In this day and age, most recruiters primarily work a specific niche. Some even stick to working a specific geographic area and rarely stray from it. But what do you do if a stray opportunity comes your way, or if you decide to expand outside of your home state(s)?
For direct-hire-only recruiters, this is no problem. You build up your network, acquire out-of-state job orders, and recruit candidates to fill them. But if you also place candidates on a contract basis, you may find yourself boxed in by your back-office operations.For this reason, it’s important to consider whether a nationwide back-office service provider is right for you.
Don’t Let Yourself Be Limited
These are a few of the common scenarios you might experience:
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Your firm functions as the back-office for your in-state contractors.
In this scenario, the issue is typically one of scale. You just don’t have the time or resources to devote to employing contractors in other states. If you’ve stumbled onto a one-time opportunity or are simply doing a favor for a client, the value proposition of getting set up to do business in a brand new state is particularly low.
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Your external back-office service provider will not employ contractors in the states you need.
Whether due to smaller size, lack of resources, newness, or other factors, this is a problem if you have an opportunity and they can’t handle the business for you. Bottom line: your contract staffing back-office’s limitations are YOUR limitations.
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Your external back-office isn’t currently set up in the states you need and requires time to ramp up.
If your back-office is willing and able to get set up as an employer in other locations, that’s great… for future growth. But with the quicker speed of contract placements, an opportunity right now may be gone by the time your back-office is ready to handle it for you.
How a Nationwide Back-Office Service Provider Benefits You
There are many things to consider when choosing a back-office service provider, but one of the keys is whether they can handle placements nationwide. Here’s why:
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If your back-office is set up in every state, YOU’RE set up in every state.
This means you can make contract placements anytime, anywhere. You don’t have to worry about the headache of ramping up in a new location—ever.
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You won’t miss any opportunities, particularly the unexpected ones.
You can rest assured that your back-office can handle any U.S. contract placement location you throw at them. If an unexpected opportunity comes along, or if you need to do an out-of-state placement as a favor to a client, you won’t miss a beat.
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You can expand your business anywhere.
If you ever decide to grow your business—add a niche or two, pursue contracting clients in new locations, etc.—you know that you can do so without shopping around for a new back-office to handle the business for you.
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You don’t have to worry about staying within state lines.
Maybe you have a client with multiple branches, and they need a contract worker for an out-of-state branch. With a nationwide back-office service provider, you never have to return to your client and tell them you can’t do it because your back-office isn’t set up in their state.
These are only a few of the advantages of having a nationwide back-office service provider function as the employer of record for your contractors. Check out this blog post for other benefits.
