Recruitment as an industry is fluid, always changing with the times. Recruitment companies are under a lot of pressure to keep up, investing heavily in the latest tech, investing in recruitment funding services like ours, or simply keeping their finger on the pulse by following recruitment news closely.  

This is especially true for temporary recruitment companies. Not only do you have to do all of the above, you’re also working hard to find the right candidates for your clients, as well as ensuring they’re happy and always paid on time.  

An industry that always changes rarely looks the same as it did a few years ago. We’ve been helping temporary recruitment agencies for nearly 30 years now and have witnessed first-hand how much it has changed.  

So for a special 2-part blog, we’re putting on our nostalgia hats and taking a trip down memory lane, to see what temporary recruitment used to look like, and see what features are still just as relevant today.  

In part one we’ll be talking about how the industry has changed for our clients, and how we’ve altered how we do things to always meet their needs. 

 

How has Recruitment changed for Temporary Recruitment Companies? 

We’ll go into this in more detail in part 3, where we’ll be hearing directly from one of our clients, but since many of our team worked in recruiting back in the day, we have plenty of experience to draw from.  

One of the biggest changes has been how companies find new workers.  

Before the internet, companies were faced with a few options if they needed a few hire. They could stick a note in their window and hope someone dropped a CV at their reception desk or maybe pay for a section in the local paper and wait for the phone to ring. This was great for small businesses, and in large towns and cities you could expect a few candidates to choose from.  

However, what if you needed to expand your team with multiple skilled workers for a new project? Or needed someone with very specific, niche experience in the field? Or maybe you wanted a large pool of candidates so that you could find someone that matches your company mentality?  

When that was the case business owners turned to their friendly local recruitment agency. This was where most paper CVs were dropped off and they had teams of recruiters sorting through them. If you wanted access to the best potential hires, you would call them or fax over a job description and they’d get straight to work.   

And if you needed someone on a temporary basis, you’d approach a temporary recruitment agency and there would be no need to disappoint candidates who were hoping for a more permanent position.  

 

How the Internet Changed Temporary Recruitment 

Now, with websites like Indeed, Glassdoor, Reed, social media like LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter, and the thousands of more specialist job boards, it’s much easier for a company to find new hires. Put together a quick listing, something many of these companies practically do for you these days, and you’ll be inundated with applications in no time.  

This sounds great, but only if you or a member of your team has the free time and patience to work through every application until they find the right person(s) for the job.  

This is why temporary recruitment agencies are still in high demand. Instead of dealing with the listing and CV sorting yourself, you simply tell an agency who you need, and they’ll access a huge database of temporary workers and send a few of their best over to you.  

It’s similar to how it used to be, only now purely digital and not limited to a localised area. There are a few high street recruiters left; those that stuck around were quick to embrace the digital recruitment process, but kept their locations open for a more personal touch.  

That is the main downside of the decline in high-street recruitment companies. Those that only work digitally have fewer face-to-face interactions with candidates, and rely purely on their CV, profile, and cover letter. However, some new technologies are being introduced that work to change that.  

 

How Technology has Changed the Temporary Recruitment Industry 

As you can imagine, advances in tech have changed the way recruitment agencies can operate. The internet was obviously the biggest one, but there are many that recruitment companies were quick to integrate in order to stay ahead.  

This includes new software that filters through applications faster than ever, and CRMs that streamline data transfer and communication within the company and with candidates and clients. There has also been major leaps forward when it comes to data protection, so it’s now safer than ever to trust a third party.  

We’ve always been keen to embrace the latest tech, as we’ve seen what a difference simply changing to a new software can make to efficiency and security. Our clients expect the best from us; if we fall behind the times it affects them too, so we’re always quick to make improvements when they present themselves.  

Over the last few years, many temporary recruitment agencies have invested in AI programs to help improve their workflow. With an AI program on board, it can filter through thousands of new applications in seconds, filtering the best into your company’s database. This not only expands your candidate pool quickly; it also frees up your team to focus on tasks that require the human touch. 

One of these tasks is having online meetings with candidates. Instead of letting them be a faceless profile, many of our clients take the time to build a relationship with their regular contractors, which in turn helps place them in the best vacancies. Although we may see AI take over this part of the job too, as programs and chatbots are being developed that ‘meet’ with potential candidates and assess how well they’d suit the role. This is still in its infancy, but as we see with all tech, it could be mainstream before we know it.  

This is one of the many new challenges temporary workers are facing.  

 

How has Temporary Recruitment changed for Temporary Workers? 

As we mentioned, living in a digital age has changed a lot for recruitment companies, and candidates have been affected in similar ways. Now instead of writing or typing out a CV and cover letter and dropping it off at a high-street location or trawling through newspapers and magazines looking for their next opportunity, temporary workers can simply do it all online.   

This is very beneficial in many ways. The application process is much faster, and you can find jobs much further afield. On most jobs sites you can also set preferences so that the only jobs that appear are suitable for your requirements, including location, salary, or a more specific role.  

However, this ease of application is a double-edged sword. Since it’s so easy to apply, every appealing job listing is quickly swarmed with applications. The amount available can be overwhelming for a new job hunter, and even some experienced ones. 

Speaking of experience, as has always been the case when job hunting, if a rival has slightly more experience your CV is more likely to be overlooked.  

All recruitment companies are putting more emphasis than ever on experience, as well as candidate engagement. This is one of the may reasons why more people than ever are considering temporary roles.  

 

Why more People are Switching to Temporary Working  

We’ve talked a lot in the past about why people choose to work on a temporary basis instead of a permanent role. Short contracts are much more flexible, allowing a candidate to work in a way that suits them, so they can spend more time at home or adapt their work life around their other needs.  

Temporary working has been a thing almost as long as the concept of a ‘job’, especially in the construction and labour industries. But now almost any industry has some temporary opportunities available for willing candidates.  

When a certain pandemic caused chaos a few years ago, companies realised that working remotely is a lot more feasible than originally believed. As the world opened up again, many businesses returned to the office, but employees wanted to stay at home, saving a fortune on commuting and having a better working environment. The companies that refused lost a lot of their best talent, and hybrid and remote jobs became much more sought after.  

This meant that temporary recruitment agencies were suddenly in higher demand than ever before. Demand for temps has always fluctuated depending on market and economic factors, but access to skilled and experienced temporary workers will always be essential for a wide range of businesses.  

 

How has Temporary Recruitment changed for Recruitment Funding Companies? 

For companies like ours, the changes in temporary recruitment have always kept us busy. Temporary workers have always been needed, and temporary recruitment companies need our help more than ever to keep up with the increasing demand from their clients.  

But some things never change, no matter what technology or methods are introduced. We’ve always put a major focus on our human focused approach. As digital interaction became commonplace, many companies like ours started to lose touch with their clients. Older clients who had become almost part of the family were reverted to an email signature or name in a database – and it was even worse for new customers.  

We can’t deny that email and communication software has made keeping in touch with our clients a lot easier, but we always take the time to pick up the phone whenever an update is due. We also stress that our clients can call us anytime for a chat, so that the relationship we have with them will never fade no matter what happens. If they’re relatively close by, we always try and set up a coffee and catch up a few times per year at least, provided they can fit us into their busy schedule! But if they aren’t local, that isn’t a problem.   

Regular reporting is a key part of our service. We know that handing over control to a third party can make a business owner feel like they’re out of the loop. By keeping in regular contact we make the relationship stronger than ever and allow our clients to be as involved as suits them.  

 

How has our Recruitment Funding Service changed over the years?  

The simple answer? Not very. But don’t think we’re dinosaurs, we simply got things right from the very start and have held ourselves to the highest standard ever since.  

Our core values have always remained the same. Like we said, our human-focused approach has always set us apart from our rivals. We also have a saying ‘do what is right, not what is easy.’  

There are no shortcuts or ‘that’ll do’ with Back Office, we do everything we can to provide the best service possible – the service you and your customers deserve.  

We’ve always had a flexible approach too. Our service always encompasses recruitment funding, payroll funding, invoicing, and credit control/debt protection, but the way we provide these can always be tweaked to suit a particular client. You may have a large admin team already who will handle some of the tasks themselves, or sometimes you just want us to focus on one service more over others. Whatever you need, we’re more than happy to accommodate.  

This flexibility has always helped us stand out from the crowd. Our clients don’t like adapting to fit a third party’s service or becoming frustrated because they have to work with multiple companies to get everything done.  

Many of our clients are what we call ‘Switchers’. These are temporary recruitment agencies who were using a recruitment funding service but weren’t happy with it. After a quick chat with us, or a recommendation from their peers, they realised how things should be done, and were more than happy to join the ranks of happy temporary recruitment agencies who have trusted us for a very long time.