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Hiring developers for a short period of time isn’t exactly uncharted territory, as temporary employment has increased by nearly 1 million jobs in the past years. Today, about 14% of employees are temporary workers, whether they’re filling in for someone momentarily absent or just performing certain tasks for a set timeframe. But temporary employment doesn’t always mean temporary hiring in the traditional sense is needed. There are alternatives, and IT outsourcing is one of them. In this article, we’ll share with you the key aspects of temporary hiring vs IT outsourcing and help you figure out which one of these recruitment strategies is best for your business.
What is temporary hiring?
Temporary hiring - also called contingent work or short-term employment - is a type of recruitment strategy where companies hire tech workers on a short-term basis and for a certain duration of time, usually for a specific project or particular problem that needs a quick solution. This recruitment strategy involves hiring a determined amount of temporary employees to fill in specific roles for a set period of time, usually between three or six months and a year. It’s a practice that has become increasingly popular in today’s fast-paced business environment, as it is more often used to find software developers and other IT professionals with specialized skills and proficiency in specific tech stacks, fill short-term positions, or handle unexpected workloads and leaves of absence.
What is IT outsourcing?
Now, IT outsourcing is a staff augmentation strategy that involves contracting with an outside offshore nearshore development company or independent contracting to provide IT and software development services. The most common form of IT outsourcing for companies located in North America is nearshoring, which involves hiring software developers from the close region of Latin America. This strategy allows businesses to access the management and maintenance of an organization's IT systems, services, and infrastructure from an outside provider at a cheaper cost, and for as long as they want to. There might be a set timeframe for the duration of the hire or the company might choose to outsource for an unlimited amount of time until they no longer require the contractor’s services.
The key difference between temporary hiring and IT outsourcing
Temporary employment and IT outsourcing are two different strategies that organizations can use to hire software developers and IT professionals with specialized skills, resources, and expertise without the additional costs and time involved in hiring traditional full-time salaried tech staff. Now, the main difference between temporary hiring and IT outsourcing is the types of services they provide, as both of these recruitment practices allow companies to hire someone for a set duration on time, and this can easily be written into the contract no matter what. Temporary hiring involves going through a traditional recruitment process to hire someone for a set and short time. On the other hand, IT outsourcing requires a hire that will remain an outside contractor for the entirety of the project, usually being added as a team member through staff augmentation from various nearshore countries. Overall, temporary hiring is more commonly used for short-term projects or roles that require less specialized skills, while IT outsourcing is used for larger projects, positions that need a particular set of skills, or long-term contracts with no set end date.
Pros of temporary hiring
Best for keeping things internally controlled.
When your company needs to fill in an internal position and wants to have full control over the entire process, temporary hiring is the best way to go about it. The entire temporary employment process will be handled by your designated HR team and your company will onboard the new hire as any other employee, with temporary benefits and a position with a definitive due date.
Quick and without any third-party involvement.
When you need to hire for a position urgently, sometimes starting the internal process right away can be quicker than contacting an outsourcing company to handle recruitment. Why? Because if the temporary vacancy was part of a crucial role within your organization, the rest of the team can chime in during the hiring process to interview and assess the temp candidate’s ability to fulfill the role while the long-term team member is away. Temporary hiring also allows your company to not have to deal with any other third parties during the entirety of the process.
Convenience when it comes to handling leaves of absence.
Truth is if your company knows the position that needs to be filled will automatically be filled back by the regular employee once their leave of absence is finished, temporary hiring is the more practical solution. In this case, unless the position requires very specific abilities or diverse recruitment, hiring someone with the help of your HR team might end up being the solution that requires the least amount of effort. It’s the traditional way, and it still works for traditional circumstances.
Pros of IT outsourcing
Great IT temps for a fraction of the cost.
Here’s the thing: salary rates for nearshore developers are just much less expensive than regular North American wages. Hiring a temporary replacement the traditional way might be the low-effort solution, but it certainly won’t be the low-cost one. Rates for nearshore developers in Latin America as 40-50% cheaper than their American counterparts, allowing your company to both hire a temp developer and save money in the process.
More room for complete staff flexibility.
While many might think staff flexibility is only crucial to have when preventing a disaster in case of needing to downsize - which is to be expected, at least after the 2022 tech market crash - staff flexibility is a key asset to have for companies who are growing at a fast pace. IT outsourcing gives organizations a choice between downsizing and upsizing as they go, with the option to adjust their outsourced development team on a monthly basis. This way your company is not limited to resources for a set duration of time, whether that means resigning them or bringing in more employees.
No need to handle the recruitment process.
This advantage of IT outsourcing is perhaps the most evident one besides cost-savings. When your company hands out the responsibility of recruiting a temporary hire to a nearshore software development company, it’s also giving them all the tasks that come along with it. This way your organization just needs to worry about approving the final candidate and integrating them into the team - no vetting, interviewing, or even billing on your end. If you don’t currently have an HR team, IT outsourcing is here to lift the weight of temporary hiring off your shoulders.
Looking to get into IT outsourcing and hire nearshore developers?
While both temporary hiring and IT outsourcing can be cost-effective options for organizations looking to fill specific roles or complete shorter projects on a budget, at Blue Coding we dedicate ourselves to providing top-notch nearshore outsourcing solutions. Our team helps North American companies hire Latin American developers at a fraction of the regular IT recruiting costs. We will vet, interview, help onboard, and pay your new team of outsourced developers so you can just rest assured that they’re ready to do the work you need them to do, for as long as your project requires. Contact us today to learn how we can help you hire outsourced developers for short and long-term projects!
