You might have heard the term workforce intermediaries. Some hear it from the perspective of an employer while others hear it from the perspective of the employees. Never the less, workforce intermediaries are of equal interest to both the employers and the employees. In the last 5 years or so, the term workforce intermediary has gained even more popularity. In this article we will educate you about what their actual job is, what they do, how they do it and how they make profit. Let’s start by answering some of these simple questions.
- What is a Workforce Intermediary?
Consider this scenario. Suppose that you run a business. A software firm for example. Now you will need some trained software engineers and technicians in order to run your business. How will you recruit them is the question. You can say that you will conduct interviews and select the employees on the basis of merit. But think about it, won’t it be too time consuming? Won’t it make your life a bit easier if someone handled the recruitment process on your behalf? Workforce intermediaries do exactly that. They take care of the recruitment process and provide you with employees of the exact skill level that your business needs.
- So how are they of Any Interest of those seeking a Job?
Workforce intermediaries keep in contact with the potential candidates and make their database based on the education, training and useful skills that they might have acquired over the time. Since they have your database, they automatically select the right candidate and give them a call for a skill test or interview or a written test. It’s their job to keep you informed about the new openings and opportunities. The role of workforce intermediaries doesn’t stops when you get a job; they update your profile in their database and add the experience to it. This helps them to inform you about new and better opportunities that you can grab because of the experience gathered on your first job.
- How do they Make Profit:
Most of the workforce intermediaries are not for profit organizations. They work on no profit no loss basis. But some workforce intermediaries may charge the candidates a percentage of the income that the candidate will earn from the job that he or she got through them. Some workforce intermediaries don’t charge the employees but take a fee from the employer on whose behalf they conduct the recruitment process.
Soneeta Mangra-Dutcher is a Workforce Strategist for Central Iowa Works, a Des Moines based workforce intermediary that brings employers and workers together. Soneeta has over 15 years of experience in education, working with and training nontraditional college students, nonnative English speaking students, and adults completing their high school credentials. At CIW she works closely with employers to ensure needs are met and training participants are eagerly hired.