An Embedded Talent Provider is a modern-day solution for many of the hiring challenges faced by fast growing companies.
Embedded talent providers help companies save time by supercharging their internal talent function, and money that they otherwise would have wasted on headhunters.
Did you know that startup founders spend almost 40% of their time managing HR tasks with activities such as payroll and hiring?
Building a talent function in-house is time-consuming and finding the right hire, if your talent function isn’t optimised, can take up to six months. Six months!
Recruitment agencies are one solution, but they are costly (20% fees sound familiar to anyone?). The Embedded Talent Provider Model is a saviour for all those growth stage businesses who want to scale quickly whilst lowering recruitment costs.
The ETP model saves a ton of money due to being a fixed-cost solution. As opposed to the heavy 20% fees of recruitment agencies, you pay a fixed-price cost – easy to forecast and you don’t need to worry about the cost increasing as the numbers of hires increase.
And once a very small utilisation of the ETP capacity is met, it starts producing a staggering ROI.
ETPs give you more transparency and control over the process. In addition, they bring other advantages – such as the better representation of your startup to the candidates and a higher quality of hires.
But are all Embedded Talent Providers equal? If not, then how to choose the right one?
In this guide we will share what you should look for in an embedded talent provider.
Past success stories and case studies
The first thing you should look for in an Embedded Talent Provider is their history. A good Embedded Talent Partner must have success stories and case studies to back their skills and expertise. These case studies and success stories will reflect their experience as service providers, and the type of results you should expect working with them.
While looking at their past success stories, focus on the type of companies they have worked with before; are there any similarities to your business?
Past client wins will help show the scale, niche/category, and industry they serve, as well as the kind of results they get their clients.
If you’d like to read some of Kandidate’s case studies, you can here.
Experience working with startups and scaleups (or the relevant growth stage for your business)
The average time to hire in a startup is around six months. While for large companies, it can vary significantly. An Embedded Talent Provider who has only worked with large corporations will not be able to produce good results for a startup. And an Embedded Talent Provider who has only worked with startups won’t be a good fit for a corporate.
As a growth-stage startup, you must fill roles as fast as possible. But, you should not be just filling up vacancies; you need to find the right candidates, quickly; it’s about quality as well as quantity.
To see if they have worked with startups and scaleups, keep an eye on the companies in their past success stories as well as the logos they use on their website and marketing material.
Role-specific experience
Are you hiring for tech, commercial, or both? Whatever roles you are hiring for, ensure that the Embedded Talent Provider has experience hiring for them.
An ETP specialised in filling commercial positions will not be a good fit if you are hiring for engineering roles only. There are ETPs who specialise either tech or commercial hires – and there are the ones who are all-rounders; it all comes down to your specific hiring needs in that moment.
Take the time to meet the actual talent partners you’re going to be working with and understand where their expertise aligns with your needs, where it doesn’t, and determine if it could be a fit.
International hiring experience
The pandemic has changed the game for the global startup ecosystem. It has provided an opportunity to hire internationally, which widens the overall talent pool for companies.
At a time when most companies hire only in their local markets, and other developed economies face labor shortages, remote-first companies have plenty of options – thanks to global access to the workforce.
As a fast growing business in particular, it is likely you must have ambitions for international expansion. Therefore, having an ETP who has previous international exposure and has worked in overseas markets will increase your access to overseas talent pools, and ensure the ETP’s ability to deliver.
Clear and effective operating procedures
One of the most prominent advantages of working with an Embedded Talent Provider is improved transparency and regaining control of your talent function – both of which are non-existent when working with headhunters.
ETPs providers use your internal communication channels to contact candidates, and act as your internal TA function during the engagement – they represent your company, are fully integrated into our TA function, and should provide regular, data-driven reports so you can have full transparency into both their activity and their outcomes.
You can and should enquire and learn about the standard operating procedures of a particular ETP provider beforehand.
Good chemistry
As with all relationships, it is crucial to have good chemistry and understanding between your company and the ETP. Since you are a rapidly growing company, you must be on good terms with all the partners to ensure smooth integration of the ETP into your talent function at the beginning of the engagement, as well as a positive working relationship throughout the entirety of the engagement also.
We hope you found the above points useful when assessing an embedded talent provider. If you’d like to speak with a Kandidate team member to see if we meet your above six requirements, simply CLICK HERE to complete a short form and a member of the team will be in touch.
