The snake and ladder - dichotomy of a middlemen

IT staffing companies operating as a middle layer most times operate with wafer-thin margins.  They neither have direct clients, nor own W2 candidates are already going through a lot of stress.  On one side, the job orders are depleting, and on the other side, the challenges of hiring candidates.  With this dichotomy, they are in a catch 22 constantly caught in the rut of this snake and ladder game.

What’s the solution? – Start with one of the C’s in which you are comfortable.  Either focus on building your clientele or your candidates.  Here, let’s talk about the talent pipeline.  All roads lead to Rome – You can start with proactive recruitment of a technology stack or Up skill training/deployment or pure-play old school “billing transfers” by promising better bill rates and other benefits.,

At the end of the day, this game is all about supply and demand.  If you pay enough attention to this, there are more likely chances of you being successful because there has always been a good demand for exceptional candidates.   In my experience, if you, as a company, create enough touch points for these exceptional candidates, they will be a valuable resource to your clients.

You can create a virtual high performing employee skill set into your pipeline and reverse market them to clients who need them- through LinkedIn and other job portals. 

If you are thinking of instant gratification and do not have the wherewithal to put in these extra efforts, the chances are that slowly you will become extinct as they keep eliminating the middlemen. 

A practical case study you can implement-

Take the difficult job requirements you received from your clients.  Start building your marketing pipeline of candidates and build your database.  Create a pipeline of job orders and get them in front of your talent.  The more the value you bring to the table, the more the value you would become in the client- candidate ecosystem.  

Turn Your adversaries to advantage.