4 Key Indicators It’s Time to Outsource Professional Placements

Sweeping changes have redefined the workplace over the past three years, creating new challenges and opportunities for HR professionals. Consider, for example, how quickly the pandemic digitally transformed companies, shuttering offices virtually overnight and transitioning employees to remote, work-from-home models. For essential businesses and others that remained open, the challenges have been just as great, leaving HR professionals to grapple with the unpredictability of outbreaks and shifting health and safety mandates.

Recent changes in consumer behaviors have also presented new challenges for HR teams, tasking them, for example, with quickly hiring and reskilling employees to meet a sudden influx of e-commerce business. And just when the building blocks of our advancing digital economy were in place, the nation’s reopening brought with it an entirely new set of HR challenges: rapid economic growth that has led to significant labor shortages and wage increases.

Amidst all this upheaval, the role HR plays within organizations has changed as well, with C-suite executives relying on their HR colleagues more than ever for direction on how to build the kind of workforce and culture they need to seize marketplace opportunities and navigate today’s uncharted economic waters. As the scope of HR responsibilities continues to grow, many industry professionals are feeling the pressure of increased workloads and lengthy hours – and many are simply burned out.

So, how can organizations provide the support these vitally important employees need today, and when does it make sense to implement an outsourcing model to assist?

The Case for Outsourcing Professional Placements

Many HR functions are easily handed off to external providers to reduce the burden of routine tasks. However, investments in outsourcing partnerships should yield more than time and productivity for HR teams. They should add value up and down the organization by supporting and advancing a company’s strategic objectives. And they should stand the test of time.

Savvy organizations recognize this – and they also know that that succeeding in a fast-evolving economy often comes down to a single overriding factor: leadership. Accordingly, many organizations are seeking to expand their senior management teams today with experienced individuals who align with their values and vision and are well prepared to unlock innovation organization-wide.

Executive searches are complex, though, and often take the kind of time and attention busy HR departments don’t have. Enlisting the services of the right professional placements firm can help.  

Here are four reasons to outsource your professional placements now – and what factors to consider when selecting a partnering firm:

1) To Bring More Hands On-Deck

The HR role has never been more expansive, challenging, or critical to an organization’s success. The right outsourcing firm will allow your HR department to stay focused on its core responsibilities, giving professionals the added capacity they need, along with the all-important networking resources required to identify and effectively pursue top-level talent. Look for a firm with a proven track record of success both within and outside your industry who can speak to the importance of aligning new senior-level hires with your strategic goals and corporate values.

2) To Gain Insights from an Outside Perspective

When hiring a professional placement firm, you should get more than its employees’ recruiting skills and expertise. You should also benefit from having an objective source of input and guidance on your own internal hiring processes, especially those serving the highest levels of your organization.

Top firms in this space will get to know your business well, impart best practices they have implemented time and again, and help you apply proven strategies and recommendations to improve your own hiring practices going forward. Bringing in the right neutral partner will also ensure that emotions, personal relationships, and other intangibles don’t influence the hiring process – so the best person for the position, department, and organization is ultimately brought on board.   

3) To Tap a Broader Network of Connections

When a key leadership position goes unfilled, this puts strain on managers and employees alike. An experienced professional placement firm will be in close contact with internal stakeholders to forge relationships and gain an understanding of their own individual needs and vision for the new hire.

The right firm will also leverage its own network of trusted candidate contacts in the search. In fact, the most successful professional placements often result from established relationships between prospective candidates and professional placement firms, long-term connections built over time and based on mutual trust.

4) To Extend the Search Beyond Traditional Channels

While job seekers at all stages of their careers often look to social sites to peruse opportunities, these resources rarely produce the pool of talented candidates companies need to successfully fill senior-level positions. Factors such as whether an applicant is a good fit for your company culture are difficult to discern from resumes, cover letters, and online profiles.

This is where the expertise of top professional placement firms truly shines. Through strategically crafted interviews, assessments, and personal communications, the partner you select should evaluate candidates through the lens of your immediate needs, long-term goals, and corporate culture to ensure the candidates they recommend are right for the job and will become productive, innovative, and professionally fulfilled members of your organization over time.

The firm you select should also effectively champion the position and your company with candidates, serving in as much a marketing role as a recruiting one to inspire excitement for the position you are offering today – and the growth opportunities available down the road.

Exceptional Leadership Is Worth the Investment: We’re Here to Help

Given the challenges of the current labor market and the increasing complexities of HR and talent acquisition functions, outsourcing professional placement processes is a smart move for many companies today. When the time is right, M3 Placement and Partnership is here to set your strategy on track and your search in motion with:

• The experience, relationships, and depth of cross-industry knowledge your professional placement search deserves
• A roll-up-your-sleeves approach to the search, giving you the boots on the ground your HR team needs, as well as strategic advisory services you can tap to take your hiring processes to the next level going forward
• Multi-channel sourcing strategies that effectively get the word out to the right audience in the right way while leveraging the trusted relationships we have built over time with our expansive network of corporate leaders
• Proven strategies for attracting top-level talent to meet each organization’s needs, an approach that holistically considers where your company is today, where you want to be tomorrow, and the unique characteristics that make a qualified candidate the ideal match for your firm, your industry, and your future

Find out how outsourcing professional placements with M3 can help your business grow and lead even in the most challenging environments. Contact M3 to schedule an initial consultation.