When recruiting is at an all-time high, companies often look to staffing partners to fill gaps in hiring capacity. Those staffing companies have different approaches and connections than in-house recruiting teams, largely because of their access to networks through additional memberships, technology, and experience.
Memberships for buyers of staffing services are a means of networking, knowledge sharing, workshopping, and otherwise improving access to data which improves hiring operations.
This article provides a “best of” list for memberships for buyers of contingent labor. This is a reflection of our team’s perspective about what memberships add the most value for our customers and prospects. We offer a few highlights of the benefits of these memberships, all presented in no particular order.
According to Jimmy Iannuzzi, buyers of staffing services “are companies who outsource a component of their recruiting and buy the services of a company like nTech to perform, whether it be recruiting for staff augmentation and contingent labor, or maybe external workforce, depending on their nomenclature, or for their direct hire position.”
Staffing services are made up, after all, of people - people to hire and people to do the hiring. This is why memberships based around networking are so valuable.
Memberships provide opportunities for buyers to get together with like-minded folks to discuss and reflect on industry-related experiences and insights. Whether companies are looking to outsource hiring, bring hiring in-house, or increase workforce diversity, learning first-hand from industry professionals goes a long way.
According to Jimmy Iannuzzi from nTech Workforce, memberships provide an opportunity for folks to get together and talk through what is working and what is not working in a collegial environment. Iannuzzi encourages buyers to engage with industry peers, shake up routine ways of thinking, and broaden perspectives with new opportunities in staffing.
What makes a membership particularly useful for buyers is a balance of networking, access to useful information, and opportunities to workshop challenges. These are the memberships that we leverage to bring companies the best staffing solutions.
SIA is a great resource for a staffing service membership because it provides a huge amount of research that is accessible on multiple levels. SIA has a newsletter and provides access to its database to back up its findings. According to Iannuzzi, “When it comes to market research, SIA is the way to go.”
Corporate buyers of contingent labor are also eligible for membership in SIA’s Contingent Workforce Strategies (CWS) Council, which offers deeper business intelligence, direct access to analysts, additional networking opportunities, and webinars directly with experts in the field. The CWS Council’s membership spans The Americas, EMEA, and APAC.
For recruiting, ClubVMSA provides an incredible forum for staffing agencies and buyers to come together for direct conversations with one another. There are many companies out there that provide meetups and video calls, but it’s easy to feel lost in the shuffle. With Club VMSA, membership provides members-only events to connect buyers and staffing companies.
ClubVMSA also offers an accessible e-library of training services for recruiting agencies, benefiting recruiters, sales, and account managers alike, as well as access to member events. When you meet staffing companies through ClubVMSA, you know they have a growth mindset and will continually find ways to add value to your business.
A top choice from Arthur Ransier, also of nTech Workforce, is VMS Professionals. “VMS Professionals membership is not available to staffing companies, making this one of the only memberships exclusively for buyers of contingent labor.”
Ransier adds that “VMS Professionals provides virtual and in-person events for members to collaborate with their peers. Their goals are to make contributions to the industry, improve and expand best practices, and ensure personal growth and development for their members. VMS Professionals hosts an annual conference focused on education and networking.”
Another membership-based asset is the Procurement Foundry. As a private company, Procurement Foundry brings together indirect sourcing and supply chain management professionals to come together to learn from one another and expand on evolving industry insights.
Procurement Foundry excels in its ability to connect industry professionals with a massive knowledge repository around indirect sourcing and supply chain management. They regularly schedule engagement opportunities from one-on-one introductions to community Q&As, to larger networking events.
No industry works effectively in a vacuum of isolation. When you’re looking for contingent labor, be sure to go with a company like nTech Workforce that makes full use of the benefits of memberships to bring clients the best staffing solutions, founded upon the most up-to-date information.