Strategic hiring for your future workforce: The platform advantage

Contract talent is more popular than ever, and shows no signs of slowing down.

According to a survey conducted in late 2023, for example, 65% of employers globally said they planned to increase their use of contingent workers this year. The challenge is attracting and retaining those employees, and positioning your workforce so it can adapt to a rapidly-changing market. 

Contractors have the specialized skill set and experience to command top prices. At the same time, they want the benefits of flexible work arrangements that give them more control and independence over how, where, and when they work. 

Another research report found only 14% of employers rate their ability to manage contingent workers as above average or top-notch, and 63% said they were at or below average..  

The right strategic hiring practices can help close this gap and support a stronger, more engaged workforce that allows organizations to achieve their most ambitious objectives. 

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Strategic Hiring Defined

Strategic hiring is the process of recruiting in a way that is aligned with, and supports, business goals. 

Instead of simply recruiting someone to fill a vacant position, in other words, strategic hiring involves thinking holistically about the organization’s needs and how talent can contribute to its desired outcomes. 

A forecast from the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, for example, found generative artificial intelligence (AI) adoption will reach 50% of businesses here within three to six years. Strategic hiring could see employers not only recruit traditional developers, IT professionals and marketers, but those with experience or training in using generative AI 

This is hardly as easy as it sounds, of course. Strategic hiring may have once depended upon having a Rolodex full of preferred contacts. Later it evolved into learning on online job boards and procurement solutions such as VMS systems and MSPs.

Those approaches are no longer working. Today, 89% of Canadian organizations report difficulty finding skilled professionals, and 64% of hiring managers say it takes longer to hire for open roles compared to one year ago. 

When you combine strategic hiring with a focus on contract or flexible talent, both of those challenges can be tackled at once – but only with a platform purpose-built to supply it. 

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How Curasion Supports Strategic Hiring 

Curasion offers an innovative approach for identifying, tracking and connecting with curated talent.

Our solution is a next-gen, innovative approach to talent acquisition. Companies can now:

• Manage their own talent ecosystem: Hiring is reprioritized to first engage with known talent and then leverage external partners. 
• Access talent through their own talent ecosystem on their own terms. Our solution is faster and less expensive than traditional sourcing approaches and it has the added benefit of providing high-quality curated talent based on your company or hiring manager’s highly unique and specialized needs. 

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More specifically, Curasion provides:‍

1. Better Quality Candidates

Curasion’s solution operates under an invite-only approach. This is a simple concept that has an enormous impact on talent quality. 

Inviting talent provides companies with an inner circle of top talent to hire. This is in contrast to the hundreds of applicants you might have to wade through via a LinkedIn job posting. 

Candidates are also vetted by your team, our team, and our talent partners or whatever combination makes sense. This helps you avoid candidates with fake profiles or questionable experience. It dramatically raises the trust factor for leveraging flexible talent.

2. Direct Access to Candidates

One of the biggest benefits of leveraging platforms and your own talent ecosystem is that you no longer have to work through an intermediary, internal or external. All talent brought into the platform, whether from internal or external sources, can be directly contacted by hiring managers. 

By having direct access alongside internal teams, hiring managers can lighten the load on internal recruiters (giving them more horsepower), making it easier to collaborate on current and future talent needs.

3. Direct Source First 

When was the last time a staffing agency offered you the option to hire your own talent over theirs? Curasion powers companies to connect the dots to top known talent and then helps prioritize direct source hires over externally sourced. 

Strategic hiring means having a partner that you can trust as an extension of your internal recruitment team.

4. Faster Time to Hire

The proactive approach of inviting talent and staying connected leads to an 80% faster on average (and often instantaneous) time to hire. 

Strategic hiring is no longer about scouring hundreds of resumes or LinkedIn profiles for a potential fit. The future of recruiting is about curating an inner circle of well-qualified candidates so that when a position opens up, you can move fast, or when top talent comes available you can hire them before they’re gone. 

Equally important, talented people have a chance to stay connected with companies they want to work for by proactively making a decision to join talent pools matching their expertise.

5. Line of Sight to the Future

Traditional hiring practices are “just in time” but this reactive approach doesn’t provide a view to the future for the types of talent you will need and when they may be available. It relies on the hope that the right candidate will be available at the right price when the time comes.

Gig workers, which now include nearly a million Canadians, move from project to project and most companies don’t have a way to engage them effectively. As a result, employers miss the opportunity to hire some of the most talented people on the market. Curasion allows you to stay connected to your network of talent for immediate access when you need it.

6. Financial Savings

Curasion’s platform costs are consistent and predictable from hire to hire and year over year. That means the traditionally high and inconsistent hiring fees from other recruiting solutions are eliminated. 

This provides budget stability and cost savings over traditional recruitment approaches. Curasion’s unique business model offers pricing that works for startups hiring only a few people, to large enterprises that hire hundreds or thousands of people. Try our savings calculator for an estimate of what you can expect to save.

7. Better Access to Top Talent

While the value of new talent platforms are multi-faceted, ultimately what’s most important is that hiring managers can find the right talent at the right time. When it comes to success rates Curasion is three to four times more likely to help a hiring manager be successful with the talent they need when compared to the traditional agency model.

Talent platforms like Curasion provide a tremendous advantage and unprecedented levels of performance in the world of strategic hiring. They make the hiring process faster, more effective, and save money, all at the same time. The process offers unprecedented transparency and collaboration around your hires and simply provides better access to top talent. 

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If you are ready for a more efficient way of hiring flexible talent, contact Curasion to get started.

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