Feeling used and abused is arguably a common feeling for staffing firms that staff for system integrators most days. The relationship between the two is often a ‘love hate’ sentiment where relationships between the two companies can often get damaged.

Each firm in this affair sees the opportunity from a different point of view. The integrator has won the business already. They are being paid to provide an overall solution, regardless of which resources do the work. This means, that when they have a gap on their team and they issue a requirement to their partner (in this case me) it costs them nothing to do the work related to finding a candidate. I assume the risk and cost of searching for someone when there is no revenue guaranteed to me.

Unfortunately, more times then not, I have seen this type of requirement evaporate and turn into nothing. Seeing these orders come and go so frequently can often cause tension between the account manager and the recruiter, as the recruiter can begin to feel that he or she is continually spinning their feet for no reason. I personally tend to get frustrated when this happens but the blame should not be solely placed on the shoulders of the account manager.

But where can the blame go?

Sometimes it goes no where. My account managers sometimes deal with resourcing managers on the integrators end who really have no control over the project. They are simply doing what is told of them by the project leads and then the project direction changes. This ultimately can be one of the problems with staffing into a system integrator and that problem is that there are too many layers to get to the hiring manager.

You have got:

1. The candidate
2. The recruiter
3. The account manager
4. The resource manager
5. The integrators team lead
6. The clients team lead

Ultimately you have 6 people involved in the process between the candidate and the client team lead. This can really slow down the process and affect the information passed down from person to person.

As my VP suggested to me yesterday, the relationship between a staffing firm and an integrator needs to be nurtured. It is often a relationship that is abused and not treated properly. Inevitably the staffing firm will reach a point where they are frustrated with the lack of feedback and turn around from their client and will walk away from this partnership.

 I would however argue in closing that this is because both sides come to the partnership with a different goal in mind. The staffing firm wants to be treated fairly and earn a fair and equal share of the profit. The integrator wants to staff their projects for as low a cost as possible and thus you have two competing factors which are not going to always agree.

This relationship reminds me of Innovapost which was created by Canada Post in order to save money but is half owned by CGI which is a money making organization. Strange combination for a partnership…