Chances are you've heard the phrase "Do what you do best and outsource the rest." That phrase rings particularly true when it comes to recruiters who make contract placements.

Contract staffing provides a great opportunity for recruiters to increase their sales and establish a steady, predictable income stream.  But it also comes with a number of time-consuming and complex financial, administrative, and legal duties associated with employing the contractors, including legal contracts with the contractors and clients, payroll funding and processing, Workers' Compensation, contractor benefits (including compliance with the healthcare reform law), invoicing, and collections.

These are typically called the "back-office" tasks, which fortunately can be outsourced so recruiters can concentrate on the actual recruiting or "front-office" duties. By utilizing a contract back-office provider recruiters can spend their time making more placements and expanding their business rather than on the back-office tasks.

Case in point: Mike Toohey, president of Contract Staffing Recruiters, said that outsourcing the back-office duties allowed his firm to grow and expand into new areas.  Toohey, who has been recruiting since 1998, established Contract Staffing Recruiters when he opened the job board CareersInConnecticut.com in 2000. In the past year, he has been able to add two additional job boards and is preparing to launch one for Florida and another for Armenia this year.  He is also planning to establish physical locations in Florida and in Armenia, which will be the firm's first foray into the European market.  

“(Outsourcing the back-office) allows us to say yes to things we wouldn’t normally be able to say yes to,” Toohey said. “We don’t have to turn down business like we did in the past.  It allows us to focus more on our core business with our permanent placements and career boards.”

Without the use of a back-office service, Toohey said they would not have the time or resources to expand or to take on the amount of contract staffing business that they have today. The back-office provider handles the entire financial picture, including payroll funding.

“It just eases the burden,” Toohey said. “I don’t have to go to the bank to ask them to increase my credit line so I can fund a new client’s payroll or worry about missing something on employee paperwork.”

Are contract staffing back-office tasks holding your firm back? Or are you afraid to even get into contracting for fear it will take away from your perm business?  As Toohey illustrates, it doesn't have to be that way.  You can take on contract placements and still do what you do best - recruit!