in the staffing and recruiting domain will put real time, effort, and energy into the community.
They’ll be focused on the task of helping business owners in a positive way—so always look for these signs of credibility when making a decision about a particular consultant.
Is It Time For Your Staffing And Recruiting Firm To Hire A Consultant?
If you’ve decided that hiring a coach may be a positive step for your staffing or recruiting agency, then congratulations.
This is actually a great move that can truly help you to transform your understanding of how to scale your business successfully.
Of course, it can be a bit overwhelming at first.
But it’s important, and it matters. And I would encourage you to bite the bullet and get started now so that you can set your business up for even greater success later.
If you need some support with this, consider booking a free discovery call with me today.
This may be the exact step required to give you a fresh perspective, and to keep you accountable to the process while you put together a strategy that you can deploy right now to get the ball rolling.
