IT MSPs have become the backbone of several organizations across industries. They provide access to comprehensive IT management and infrastructure and facilitate efficient upscaling of the business. However, an MSP can not provide all these services without hiring the right candidates.
Recruitment and selection are crucial aspects of any IT MSP, which often directly affects their probability of success as a company. But, there’s a dilemma that most MSP managers face; should the recruitment be conducted in-house or outsource recruitment to a reputable recruitment agency?
In this blog, we will answer this question by comparing the features of outsourcing vs in-house recruitment and gauge their effectiveness. Continue reading to figure out the best course of action for your organization.
Outsourcing vs In-House Recruitment: Comparing Features
1. Expertise And Network
Most reputed MSP recruitment agencies have the best recruiters and a wide network across cities and states. Partnering with an outsourced recruitment agency, allows businesses to benefit from their specialized expertise and knowledge. These industry experts have updated knowledge of the industry trends, talent markets, and best practices. This helps to source the best candidates for any job role and location.
An in-house recruitment team can have excellent expertise if it consists of veteran recruiters, who have served the IT MSP industry. However, ensuring that the entire recruitment team consists of experienced experts can be a difficult task. Additionally, they do not have as strong a network as a dedicated recruitment firm.
2. Trust And Communication
MSP recruitment agencies have a reputation to maintain in the industry; hence, they ensure you completely trust their process. These industry veterans have tried, tested, and optimized communication channels to ensure there is no barrier between you and them. It may take some time to fully trust a third-party organization. However, once trust and communication channels are established, there is nothing to worry about.
An organization can put more trust in in-house recruiters as they are exclusively working with them. Communication is much smoother and the organization has more control over the in-house recruitment team.
3. Cost
Outsourcing recruitment processing helps organizations optimize resource distribution and get cost benefits. By outsourcing the recruitment process, you can get access to cutting-edge technology and exceptional infrastructure at a fraction of the price. External recruiters leverage their scale to afford the best recruitment tools to streamline hiring.
Keeping the recruitment process in-house is a costly affair. It needs more up-front investments in infrastructure and technology and ongoing costs in human resources. Once the recruitment process is done, organizations are left with redundant technology and infrastructure that won’t be useful until they need staffing solutions again.
4. Scalability And Flexibility
Fluctuations in demand are a common occurrence in the IT industry. This can be caused by factors such as seasonality, project-based needs, or rapid growth. An outsourced hiring agency offers the flexibility to scale when you are facing increased demand, without much infrastructural investment. This ensures a seamless hiring process at any time that changes according to your business needs.
In-house recruiting is not flexible or scalable at all. If your recruitment process is handled in-house and you need to scale, it becomes a time and cost-intensive process. You need to invest in infrastructure and technology which are more often than not very expensive.
5. Recruiting Stress
Recruitment comes with its inherent risks and stress such as hiring the wrong candidate, onboarding issues, absconding candidates, and maintaining the budget while gaining the desired ROI. Additionally, there are also hiring compliances that you need to meet. An experienced recruitment agency understands these risks and is well-prepared to handle them with ease.
On the other hand, the in-house talent acquisition team may struggle to handle these risks and stressful factors with as much care as an external recruitment agency. This can be due to a lack of specialized knowledge, experience, and tools. Ultimately, this affects the entire organization.
6. Time-Efficiency
Outsourcing is much more time-efficient than conducting recruitment and staffing processes in-house. External recruitment agencies have dedicated recruitment teams that work to fill positions within a given deadline. They use their extensive experience and market network to find the best candidates, interview them, and initiate the onboarding process.
In-house recruiters can also find and fill positions at short notice, but it is not always guaranteed. One way an in-house team can be just as time-efficient is to interview candidates from a pool of unselected talents that previously didn’t pass the interview round.
7. Candidate Sourcing and Screening
Outsourcing to recruitment consultants improves the sourcing and screening process. This leads to improved quality of hire and ROI. The external team has access to extensive networks, job boards, and databases which helps them source the best IT candidates in your area for your MSP. Additionally, they have robust screening and assessment processes which reduces the risk of making costly hiring mistakes.
You can have more control over the sourcing and screening process when you do it in-house. However, this could divert resources and affect other areas of your business. Sourcing and screening is an intensive process that needs time, resources, and dedication to avoid any hiring mistakes.
8. Affect On Core Competencies
Outsourcing the recruitment process relieves you of overseeing it all by yourself. It allows organizations to focus on core competencies by allocating valuable resources and time to essential tasks. All the responsibilities of the recruitment process are handled by experts who are veterans of their industry.
In contrast, in-house recruitment teams need to discuss and confirm every decision with the higher-ups, making the process inefficient. Dividing time between core competencies and recruitment will affect the business one way or another. Additionally, the investment in recruitment technology, infrastructure, and human resources can be saved and used to improve existing processes.
Conclusion
Even though both, outsourcing and in-house recruitment, have their advantages and disadvantages, the scale skews more towards outsourcing. Outsourcing offers several advantages over in-house recruitment such as better infrastructure, time efficiency, cost effectiveness, and access to world-class recruiters.
If you are planning to outsource your IT MSP recruitment process get in touch with us today! As an experienced MSP IT recruiter, we have helped countless IT MSPs and small businesses find the ideal candidate for various roles, like system engineers, system administrators, technicians, and managers.
FAQs
Q) Which type of work would not be a candidate for outsourcing?
Ans: If you are hiring for a position that needs a more tailored and personalized hire or hiring for a highly secure position, you may not want to outsource it.
Q) What is the benefit of relying on internal recruitment sources to find potential employees?
Ans: The internal recruitment team works exclusively with the organization; hence, they will put the organization’s interest at the forefront. You have more control over recruitment and staffing and trust the team.
Ted White is the President & CEO of Vertical Talent Solutions and has over two decades of IT recruiting experience. Specializing in assisting Managed Service Providers in securing their ideal roles, his expertise navigates career paths precisely. Connect with Ted White for tailored recruitment solutions today.