| by Kacie Galloway |
As they say, "Time is money." While hiring the right people for the right seats is absolutely critical to a company's success, the time it requires can become challenging for many higher-level executives.
Differentiating the myriad of staffing firms saturating the market today is another challenge. Local staffing expert, Branson Bollinger, talks about what makes his model successful.
Bollinger had worked for a traditional staffing agency for several years when he decided to start his own business. Inspired by the pitfalls and limitations found in the traditional staffing industry model-which has barely changed in the past five decades-he figured it was time to upgrade and take the service to the cloud with PRSONA.
"Nobody else has built what we've built," Bollinger said. With the ever-growing use of technology, he said, "this is the way the world is moving."
Along with his brother, Brendon, Bollinger started PRSONA out of his apartment in Los Angeles, and then moved the company back to his hometown of Fort Worth after its incorporation in 2012. While the move was financially motivated-rent in DFW is significantly lower-the Metroplex is home to more staffing businesses than Los Angeles. PRSONA now has a healthy number of clients from southern California as well as North Texas.
Part of the appeal of an online staffing company comes from the hands-on control it gives to employers. "The manager can really take control in a self-serve fashion and make it happen any hour of day," Bollinger explained. "I think they like that they can access the site any time and post jobs or extend offers."
Moving a staffing agency from the ground to online was a simple yet remarkable solution to a host of problems within the staffing industry. Because traditional staffing firms typically operate several regional offices on the ground, Bollinger completely cut the overhead cost by putting PRSONA online. Furthering his commitment to transparency and saving money for the employers, PRSONA allows employers and contractors to create listings for free and charges significantly lower billing fee markups than traditional agencies.
"Traditional staffing agencies will put huge markups on a contractor's rate, charging employers more than 100 percent sometimes," he explained, "but we keep costs low with only 35 to 45 percent markups."
Unlike other job boards, PRSONA doesn't just give employers options, but helps them find qualified candidates through tests and assessments designed to judge a contractor's skills in more than 100 different areas, from customer service capability to Photoshop proficiency.
"We specialize in white-collar jobs: information technologies, finance and administration," Bollinger explained. With PRSONA, employers can set requirements on a job listing so only qualified applicants reach the final pool of candidates, saving employers from weeding through scores of unqualified applicants. "If someone isn't going to take the time to take a 40-question multiple choice test, they probably shouldn't be applying for the job."
Currently, PRSONA primarily works with small to medium sized businesses, but is already preparing for more growth with its new Partnership API, which gives Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) and job boards the ability to offer contract staffing solutions to customers. Bollinger saw an enormous need for the API.
"Applicant tracking systems will be able provide contract staffing while carrying zero liability, that will really change the business," he said. "There are several multibillion dollar staffing companies who's customers also use ATSs, and those customers are likely to consolidate that service and buy it less expensively at the ATS."
According to Bollinger, "PRSONA is responsible for 100 percent of the liability while sharing a 50-percent profit with partnering ATSs and job boards who use the API."
Bollinger anticipates a surge of growth in the business after the launch of the API. Currently, PRSONA is a small but already mighty business, with fewer than a dozen internal employees and nearly 10,000 job seekers on the site.
