Should You Hire a Full-Time Recruiter or 1099 Staffer?

As defense contracting goes through ebbs and flows in hiring efforts, organizations should have the right recruiter depending on their needs. Should you be hiring a full-time, full-lifecycle recruiter? Or do you need a few 1099 recruiters to meet your proposal effort and fully funded openings?

Building Your Recruiting Team: 10 Questions to Ask

Answering these questions will help you to sort out whether there are times that are heavier recruiting throughout the year – which would be better to contract out your recruiting to 1099s for a few months – or if there is a steady flow of staffing between recruiting for turnover, expanded contracts, proposal efforts, or new fully funded work.

Here are 10 questions to ask as you build your recruiting team.

1. Do your contracts go through hiring surges or expansions?
2. Are there certain contracts where there is a ton of turnover?
3. How many proposal efforts are you submitting throughout the year?
4. How many letters of intent (LOI) are general required for your submittals?
5. Do you have times during the year that are solely focused on proposal recruiting?
6. How many contracts are you staffing at any given time?
7. How many best athlete positions are generally opened up to your company each year?
8. Are your benefits a big cost to the company?
9. Does your current team work on specific tasks (like sourcing or interviewing)?
10. Do you envision your recruiting team working from home, or traveling onsite to your office?

WEIGH THE PROS AND CONS

Having an in-house full lifecycle recruiter helps to integrate the hiring function within other areas of the business. Having someone full-time will help the recruiter explain the company culture to candidates, and help to build rapport with hiring managers, team leads, and partners (primes or subs).

But paying benefits, especially as a small organization, may be costly especially if you hire a recruiter that doesn’t perform. Hiring 1099 recruiters can be a good option, allowing you to maintain control of when you invest in recruitment teams or not throughout the fiscal year.

THE CLEARED RECRUITING CHRONICLES: YOUR WEEKLY DoD RECRUITING TIPS TO OUT COMPETE THE NEXT NATIONAL SECURITY STAFFER.