It’s nearly 2019 and many in the staffing world are trying to plan their budgets, predict hiring needs and set up a strategy to hire top talent for the upcoming year. If you serve hiring managers at a growing business, it can be a stressful time as there is only so much planning you can do to prepare for their needs.

Your list may look like this:

• Meet with hiring managers to understand their hiring needs for next year

• Meet with legal team to assess co-employment risk and compliance

• Evaluate your current vendors’ ability to fill upcoming roles

• Outline a hiring strategy to follow

• Continually shop around for new staffing vendors who may be better able to fill those roles

• Start and re-start the contract and onboarding process

• Figure out a better way to handle all the vendors who keep calling wanting to ‘help’

• Add more tabs to your spreadsheets

• Build a business case to convince your boss you need software, or consultants, or Santa Claus to help

Often we feel like we’re moving forward by investing in tools and consultants to help execute our plans when realistically we are making decisions based on best guesses, and risking unnecessary spend and the confidence of our peers when the plans don’t actually serve the need. It’s a no-win situation held together by manual processes and endless vendor onboarding, accompanied by a constant nagging feeling that you don’t ever really know what is working.

Traditional staffing models and  software simply don’t support the needs of modern growing business. The labor-intensive investment required to work with vendors inherently limits your reach to those vendors’ ever-narrowing talent pools. It’s a never-ending cycle of manual tasks, extended hiring cycles, and limited visibility into hiring performance.

A more effective hiring plan is to adopt strategies that enable you to be ready for anything, able to fill any role at any time and always know exactly how your efforts are paying off. Here are the components of a ready-for-anything vendor management service that brings accountability, transparency, and success to your hiring - all without any risk:

Dynamic marketplace of suppliers to fill any role, at any time

Your hiring reach shouldn’t be limited to the number of vendors you can manually manage. A diverse online recruitment marketplace of suppliers enables you to post any requisition, for any specialty and geography, to a crowd of hundreds of suppliers who work on your behalf. And, as a plus, helps you to build a diverse workforce.

Precision matching to the right suppliers

Each role is unique and requires a specific talent pool from which to source. AI that immediately matches your requisitions to specific suppliers with prior demonstrated expertise in your needs ensures the most qualified suppliers are working on your roles. You’re always ready for niche roles or new business requirements as your business grows.

Personal curation

A high volume of submissions is nice, a short list of personally curated submissions of candidates tee’d up and ready to work is ideal. A service that includes personal curation of supplier submissions ensures your hiring managers shorten the hiring cycle and hire the most qualified candidates by only focusing on the right opportunities.

One consistent hiring experience

Multiple staffing agencies mean multiple hiring experiences. You place significant trust that vendors will represent your brand well. A consolidated vendor management service (which goes beyond just a vendor management system) ensures one single candidate experience that aligns with your unique values, helping you differentiate the opportunity and provide an introduction to your culture.

One contract, one invoice, one point of contact

By unifying all of your vendors under a single vendor management service you eliminate the need to continually onboard new suppliers, execute multiple contracts, process multiple invoices, and manage all of those relationships. Streamline all of that manual activity into one single source and gain massive efficiencies.

You should pay only for successful hires

Access to a robust marketplace, simple hiring tools with unlimited logins, candidate workflow tracking, and supplier performance analytics should all be included in one integrated, easy-to-use tool that is part of delivering the service. You pay only for successful hires.

Comprehensive performance insights

A comprehensive view of your entire hiring program always updated in real time ensures you know exactly how your program is performing, which vendors are truly active, and where candidates are in the hiring lifecycle.

Is it time to adopt a ready-for-anything hiring strategy in 2019? A vendor management service can help you to deliver better results with far fewer resources, and give you another reason to celebrate and look forward to the new year.