The ‘Outsource Your Stress’ Series, Part 3

Every recruiter has a story about the offer that was accepted on Friday and gone by Monday. In March 2010, we wrote a series called "Outsource Your Stress" about the toll those moments take on a recruiting desk, and how adding contract placements can ease some of it. This installment focused on frustration.

Problem #2: Frustration (from 2010)

Here's how we described it at the time, lightly edited:

Fall-offs, counteroffers, slumps, slow-moving decision makers, slow-paying clients. You could write a book about the things recruiters face on a daily basis. Once all of that stress reaches a certain point, it evolves into frustration. Whatever happened to loving what you do for a living? Sometimes it's easy to lose sight of that.

Our proposed fix was contracting. As we'd covered earlier in the series, contract placements come with fewer fall-offs, counteroffers, and slow-moving decision makers. That means fewer reasons to get frustrated at any stage of the process. And there's just no feeling quite like a contract placement that goes off without a hitch. We compared it to hitting a tennis ball on the sweet spot of your racket and said contracting can help you find your recruiting sweet spot.

Where contracting helps and where it has limits

Looking back, the core idea holds up, though we'd put it a little more carefully now. Contract candidates can still back out, and a client can still sit on a decision for weeks. What changes is how much rides on any single deal.

On a direct-hire search, one fall-off can wipe out weeks of work and a fee you were already counting on. With contract placements, your revenue comes from hours worked over the life of each assignment. Losing a deal still stings, but the contractors already on assignment keep billing.

Counteroffers can play out differently too. Many contract candidates are between roles or wrapping up a project, so there may be no current employer trying to talk them out of the move. That isn't guaranteed, and it's still smart to ask every candidate what would make them stay where they are. But the late-stage surprises that sink perm deals tend to come up less often.

Decision cycles also tend to be shorter, since a client bringing someone in for a project isn't making a permanent commitment. Slow-paying clients hurt less, too, if your Employer of Record (EOR) offers payroll funding and pays your contractor on schedule while the client's invoice is still open.

Over the long run, a steadier contract base also guards against burnout, which can hit a 20-year veteran as easily as a first-year recruiter. And when you decide to step away, a roster of contractors on active assignment gives your firm recurring revenue that a buyer can put a value on. A desk built only on one-time placement fees has no recurring revenue to show a buyer.

Small habits that cut frustration on contract deals

• Confirm the details in writing up front. Assignment length, pay rate, bill rate, and start date should be clear to the client and the contractor before day one.
• Put conversion language in place early. If your client might hire the contractor directly, agree on the conversion fee before the assignment begins.
• Check in during the first week. Small problems with access, schedules, or expectations are much easier to fix early.
• Raise extensions before the end date. A conversation a few weeks out beats scrambling on the last Friday.
• Let your EOR field payroll questions. When your contractor knows who to call about a paycheck or a tax form, those calls stop landing on your desk in the middle of a search.

Frustration builds when too much of your income depends on things you can't control. Spreading it across contractors who bill every week gives you a steadier base, so the next time an offer falls apart on a Monday, it's a bad day instead of a bad month.

If uncertainty is the bigger worry for you right now, Part 4 of the Outsource Your Stress series tackles it. For the short version of the whole series, see 4 ways contract staffing can relieve recruiter stress.