Launch your Own Talent Marketplace: Build vs Buy

With the rise of digital talent marketplaces, some staffing companies are taking matters into their own hands by becoming their own talent marketplace to better serve their clients' needs and stay relevant in the industry. In this blog post, we will explore the benefits of healthcare staffing companies creating their own talent marketplaces and whether to build or buy.

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^{Top 4 Reasons to Implement a Talent Marketplace}

Grow your talent pool

In healthcare, for example, staffing companies can use a talent marketplace solution to solve increasing demand for healthcare professionals as well as filling shift gaps Jobseekers upload their resume and credentials and the platform automatically creates a worker profile without the need for recruiter intervention. This process is sped up tenfold compared to traditional staffing methods, so your team can onboard an unlimited number of workers at a much quicker pace. Quality isn’t sacrificed either, because there are mechanisms to ensure workers are screened and vetted before being shown jobs. This way, you can grow your talent pool while curating it simultaneously.

Customized Solutions

Creating their own talent marketplace allows healthcare staffing companies to provide customized solutions to their clients. Staffing companies can tailor pieces of the marketplace to the specific needs of their clients, offering a more personalized experience. For example, if one client’s business model differs from another, there is typically a degree of flexibility on the money flow. Or, if job requirements vary between clients, there is a level of customizability to the job order.

Streamlined Processes

By consolidating workforce, onboarding documents, job orders, clients, invoicing, and more in one location, staffing companies can work more efficiently than traditional staffing methods. Also, because talent marketplaces are digital platforms, automation systems could also be integrated into the marketplace to save even more time and free up your staff to focus on marketing and outreach to source clients and workers. Some reasons for implementing automation could be to tighten up onboarding processes (your own ATS system), smart payroll, or shift scheduling.

Greater Control

Staffing companies that operate from their own talent marketplace have greater control over their workforce pool as opposed to stand-alone job marketplaces where independent contractors or freelancers can openly sign-up. Your recruitment team can input candidate requirements directly to the platform and even offer more support and training if needed through customized onboarding. This is a great point to use to win over clients who are considering using existing marketplaces.

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Once you’ve Decided on Integrating a Talent Marketplace, the Next Question to Ask is Build vs Buy

When deciding whether to build or buy a talent marketplace, staffing companies should consider several factors.

Building a talent marketplace in-house can be a time-consuming and resource-intensive process, but it offers greater control over the platform and the ability to customize it, for now and into the future when you scale and need to add new features as the market or your clients expand their needs. Although, an alternative could be buying a customized white-label solution.

You should also keep in mind the stage of your team. If you are a growing startup or a small company and don’t have a fully-developed product team, you may have difficulty building your own platform and will need to outsource anyway.

Cost: If you build your own marketplace, you are going to undergo many more overhead fees for platform infrastructure and maintenance than you would buying.

Also, if speed to market is important for you, it is going to be much more efficient to buy a marketplace instead of building your own.

Let's say after careful consideration and maybe even some experimentation, you decide to buy. As you head into market to shop, where do you start? We've built a checklist to help break down what to look for in a product:

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Conclusion

Creating your own talent marketplace could be a strategic move for staffing companies looking to gain a competitive advantage against today’s key players, especially as the staffing industry continues to move its trajectory towards digital marketplaces. When deciding whether to build or buy, it’s important to consider your growth goals, timeline and costs, and the immediate resources you have at your disposal.

If you're interested in learning more about Wolf's platform, book a demo today here.