Bristol-based IT recruitment firm Redrock Consulting is launching a web portal next month that allows clients to hire contractors direct, which it claims could save around 33% on recruitment costs.

Director Ben Curnock told Recruiter that he had been looking at ways to make the hiring process more streamlined and efficient to prevent hiring managers going through the same process each time they needed a contractor.

“Talking to clients it was clear they wanted something more dynamic,” he said. “Our clients are big users of contractors and know many who have a previous track record with them. It makes sense to bring these people in again when they need them and with the portal they can search against their name and find out if they are available.”

Curnock added that the portal, called Redrock Central, also addressed the problem of re-hiring someone who hadn’t performed properly at a particular company.

Redrock Central will contain a pool of relevant and pre-qualified contractors, many of whom have worked for the client company before. Clients can search by key words, skills, availability or geography and can access referees for candidates from within their organisation or from elsewhere. They can also track the availability of preferred contractors to make sure they can be available for a particular project.

Redrock will work with each client to create the portal according to their resourcing needs. “There’s a lot of manpower involved. That means doing things the old-fashioned way and making sure our consultants are getting out there and on the phone to meet and talk with these people to ensure they are the right fit for the client,” Curnock said.

“Recruitment will always be about people and we’re not diminishing the value of what a recruiter does. We’re just saying to clients that we’ve pre-qualified all these people, we know they are right for you and we’re giving you instant access to them.”

The portal is free to clients and Curnock explained that, as well as savings from streamlining the recruitment process, clients can also reduce costs by introducing a rate card. “Clients have never really had control of rates. There is a lot of incentive for people to work with some of our clients because they are big users of contractors. If someone wants to be on the portal, they could ask them to commit to a particular rate and we’ll work with them to implement a rate card,” he said.

“This gives the client the control which they’ve never really had before and there is a huge saving to be made by reducing the total you pay for a contractor rather than just reducing the agency spend.”

The first client to trial the system was a major telecommunications company and it is currently being rolled out to others.

www.redrockconsulting.co.uk