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    Recruiting Agencies Pros & Cons: Why Hired is Best for Tech Hiring

    You may have considered turning to recruiting agencies to fill tech and sales roles. Even when inbound candidates are plentiful, finding the right top talent is a challenge. However, are agencies the best way to find future team members with long-term tenure potential? In this blog post, we explore the pros and cons of using recruiting agencies, shedding light on the factors to help you bring the best tech and sales talent to your organization.
    Recruiting Agency Pros
    1. Access to an extensive network
    Recruiting agencies often have connections to a vast pool of professionals. On top of that, they proactively reach out to potential candidates – even those who are not actively seeking new opportunities. Instead of taking a shot in the dark, employers have the opportunity to leverage an agency’s existing database of people. The best agencies have developed industry connections and built relationships with qualified candidates.

    Hired candidates are engaged and actively looking. As a result, employers see response rates double or even triple, what they’re used to – often 60%+ compared to the 14% industry average. With access to a database of candidates in the millions, and tens of thousands active on the platform, Hired customers have more opportunities to connect with the right talent, right away.  

    2. Efficiency
    Most employers know finding and hiring the right candidate can be a time-consuming and resource-intensive process. Because recruiting agencies specialize in talent acquisition, you offload these responsibilities to focus on core business operations. With agencies handling screening, interviewing, and shortlisting, businesses reduce speed-to-hire.

    Spread thin? Add on Hired Sourcer for temporary or ongoing help sourcing, pre-screening, shortlisting, and managing communication with experienced candidates. Whether you’re without a dedicated recruiter or busy hiring managers need support, Hired Sourcer fills the gaps. (And it’s typically a fraction of the cost of hiring a contractor or agency!)

    3. Specialized knowledge
    While finding top tech and sales talent is hard, finding candidates with niche skills can be even harder. Tech recruiting agencies possess industry-specific knowledge and understand the nuances of the tech landscape. Their expertise in niche areas helps them identify candidates with the right skill sets, ensuring you find the candidate that checks off the list of requirements.

    Bundle Hired Assessments into your Hired solution to standardize tech skills assessments and free up your teams from live proctoring. Some candidates proactively take them to earn badges for their profiles. Save time when you use our filters to find talent who’ve proactively verified their skills with these technical assessments. By leaping ahead to interviewing tech talent with proven skills, it’s easier to hire faster and reduce your cost of vacancy.

    4. Tech & sales hiring market insights
    Recruiting agencies stay abreast of market trends, salary ranges, and candidate expectations. This valuable knowledge can provide you with a competitive advantage, helping you craft attractive job offers and tailored recruitment strategies. Agencies also offer insights on market demand and supply, assisting you in aligning your talent acquisition plans with current industry dynamics.

    Dedicated support from our Customer Success Managers works in collaboration with the Candidate Experience team to ensure you have a pulse on candidates in process. We are the leader in offering data and competitive insights to share with internal stakeholders at every step of your hiring funnel. Many customers highlight competitive insights as one of their favorite aspects of partnering with Hired for their tech and sales recruiting.

    5. Enhanced candidate experience
    Recruiting agencies have experience in managing the candidate journey from start to finish. They understand the importance of a positive candidate experience and ensure candidates are well-informed, engaged, and supported throughout the recruitment process. This professionalism reflects positively on your organization and helps to build a strong employer brand.

    Candidates on Hired benefit from a variety of resources, including workshops, AMAs, guides, a salary calculator, and a dedicated Candidate Experience Team to support them on their journey and provide insights 

    Recruiting Agency Cons 
    1. “They’re expensive”
    While recruiting agencies provide value, their services come at a cost. Most agencies charge a fee based on a percentage of the candidate’s annual salary. For startups and small companies with limited budgets, this expense may pose a financial challenge. It is essential to evaluate the cost-effectiveness of using an agency compared to the potential benefits they bring to your recruitment efforts.
    2. Lack of deep organizational knowledge
    Recruiting agencies operate externally to your organization and may have limited knowledge of your company’s culture, mission, and specific needs. This can sometimes result in candidates who might not be the best cultural fit or fully aligned with your organizational objectives. 
    3. Limited control over the recruitment process
    Outsourcing recruitment to an agency means relinquishing some control over the hiring process. While agencies work closely with you, the final decision-making authority rests with your organization. Some stakeholders might prefer to be more hands-on throughout the recruitment process, which may be a challenge when working with an external agency.
    4. Potential candidate pool overlap
    There is a possibility of overlap in candidate pools if multiple organizations engage the same agency for their recruitment needs. This can lead to competition among clients for the same talent, potentially diluting the exclusivity of your candidate search. 
    “We’ve used recruitment agencies in the past, but they’re pricey, they’re expensive,” says Logikcull’s Head of Talent Laura McDermott. “Sometimes agencies push somebody too hard who’s not actually a good fit. At Hired, there isn’t any of that.” Hired frees her from navigating the conflicts and external pressures that often come with recruiting agencies.
    Unlike commission-incentivized recruiting agency personnel, Hired’s Candidate Experience team is unbiased about whether talent accepts a role. They are purely there to offer support and resources, such as interview coaching, salary calculators, evaluate options, and more. 
    Why Hired is a better tech and sales hiring solution  
    Hired is not a recruiting agency, a job board, or a social network. It is a solution directly connecting employers to vetted talent with thousands of skills across 50+ tech and sales roles. 
    Organizations find in-demand tech candidates primarily in Software Engineering, DevOps, UX Design, Product Management, and Data Science. Employers needing sales candidates in Customer Success and revenue-based roles, such as Sales Management are also in luck. 
    Essentially, Hired offers easy access to the best talent along with everything employers need to know about them from salary requirements to work preferences. 
    “I think the best thing about using Hired is everything I need to know and would like to know as a recruiter from the offset, is almost always straight in front of me.”
    Joe Miller, Senior Recruitment Manager, RVU
    Hear from Joe about his experience with Hired and how it helped his tech recruiting productivity exponentially.
    What’s more, in Hired’s full suite employers get unbiased insights, DEI features for more diverse hiring, tech skill assessments, and dedicated Customer Success Managers to support teams as they fill open roles efficiently. 
    For lean teams within global enterprises or startups with a dedicated recruiter, Hired Sourcer comes to the rescue. Short or long-term, an experienced professional acts as an extension of your team to source, shortlist, and screen tech or sales candidates. They’re also great at maintaining consistent communication and keeping candidates engaged. 
    Considering Hired over a recruiting agency? 
    Companies switching from recruitment agencies to Hired often say their shift is driven by a lack of quality candidates with specific skills from agencies. Employers find they are more focused on speed over quality. On Hired, employers get both. In fact, companies have immediate access to candidates they need and save 45 hours of sourcing time per hire. 
    Hired also specializes in matching experienced talent with employers they likely won’t see in the pipeline – even with an agency as the middleman. Typically, top senior-level engineers are not thrilled to work with agency recruiters due to constant badgering. Hired yields higher response rates and engagement from candidates – the platform has an 85% candidate response rate to all interview requests.
    In addition to a vast pool of candidates, talent is also responsive on Hired. Candidates typically respond within one business day and have a 50% interview request acceptance rate. Plus, Hired integrations mean you can directly connect with candidates to avoid doing twice the work of updating a third party.
    Speaking of saving time, agencies do not always understand your requirements. Hired specializes in identifying tech and sales talent across niches. Talent pros don’t have to waste precious hours reviewing resumes and conducting interviews unlikely to be a match. 
    Hired positions candidates for long-term success; increased retention
    Reflecting on her experience with Hired compared to recruitment agencies, Hired fulfills Logikcull’s interest in long-term employee success over making a placement McDermott adds, “We really pride ourselves on the tenure of a lot of our employees. Many have been here 10+ years… We’re recruiting people who are looking for a career and not just a job to come in and bank a paycheck. We want people who are looking to grow. We want people who really want to be able to make an impact.” 
    For companies looking for tech and sales candidates interested in a career over a job, try Hired. Candidates placed through Hired have an 18% longer tenure with employers than average.
    One financial services TA leader told us, “I think the challenge we had with a lot of third-party recruiters was the candidates they would present would frequently job hop. We look for long-term employees. I think the unfortunate reality of working with a lot of recruiters is their interests are not exactly aligned with ours because if their candidate stays for 0 days and then they place them somewhere else, they still get paid. 
    They tend to present candidates that churn every year. Beyond that, sometimes it’s been finding specific skill sets, especially on the technical side, developers who know specific languages, etc.”
    Cons often outweigh pros of recruiting agencies
    Remember, partnering with a recruiting agency is not a one-size-fits-all solution. Assess your specific requirements, weigh the pros and cons of recruiting agencies, and select the approach that aligns best with your organization’s goals and resources. 

    About Hired: 
    Hired is the most efficient way to fill tech and sales roles today. With unbiased insights, DEI tools, tech skill assessments, sourcing services, and dedicated Customer Success Managers, Hired works with companies around the world, placing more than 20,000 active and qualified candidates in new roles. Using better data, curated matches, and ways to reach new markets and talent with higher acceptance rates, employers save an average of 45 sourcing hours per role using Hired’s solutions suite. Backed by The Adecco Group, Hired is rated by G2 as a leader in Recruiting Automation, Job Search Sites, and Diversity Recruiting. More

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    How to Use Coding Challenge Events to Build Tech Talent Pipeline

    About this eBook

    Today’s recruiting and hiring teams face multiple challenges, from low brand recognition to the capacity to efficiently assess an influx of candidates. Use this eBook to discover how events, such as coding challenges, can help you build your pipeline, expand into new markets, progress on DEI goals, and free up your teams to focus on their biggest priorities.

    What You’ll Learn

    Common challenges for employers that events help solve

    How to promote and manage events

    Examples of virtual candidate events and coding challenges to reach goals More

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    6 Reasons You Think You Don’t Need Hired

    Or, Why It Could Be Your Best Recruiting and Hiring Solution

    We meet a lot of people who think they understand what Hired is, and what we do. Truth is, there are a few misconceptions out there. We’re not a recruiting agency, a job board, or a social network. We work for employers, connecting them directly to qualified candidates for tech and sales roles. We focus on talent most in demand by employers, which are generally Software Engineers, DevOps, UX Designers, Product Managers, and Data Scientists. For sales, it’s mostly Candidate Experience and revenue-based roles, such as Sales Managers. 

    It’s free for candidates to submit a profile and interview requests from employers. We also have a dedicated Candidate Experience team to support them. Using sophisticated AI and transparency into compensation expectations and preferences, we surface matching talent to employers, saving both parties loads of time. Despite this, we know hiring managers, recruiters, talent acquisition professionals, and C-Suite executives have questions – even objections.

    So, is Hired the right fit for you and your hiring needs? Let’s see. If we are, super! Let’s continue the conversation. If not, keep visiting and enjoying our content for recruiters, hiring managers, and talent leaders. Maybe we’ll connect down the road. Here are some common reasons you may think you’re not the right fit. 

    1. “We’re under a hiring freeze.”

    If you’re on a hiring freeze, it’s likely attrition is a risk for retaining talent. Recent data from LinkedIn shows the typical attrition rate for tech and sales talent is between 10-12%. This only rises in times of uncertainty. If retention is a concern for you, we can help in several ways. 

    Our research shows that highly-rated aspects of an ideal company culture and work environment for software developers include opportunities for professional development and career growth. We work with several partners, who help our customers upskill and develop their tech and sales teams.

    Hired offers the most efficient solution for sourcing talent when you need it. Plus, our Customer Success team is happy to work with you to improve your hiring processes through an interview guide revamp or company profile page review. Then, once the freeze lifts, you’re ready to go while your competitors are just warming up. 

    2. “We’re in the midst of layoffs.”

    We know that’s a tough experience for everyone involved, and we’d like to support you and your colleagues with free resources during this difficult time. 

    If, however, you want to reduce the cost of vacancy, and you need to backfill crucial roles, but outreach or recruitment marketing is discouraged during layoffs, we can help.

    Working with Hired to discreetly source and screen candidates for immediate roles or to nurture your pipeline avoids the optics of “spray and pray” LinkedIn outreach or job postings on your site. If your hiring managers and sourcers are stretched thin, Hired offers services to act as an extension of your team.

    For individuals seeking a new role, we offer free career resources, including a Jobseeker’s Guide to Bounce Back Better than Ever, which may be useful to share in your networks. 

    If you want to earn new certifications and skills, or even want to attend an immersive bootcamp, we have partners to help. If you’re on the platform, earn badges to broadcast your skills using Hired Assessments. Candidates with badges earn more interview requests. 

    Keep in mind, Hired also has hundreds of companies continuing to interview and extend job offers. They know some pretty amazing talent suddenly becomes available after layoffs and it’s a prime opportunity to connect and establish a relationship with them. 

    If you’re already on the platform and need assistance – reach out to our Candidate Experience team. They’re there to help you be successful!

    3. “We’re focused on other initiatives during the hiring slowdown, like Employer Branding.”

    We understand, and we’re happy to help with that too! We also offer employer branding services such as co-marketing or events to participate in that would allow you to maintain a brand profile while hiring is on pause. 

    Need to rethink your funnel or customize them for specific roles or regions? Our team is available to assist by auditing your messaging and processes before making thoughtful recommendations. 

    Let’s create more productive experiences for your hiring teams in the future and optimize the candidate experience. Now could be an excellent time to tackle some big rocks or strengthen areas deprioritized during hypergrowth modes. Reconsider policies, rethink requirements, and redraw maps of how you attract, hire, and retain employees. 

    Check out these related resources: 

    4. “We’re not a ‘tech company,’” or “We don’t have many tech roles to fill.”

    Are you sure? Your company may have an industry focus on healthcare, consumer goods, or agriculture, but you probably employ tech workers. You may have one, two, or 10, compared to the hundreds employed by global household names like Amazon or Google. 

    Regardless, the tech roles you have may be challenging to fill, especially if your turnover is low, (congrats on your retention!). If you have a lean tech team, odds are the company is pretty dependent on them and needs open roles filled as soon as possible. Whether it’s moving projects forward or ongoing support for the business or its customers, chances are you need a specific skill set and you need it fast. 

    We can empower your internal team to efficiently source the precise subroles you need. Frontend, backend, full stack engineers? We’ve got them. DevOps, data analysts? You bet. UX designers and product managers? We have a lot of them, too. 

    We have a vertically-deep pool of pre-qualified, responsive candidates for a simple pay-per-hire rate with a dedicated Customer Success team at less than the cost of recruiting agencies.

    Eliminate the waiting game and move faster. How? Our candidates’ profiles with salary expectations and wishlists plus our system’s robust filters provide better matches and enable you to personalize your interview requests. This helps you connect with candidates at a deeper level immediately and generates amazing response rates. 

    5. “Hired is too expensive,” or “It won’t work with our current hiring tools budget.”

    Passive sourcing can bury your inbox. But, the candidate pool slows you down because of outdated profiles or the search functions don’t deliver the candidates with the skills you need.  Lockdowns changed the way many people regarded work/life balance and what they wanted from their job or career. The Great Resignation, or Reshuffling, had tech workers flexing their power in a competitive market. 

    A survey of technologists in October of 2022 indicated 74% are actively looking for or open to a new role. Despite the layoffs that thundered through the second half of 2022, the unemployment rate for the tech industry fell to 1.5% in January from 1.8% a month earlier. The national rate fell from 3.5% to 3.4%, for comparison. 

    There is no slowdown in the number of tech professionals who are looking for new opportunities at other companies.  

    So, when you do have open roles, they are more critical than ever and the competition for top-tier candidates is intense. We provide the most efficient solution as our candidates are fully vetted for experience, skills, and salary requirements so we connect you with the people you need quickly. 

     Plans

    We offer various models including a subscription-based scenario with a predictable flat fee and unlimited hiring. This level offers beta access to new features, more compensation data, and premium customer support. Data shows customers often average 50% savings on cost per hire using this model.

    If flexibility is more important for now, go Pay Per Hire. You get access to the same tools and features for DEI to surface more underrepresented candidates and eliminate bias, as well as compensation transparency, completed assessment scores, and third-party integrations like an ATS. Depending on your needs, this allows you to get started quickly and further evaluate before making a commitment. 

    Whichever works best for you, ensure you and your team benefit from the highest value-add tools to meet hiring needs, achieve DEI goals, support your brands through volatility, and deliver the strongest ROI.

    We found a lot of companies could use assistance in working with decision-makers to get support for hiring and recruiting tools. We created this to help – Get Internal Approval for Recruiting Tools: A Step-by-Step Playbook.

    6. “We don’t need Hired – our inbound pipeline is flush with candidates.”

    Perhaps. But who are they? Are they qualified? Are they willing to work in a hybrid environment? What’s their visa eligibility? What’s their preferred working time zone? How much time will you spend screening and are they legitimately a good fit for the open role(s)? 

    Hired brings you the right talent, right away. It’s likely your team is expected to do more with fewer resources. Take advantage of the widest pool of the most active and curated talent on the market and enable them to source in the most efficient way possible. 

    Lean on Hired Assessments and candidate-earned skills badges to quickly filter and vet your full pipeline of candidates. Using this asynchronous tool frees up your team from in-person proctoring, creates a better experience for candidates, and empowers your team to assess a greater volume of candidates across multiple time zones.

    Need temporary or ongoing help to source, screen, and manage communications with candidates? Use Hired Sourcer to shortlist and coordinate the back and forth between candidates and hiring managers. It protects your employer brand by providing a better experience for candidates and allows hiring managers to focus on their daily priorities.

    Want a customized report of time and cost savings estimates? Check out our Savings Calculator. 

    Conclusion: Hiring the right people has never been more important.

    Let’s talk. Let’s explore how Hired can help you with more than quickly attracting and hiring qualified and experienced tech and sales talent. 

    We’re eager to understand your needs today and down the road, so we may support you and your goals. We are happy to show you a demo of the platform and connect you with team members to learn more about sourcing, events, tech assessment tools, and more.  More

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    How to Build a Sustainable Tech Talent Acquisition Strategy: A Comprehensive Guide

    About this eBook

    Do you know anyone who’s used “talent acquisition” and “recruiting” interchangeably? Maybe you’ve done it, yourself! While organizations are moving towards a more sustainable talent acquisition strategy, they often confuse talent acquisition with recruitment. This misunderstanding may hamper your process and disrupt progress.

    A sustainable talent acquisition strategy encourages you to maintain a balance between acquiring external and promoting internal talent. A lack of career advancement opportunities is one of the main reasons people quit their jobs. Sometimes, current employees even feel neglected when companies enter the hiring phase.

    Although hiring new talent is important, doing so at the cost of current employees is detrimental to organizational growth and morale. Moreover, if you delegate all resources and money towards recruitment, there’s none left to invest in and retain your employees.

    Hence, a sustainable strategy is a win for all – companies can divide time and resources between current employees and new hiring with proper planning and implementation. While recruiting is essential for gaining employees, it can become a time-intensive and expensive endeavor without a TA strategy.

    Amidst a dynamic labor market, many organizations are exploring talent acquisition avenues to prepare for hiring surges and talent management. To help, we created an eBook to demystify talent sustainability and help organizations incorporate it into talent acquisition strategy.

    What You’ll Learn

    What constitutes a sustainable talent acquisition strategy in both candidate and employer-driven markets

    Actionable steps to take on the daunting task of building a robust talent pipeline, including 5 questions to answer before making a plan

    Strategies to nurture and engage candidates in the talent pipeline

    A look into the future of tech talent acquisition

    Plus, Why Core Values are Important to Talent Acquisition Strategies

    By integrating your organization’s core values into your talent acquisition strategy, it strengthens your employer brand. This pays dividends in multiple areas including candidate and employee experience. If you need help in this area, we’ve also created resources for both startups and larger enterprise companies. More

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    8 Ways to Hire Faster & Build a Better Employer Brand

    What You’ll Learn

    How to fill positions more efficiently through tools, templates, and moreThe partnership making hires an average of 11 days fasterThe strategy that took an offer acceptance rate from 60% to 88%

    About this eBook, 8 Ways to Hire Faster & Build a Better Employer Brand

    In a panel discussion led by Hired CTO Dave Walters, talent leaders from Gem, Tanium, NBCUniversal, and One Medical shared their thoughts on trends and best practices for optimizing the candidate experience.

    They reviewed how to improve the hiring process by strengthening the experience and by extension, the employer brand. Now, we are covering eight of their strategies to consistently help their teams fill tech and sales jobs efficiently. Use them to take action with your recruiting goals! More

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    What Happens When TA & Hiring Managers Unite? Best Practices from Walmart, One Medical & More

    Strategies for SMB, MM & Enterprise

    Key Takeaways

    Traditional hiring practices of SMBs, MM, and Enterprise level employersHired’s recommendations for each business sizeSpecific examples of tactics and strategies from talent leaders

    About the eBook:

    A common thread we’ve seen with some of our top employers on Hired is engagement with candidates from both TA and hiring management teams. In this piece, we’ll show how some companies are achieving new heights by inviting both groups to collaborate on the platform and in the process.

    In this robust ebook, we’ll also take a detailed look at how enterprise, mid-market, and SMB employers approach hiring talent, share our best practices for each, and how companies such as Walmart Global Tech, Smartsheet, One Medical, Tanium, NBCUniversal, Gem, Mercari, and more increased acceptance rates and sped up time to hire. In some cases, 11 days faster than the benchmark! More

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    Want to Hire a Globally Distributed Team? 4 Ways to Get Started

    In the last few years, more companies have expanded their workforces globally than ever before. Businesses realized the talent pool is no longer limited to their city limits (or even their country’s borders, for that matter) and skilled workers everywhere are getting a shot at working for top employers—no matter where they live. Related: Hired […] More