ROI in Talent: Calculating the Value of Investing in Mortgage Staffing Agencies for Your Hiring Needs
When mortgage businesses need to add talent, using an internal staffing process offers a straightforward solution. However, this option might hamper their management team’s focus on running the company. This problem becomes exacerbated at businesses with small or non-existent HR teams. Simply consider the effort spent vetting the résumés of potentially hundreds of candidates for an open position.
Engaging with a mortgage staffing agency offers another option for companies in this sector. This approach lets experts in talent acquisition leverage their optimized processes for sourcing mortgage professionals. It helps businesses using their services to reduce time-to-hire while also lowering costs.
If your business wants to explore partnering with a mortgage staffing provider, you probably hope for a significant ROI. This article looks at a few ideas for calculating the value of working with an agency for your hiring needs. We also cover the differences between the staffing agency and internal hiring strategies and some metrics for determining ROI. Use these insights to make an informed decision on a partnership with a mortgage recruiter.
Understanding the Current State of the Mortgage Job Market
Before diving into the details of using a staffing agency, let’s explore the current status of the mortgage job market. Understanding the evolving hiring trends in the financial world helps you make the right decision on using mortgage recruiters. We also evaluate the need for specialized talent – including mortgage professionals with technology experience – in the financial industry.
The FinTech movement continues to usher in a digital transformation of the financial world. Institutions in this sector increasingly leverage AI and machine learning for a variety of purposes. These include everything from customer service chatbots powered by generative AI to machine learning models fostering data-driven decision making. The mortgage industry is also adopting these technology innovations, resulting in changes to that sector’s job market.
In addition to candidates with relevant mortgage processing experience, companies in this sector want professionals with tech expertise. These include professionals with experience in AI, data analytics, and other tech skills relevant to the current digital transformation. Since demand for talent with these skills remains high, expect to pay a premium in salary and benefits.
Strong demand for experienced candidates requires mortgage companies to modernize their staffing approach, making it more efficient. After all, top mortgage professionals with technology expertise typically only last on the market for a few weeks. As a result, companies with slow and inefficient hiring processes regularly miss out on the hires they need. They identify a great candidate only for them to accept another offer before any chance at an interview.
Ultimately, the strong demand in the current mortgage job market requires companies hiring candidates to adopt efficient staffing processes. Sticking with a traditional approach remains a costly and ineffective strategy. Your company overspends and, in the end, might not successfully hire the necessary talent. As such, a partnership with a top-shelf mortgage staffing agency needs to be on your short list.
Traditional Hiring Methods vs. Mortgage Staffing Agencies
Understanding the differences between traditional hiring processes and the staffing agency approach facilitates an informed decision. Any business wants to get the best return on their staffing investments. So, let’s differentiate between an internal hiring process and working with a mortgage staffing agency. Use this information to make the right choice for your organization.
An internal hiring process offers one option for mortgage businesses. This traditional approach typically involves your HR team writing a job description and advertising the open position. They then analyze the résumés of all applicants, ensuring each has the right skills and experience. However, receiving too many CVs might overburden companies with small HR teams.
Once a few top candidates are identified, your team interviews them and offers a job to the best. We previously mentioned the strong demand for mortgage candidates with technology expertise. As such, a slow internal staffing process might result in missing out on these top-shelf professionals. Your company might spend on an internal staffing process resulting in no hires or, worse yet, the wrong ones. As a result, expect to repeat this process until you hire the right candidate.
On the other hand, mortgage staffing agencies boast efficient processes leveraging AI-powered applicant tracking systems. This automates the processes of résumé vetting and initial candidate communication. They present the top candidates for you in a fraction of the time, greatly reducing your time-to-hire. An agency partner understands your company culture, helping them place candidates with the right fit, improving your retention rate.
This comparison illustrates how a partnership with a mortgage staffing agency reduces the risk of the hiring process. Your company hires the talent it needs in a fraction of the time. Expect a reduction in your staffing expenses as well.
Quantifiable Metrics for ROI with Mortgage Staffing Agencies
After deciding on a mortgage staffing agency partnership, you must ensure it makes a positive impact. Let’s look at a few important metrics to track the effectiveness of this staffing strategy. Note that nearly all agencies offer reports detailing these metrics to their clients. Analyze similar data generated by your internal process to compare the improvements provided by a mortgage staffing agency.
Cost Savings
Obviously, overall staffing cost serves as a critical metric when determining ROI. You lower these expenses in multiple ways when partnering with a mortgage staffing agency. As such, analyze the direct spending related to your staffing budget. This metric essentially compares money spent on an internal hiring process versus fees paid to a staffing agency partner.
However, don’t overlook indirect expenses related to hiring. For example, a higher retention rate results in improved productivity and a reduced need for new hires. Ultimately, making more effective hiring decisions due to a mortgage staffing agency partnership adds meaningful benefits.
Time-to-Hire Reduction
Time-to-hire serves as a great metric for tracking the effectiveness (and indirect cost) of your company’s staffing process. It tracks the time from advertising an open position to job offer acceptance. Expect a significant reduction in this metric when working with a mortgage staffing agency due to their process efficiency.
Quality of Hire
Quality of hire remains a more difficult metric to quantify as it relates to subjective data on employee performance. Nevertheless, make the effort to track the performance of new hires after partnering with a mortgage staffing agency. Looking at related data, like retention rate and overall productivity, helps in this analysis.
Exploring Specialized Staffing Services in the Mortgage Industry
Simply stated, mortgage companies need to partner with staffing agencies specializing in this specific business sector. When your business needs talent, having recruiters that understand the relevant skills of the mortgage industry remains critical. Partnering with an agency without this experience might result in continued hiring mistakes.
When vetting potential staffing agencies, ask to see a client list for the purposes of verifying their relevant experience. Contact representatives from those clients to gain a better understanding of working with each agency. Also reach out to connections from your professional network for a personalized opinion on a potential staffing agency partner.
Beyond the Numbers: Additional Benefits of Investing in a Mortgage Staffing Agency
A long-term partnership with a mortgage staffing agency offers other significant benefits to businesses in this sector. Over time, they gain a deep understanding of your business operations and company culture. These insights help them place candidates with the right fit for your organization. This ensures new hires quickly become productive, while increasing your chances of retaining them.
Staffing agencies also provide candidates interested in either full-time or temporary work. This helps your company stay flexible, with the ability to quickly add talent when necessary. You gain the scalability to seamlessly adapt to changing market needs.
Their expertise in providing a top-shelf candidate experience also enhances your company brand in the current job market. This ultimately makes it easier to add talent when necessary.
Overcoming Common Concerns About Mortgage Staffing Agencies
Perhaps you remain unconvinced about the positive impact gained from a partnership with a mortgage staffing agency. Hopefully, this article served to address any lingering skepticism about leveraging this approach for your hiring needs. As mentioned earlier, outsourcing internal business functions to third-party experts continues to be common throughout the business world.
Once again, working with a provider of mortgage staffing services greatly mitigates the risks of the hiring process. You reduce both time-to-hire and your staffing expenses. As highlighted above, having the right metrics in place reveals this tangible improvement in your hiring process.
Taking the time to build a positive partnership with your staffing provider ensures you derive long-term value. Expect to source talented mortgage professionals faster than ever, while retaining their services over the long haul. It’s the right strategy for any successful mortgage business.
Partner With the Right Mortgage Staffing Agency for Your Business
When searching for a top-shelf mortgage staffing agency, look no further than Workway. Rated a Top 100 staffing firm by Candidate.ly, we provide exceptional candidates that make a difference for you. Connect with us to discuss the benefits of a partnership!